From Shadowed to Shining

Dancing days: lost with a friend, found in a crowd

Marion and I — whirling dervishes, ever-circling each other — left the dance floor only when the band announced a “short” (35-minute) break.

As soon as we reclaimed our long-neglected seats, a woman approached.

“I just had to tell you: you are absolutely magnificent. The way you hold yourself, the way you move — your elegant clothes, your hair, your face, your everything — you are beyond fabulous in every way.”

I didn’t recognize this woman. Nor would I recognize her in the future — her back was to me as she fawned over my friend.

During the deluge, Marion’s smile vacillated; she was in turn delighted at being bathed in admiration and embarrassed that she was drenched whilst I was left high and dry.

This has happened before. Several times. In the five years that Marion and I have been spinning in duet, we have known in our turn both flood and drought.

Most of the time, we are lauded — or ignored — in tandem. It takes a concerted effort — or gross thoughtlessness — to scope and shoot a singleton in a twinned and twirling target.

My “Best Man,” Chuck, jokes that he feels like Prince Philip — unobtrusively trailing the Queen — whenever people approach our table to gush over my dresses and my dancing, acknowledging his presence only to solicit his support of their effusions.

Chuck is invariably amused rather than miffed in these instances for two reasons: one — he is exempt from the evening gown competition; two — he stays safely seated whilst I make a spectacle of myself.

Chuck takes much pleasure in dead-panning his agreement to the nonsensical praise: Yes, Liz is indeed the best dancer on the floor — hard not to be when the only others on it are the band members. Yes, Liz is indeed the best-dressed in the joint — hard not to be when swimming in a sea of saggy sweats.

When I told Chuck about my Saturday night stint as Marion’s invisible friend, he professed surprise, assuring me that my fashion sense and dancing skills were on a par with hers. (Our enthusiasm is often mistaken for talent.)

I brushed the incident off as best I could, but I won’t deny that I was pleased to receive a booster shot to the booty the very next morning.

Different venue, different crowd — the steel-spoked, canvas-clad, “event tent” on Boston Common, which comprised an enormous, undulating umbrella of 80-something 20-somethings.

Rowdy post-race revelers they were, bopping to the beat of a manic millennial musicale. And they welcomed me into their circle, the token oldster. They circled me, hailed my moves, mirrored them.

I hammed it up in my star turn as dancing-queen, all the while cynically observing the cast of supporting players. These kids were either aping me by way of mockery or kindly condescending to the senile senior, who in her confusion had wandered into their midst.

Regardless — in celebration mode, flaunting my medal — I chose to take it all in good fun even if it was, wittingly or not, at my expense.

Then: enter stage left my co-token, “B. B. Boomer.” Being the only other present of my cohort, she was not age-positioned to patronize.

B.B. out-booms the entire youth choir, as she takes up and tops off their chorus: “You go, girl! You are sooo awesome. Absolutely fabulous moves. Never, never, never stop dancing.”

And I didn’t stop, not for a moment. I was energized by her enthusiasm— notwithstanding which I was humbled by the dearth of praise for my dancing attire, such as I am accustomed to.

No surprise — multi-layered for the cold-weather, pre-and-post-race hanging-around-for-hours, I was dressed down just like the rest.

This was written in 2018, during my erstwhile racing days, when I’d often “win” only-one-in-my-age-division “first place” medals.