Dancing Queen

The Boy is always asking me Why do you love to dance? What is it about dancing? What is it about girls and dancing? Why do girls love to dance?

The Boy has a curious nature and those are perfectly legitimate questions, considering how much time and money I put into my dancing endeavors.

When I try to explain myself, though, it just comes out sounding silly. I say things like When you hear music, doesn't it just make you want to get up and move? That's how I feel when I hear certain kinds of music. I can't keep still.

His answer is No. But he loves to listen to music. It's just that the music doesn't make him want to jump out of his chair and move about.

I usually counter with Why do you love baseball so much? I ask this question in return not because I'm trying to be argumentative, but because sometimes it's hard to explain why you love something (or someone, for that matter) and I'm trying to illustrate a point. Because one person's love of something is another person's total mystification or non-love. The only thing I like about going to a baseball game are a certain kind of bratwurst that they sell at the Giants stadium.

Some things can't be explained rationally. They are either experienced or they aren't. They either resonate or they don't.

***

The picture above is me at the ripe old age of two. It must be my second birthday because the floor in the photo is littered with gift wrap and ribbons, and the baby stroller with the doll in it that I am feverishly pushing must be a present. (That is probably one of the few photos of me in actual contact with a doll. Not too much later, I dumped the dolls in favor of my Tasco microscope and fossil collection. I always thought dolls were pretty boring.)

The reason for the photo is not to prove that I once played with a doll, but because it shows me in my leg braces that I wore until I was three. I was born with developmental hip dysplasia, a condition that's not too uncommon, especially in baby girls, and has a genetic component. (My mom and sister both had it too, so obviously more than blue eyes run in my family.)

If detected early, the child's recovery can be total. In my case, the hip dysplasia wasn't diagnosed for a while which, had it been any later, I would have had to had surgery, which is the least desirable treatment. So I ended up in leg braces that I wore day and night until my third birthday.

I don't remember being in the leg braces, and from what my mom tells me, they didn't hurt. They just looked like they were painful and I guess people used to ask my mom if I was a cripple (that was the term used in the pre-PC days of my babyhood), which I'm sure made her feel terrible.

I was thinking about The Boy's question, and my braces, and wondering if the two are connected in some deep, mysterious way, in my way back memories, my inner life. Like I said, I don't remember wearing the braces, but that doesn't mean that they didn't make an impression on my psyche in some way. Maybe I couldn't wait to bust out of those things and get moving like everyone else. Get dancing. Get down!

Whatever the reason is for my dancing, the fact that I can walk and dance and move--that's entirely due to my mom's persistence and insistance that her baby girl get the right treatment that she herself never got. My mom had some half-assed surgery when she was seven, and now has a fused hip and arthritis for which she can't be treated. She bears it well, with the good humor and patience that makes her so special and she doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about the things she can't do.

So I'd like to think that maybe I dance for me because I love it, and also for my mom. Because she made it so that I can.

Thanks, Mommy, for everything, including my dancing legs. I love you.

***

And just because there's nothing wrong with a little gratuitous ABBA whenever possible, please enjoy Dancing Queen, embellished with Japanese subtitles, no less!