Season for Salsa

Notes On Surrender

I am in Salsa class. It is the third day, which is exactly three hours more than knowing completely nothing about Salsa. It is warm and bright and pulsing. The air is thick with anxious sweat and the smell of bodies. Everyone gives everyone else an awkwardly wide birth, like 18 inches too much, afraid to accidentally touch. It is winter in New England, our bodies are tight and procedural, shoulders tense from bracing against the cold.

I came alone, and this is vulnerable but okay. I am wearing a name tag and standing to the back. I am not ready to shine, that is also okay. I like the heat and the movement. I like that I have to focus to keep up. I like that everyone is as bad as me.

It seems I have two choices, to take it too lightly or too seriously, and I cannot find the right amount of intimacy with the dance. I am willing myself to be better at this because I want so much to stop my greedy mind from roving. I want to stop thinking about the woman two down from me who didn’t bring the right shoes or the woman two down from her whose body is nicer than mine. I want to stop thinking about the way the Army guy behind me moves like an action figure and the one next to him who looks like Charles Manson who keeps trying to catch my eye. I want to stop thinking just to stop thinking.

It is time to partner dance, and I am watching myself, nervous, laughing through each step. I am giggling because it is half fun but also because I am trying to put myself and everyone else at ease. I am giggling because I cannot say that I thought I would be perfect at this already, and I am not even competent, and the Hermione in me hates that. I am giggling because I cannot say that this is the closest another person has been to my body in a very long time, and I am so anxious that I would rather stare at my feet. I am giggling because I cannot say that I don’t want them to make eye contact with me because I cannot tolerate it. I am giggling like a little girl because part of me is one.

The instructor calls the leader of the dance to extend a hand in invitation to the follower, which is me. There is a stranger in front of me with a name tag and a shy smile. He is old enough to be my father, quiet and unassuming. He extends his hand to me and bends at just the right angle so that you wouldn’t know he wasn’t a courtly knight asking a lady to dance. It is gentlemanly, chivalrous, and too much.

I am moving my hand into his because that is what I am supposed to do. My feet have not caught up because each chamber of my heart is fortifying against the attack, and I am falling behind. I am giggling like a girl and staring at my feet. I am giggling like a girl and not making eye contact with this stranger with limited hip mobility and a sweet disposition because I don’t want him to see me. I don’t want him to see me so that he won’t find out about me. If he sees me, he might love me, if he loves me, he might change his mind. He might reject me. If he loves me, he will leave me.

He is he but also a dummy, a stand-in, an understudy for the man ghosts stacked behind him like dominos. They are peering over his shoulder at me, waiting to remind me that they are glad they didn’t end up with someone who is not only a poor dance partner but an even worse life partner. They are waiting to tell me about the girls they found who are easy and golden and pure. They are waiting for me so they can tell me all the things I already believed were true. They were true before the ghosts got there.

They are waiting for me, but so is this man, and I will not let him down. I will let him anxiously laugh to match my nervous giggling, and I will miss a step. I will gaze at his forehead while he looks into my eyes. I will accidentally squeeze his thumb and count too loud and have to start over. He will be gracious about it and extend a hand again, and this time, I don’t need to soften or pause before I take it. I will repeat those same mistakes and more. He steps on me. We both move to lead and then both move to follow. It is a tender, human, beautiful little mess.

I signed up for this class for this moment, this moment I knew would come. I knew there would be a moment when someone I didn’t preapprove tried to lead me, and I would have to follow. I knew there would be a moment when I would want to top from the bottom, and I would want to close but have to open. I knew that there would be a moment where I would have to stop defending the walls around my heart and let someone in.

I knew that Salsa would force me to surrender, feet first, baptism by fire.