Danse Macabre
I play in an 18-piece swing band and tonight we had a Halloween gig at a retirement center. It was one of those upscale retirement centers where folks can comfortably downsize at age 62 and still celebrate their mobility, whether or not they have an inkling of the physical surrender ahead .
We start playing, a robust round of 40s swing tunes, 60s vocal ballads, contemporary standards, and several couples are dancing away. At one point I espy a woman in the spectator group mouthing the words to At Last as KJ, our vocalist, kills it.
Nothing makes us want to play like people dancing. There’s a lusty cheer after every number we play, and we feel a glow that we’ve given a lift to what we blithely assume is a mundane day-to-day experience.
As the capable dancers cavort, however, I look at the rest of the audience and take note of the demographics: there are 4 or 5 men to about 35 women, all in various states of physical challenge, and the euphoria of my missionary zeal gets real:. I realize that I am looking at people who were cheerleaders, homecoming queens, sports heroes, wallflowers and valedictorians (and at least one former PAC10 head football coach), and they’ve all arrived at this inexorably humbling moment where the desire to dance, and live, collides with physical doubt and the formidable odds against garnering a partner.
There’s an intermission and a costume contest, winners are chosen and the mood is jovial. We begin to play again and the personal pleasure I derive from playing with these close friends and talented musicians crests.
Then I look back at the audience and once again notice the woman who was sotto-voceing At Last. Her Rollater seems from my still-nimble perspective to be a flimsy barrier to the dance floor, but in reality it is insurmountable. The sense of loss that I project onto her spars with the ever-present euphoria of making music and I finish the set. But if it were me still feeling the beat after the music ends, I think I’d still be left with that yearning.
That inextinguishable yearning.
Wow. What a thoughtful and poignant post. I can imagine the stomach ache you had writing it. The contrast of yearning to dance and euphoria of performing is right on.
T.
Thanks, T. We’ve spent over a decade mid-wifeing parental decline. As much as you’re driven to be impatient with them, it’s easy forget that they ditched their socks and rocked out with some handsome and insufferable dude that became my father.
**Sigh**