When I first met Anita, four years ago, I was delighted to learn that, like me, she was interested in ballroom dancing.
We signed up for classes on Thursday nights at a local college. We quickly learned that we’d be acquiring two skills: the basics of ballroom dancing and the basics of communication.
Our instructors taught Anita and me several dances: the cha-cha, the rumba, the swing, the foxtrot, the waltz, and the tango. They stressed that if we wanted to succeed we’d need to practise on our own. So, we danced. Over many Saturday evenings we danced in Anita’s kitchen and worked out the steps together. By “worked out” I mean we practised and fought over the steps as we struggled to get them right. There are few ways to get to know someone better than dancing. We discovered that Anita verbally counts out the steps to the dances and I intuitively feel my way through the beats. Many times I would wait, arms crossed, toe tapping, while Anita counted out the steps. This led to many disagreements.
Some of the disagreements we could resolve verbally, but others could only be resolved physically, as we danced.
One memorable February evening, after dance class, Anita was driving me home and we were verbally working out the steps for the chase turns in the cha-cha. We had reached an impasse and could only settle things physically. So Anita stopped the car and we stepped out onto the cold, icy Edmonton street. As we met in the centre of the road, our eyes locked and we squared off against each other. I took her hand in mine and placed my right hand midway down her back. She placed her left hand atop my shoulder and we danced, in our ski jackets, in the middle of the deserted street. The street-light was our spotlight and the frozen road our dance floor. Oblivious to the cold, we worked out the steps together in our different ways: Anita counted in her methodical manner, while I felt my way toward perfection.
I would never have imagined myself dancing on the frozen, forbidding winter streets of Edmonton. But I had found my partner, and we danced.
Edmonton, Alberta