I danced for a stranger
...written on 08.14.02, @ 1:54 a.m.
Wed August 14, 2002
(Two entries in one day! Woo, woo!)
For almost two years, the third and fourth floors of the building across from mine have been vacant. It was nice being able to leave my curtains open and not worry about folks being able to peer in.
That is until the other day when I saw a light on over there on the third floor.
POOH, FOO and POOH again!
BOO and HISS even!
Hee. I must giggle at myself for there was once a time when . . .
The purple and orange tinged dusk of the Caribbean sky peeked through the glass slats of my window. I admired the pastel streaks of clouds as I sat on the floor bent over my right leg warming up for my night's exercise. I then switched to my left leg and stretched some more.
I was in my exercise era then in that particular point of my Peace Corps career. At midday I took a modern dance class offered by a ballet dancer with the Santo Domingo Ballet and at night I would dance alone in my room for about two hours. I would dance to merengue, salsa, rock or new age . . . anything . . . just to feel the pleasure in the movement of my body.
I've always enjoyed dancing. My ballet and other dance teachers throughout my childhood and theatre career always remarked on how blissful I looked while I was dancing. I won many awards and prizes in school and at discos for my dancing, but it was all freestyle. When I was dancing during the disco era I never got into the line or choreographed dance routines.
It was especially good when I got a partner who was into dancing as much as I was. That mutual interest was energizing, and I would play with it even more, though if they weren't into it, I would often spin off and dance alone with the music.
The green tile felt cool beneath my feet as I swirled my arms over my head, the light of my basket lamp clothing them in red. My eyes were closed as I snaked around the room, bed and desk pushed aside for maximum floor space.
Sometimes I relied on the rhythms of the radio, other times I would put in a tape. That night it was the radio and Sting's voice began crooning "Every Breath You Take." Graceful swoops of arm, a pointed toe, a pirouette, then a light in the office building across the street switched off and I could see a silhouette in the window, black against the dark blue sky in the window behind. I had an audience . . . I kept moving, I kept swaying, subtly willing the stranger closer, entreating him with a curve of an arm or a crook of my finger, never obviously letting on that I knew I was being observed. When the song came to an end I stopped. I was finished for the night.
I did this every night at 7. That was when I started my warm up. Two nights a week I had company in the dark office across the street. Two nights a week I knew I wasn't dancing alone.