The Transitional Season Landscape

The only thing to resist spring's hastened arrival is the lake. Green shoots of grass fight their way through the tangled brown remnants of last year's photosynthesis. Couples take the moment that their dog is occupied with its sniffing to caress in the fading light. Music and fragments of conversation travel from rolled-down car windows and yards partly shielded by skeletal shrubs. A crowd ambulates the path around the lake, thinner than it would have been earlier in the day, but sizable compared to the foot traffic of the preceding season. The city has awakened under the record heat and recently stretched daylight. 

But the lake is obstinate. It has clung to its coating of ice, which lies still and matte, ranging from thin smoothness to furrowed impasto, prefiguring the deep charcoal gray of the oncoming night. But the surface has fissured. In the places where the slush has split, open water brilliantly mirrors the dimming light and draws attention to its lingering presence. A shining silver point extends where the ice has begun to recede from the shore. Far off, narrow cracks reflect the city lights in duplicate.

Ducks descend and flap close to the surface, lured by the sparkling promise of open water. But they continue on and on across the lake because they are unable to find a gap wide enough for a landing. Despite its thinning cover and the obvious, glowing flaws that show through, the lake has not given up. It exhales occasional bracing breezes, no longer icy, but still asserting the recent grip of colder temperatures. 

We will soon allow the memories of snow, ice and visible breath to melt away with the bright sun, heavy air and pleasant frenzy of enjoying every moment we're free from winter. The lake, rather than providing sturdy support to ice houses and trucks, will be parted by keels, thrashed by swimmers and pierced by paddles and oars. Its peaceful, solitary time is coming to a harshly abrupt end. But our summers are short. Winter will be back soon enough, and the lake will begin forming a new cover of easily broken frost, persisting in its task until it builds up several inches of concealing ice. In the meantime, we'll enjoy this brief moment of candid open water.

Going It Alone: The Promising

I had a hard time recovering from my knee-bashing swing dance experience. I couldn't work up much enthusiasm about going to class the following week. Luckily I had paid for the whole month's session in advance, and I hate losing money for no reason other than reluctance. I begrudgingly left my apartment and headed to the studio, consoling myself by striking a silent (and admittedly pathetic) thought bargain: I had to go to the lesson, but I could skip the class field trip to Lee's Liquor Lounge right after. I had heard that no-one from class had gone to the Famous Dave's field trip at the end of the previous month's session, and the last thing I wanted was to stand around by myself while more experienced dancers burned up the floor.  


After I checked in for class, I headed into the waiting area and resumed my normal habit of milling about awkwardly until class started and people were compelled to interact with me. After about a minute, I decided I was tired of standing silently amongst the chatting couples and friends. I walked over to a group of people I recognized and gracefully wedged my way into their conversation. None of them seemed to mind, and one of the women started trying to convince me to go on the field trip. I clung stubbornly to my irresolute ideals, and the instructor saved me from having to commit by calling us to come on up for class. 


With the initial conversational ice broken, I started talking to another classmate as we headed up the stairs. This thankfully saved me from the second bout of solitary standing that I usually experience during class. The instructor puts on a song or two before he starts leading the lesson, giving us time to practice what we learned the previous week. I don't have much problem with asking someone to dance, but there weren't enough leaders to go around that session. Most of the men who were enrolled came with girlfriends, so they were usually occupied with built-in pre-lesson partners. Since much of beginning Lindy Hop involves learning how to follow a lead, it's hard to practice on your own. Thus the awkward solo standing. 


But this week was different. I talked to my new friend, who was another rare singleton, until the lesson started. The person I'd hobbled the previous week was not in attendance, and I didn't inflict serious harm on any of my partners. After a last burst of big, showy jazz-standard-concluding brass chords rang from the speaker system, the instructor reminded us about the field trip to Lee's. He and the Beginner Plus students wouldn't be able to join us until their lesson ended in about an hour, but he encouraged our class to go over right away. 


I asked my new friend K if she was going to go. She reflected my initial feelings about the outing with a cagily non-committal, "I don't know, I haven't decided yet. Are you going?" "I think we should go," I rallied. "Then if we don't dance, we can at least not dance together." She agreed, and we encouraged a few more of our classmates to join us. We quickly realized that we'd have to put our new strength-in-numbers strategy to the test if we hoped to find the dance venue. One couple had more than a vague sense about how to get there, so they went to the head of our hastily-formed convoy of black Hondas.  


We arrived at Lee's without incident, but our number did not lend us much strength once we saw the dance floor. It was packed with impressively twirling dancers and ringed by a sizable audience of spectators. K and I quickly retreated to the bar for some additional liquid courage. This proved more difficult than I'd anticipated. The lone craggy, cranky bartender made shallow rounds at the far end of the bar for quite some time, so we decided to go to him. Predictably, he moved to the end of the bar we had just left and started treading water and taking orders there. Finally he drifted back in our direction and poured our drinks. Suitably reinforced with alcoholic bravery, we headed to the fringes of the dance floor. 


My first partner was an octogenarian. He led me onto the floor during a song that didn't lend itself to Lindy Hop. I shuffled around confusedly for a while, prompting him to clarify, "It's like a polka." That was not at all helpful to me. Eventually I caught on to the basic step, and he proceeded to grab both of my arms, lean back and gallop us around with the centrifugal force of a much younger man. I could make out nothing but his gleefully smiling face against the blur of motion we created. Before the song was over, he'd done this move a second time, spun-thrown me across the dance floor twice, and turned me repeatedly. This last move caused me to accidentally trail my fingers across his bald, sweaty head. This incident and my uncertainty about the steps should have fused to form an uncomfortable start to the evening. But rather than being off-putting, the experience made me eager to keep trying.  


As the night progressed, I asked some people to dance and a few people asked me. Most were from my class, but I also approached a couple of new people. While I couldn't pick up on everything my parters wanted me to do, I think I passably faked the parts I didn't understand. At least there was little unintentional impact, and that is good enough for me at this point. When neither of us was dancing, I talked to K or the other people who had joined our solidarity party along the way. I met a lot of my women classmates for the first time, which was strange but understandable since our rotation of dance partners is primarily comprised of men. I consider my first social swing dance outing a success, not only because I didn't kill the octogenarian with my dance moves, but because I conquered my recurring shyness and formed connections with some new people. 


I moved up into a more advanced level of lessons this month. I'm hoping that the smaller class size will help me get to know my classmates even better while I improve at Lindy Hop. If nothing else, I'll probably gather some new blog material. Learning more complicated moves will undoubtedly create more opportunities to accidentally body slam my partner. 

Going It Alone: The Ungainly

While the Groupon emails I receive each day usually feature waxing services or restaurants I've no desire to try, I found a surprisingly appealing offer in my inbox over the summer. The deal was $20 for $40 worth of swing dance lessons, and it arrived about a month before Andy and I were due to move into our own separate places. I figured these classes would be a good way to get out of my solitary apartment, get some exercise and meet new people. I'd used salsa dancing as a means to the same ends in Dublin, and I had quite enjoyed myself. I intrepidly clicked the "Buy!" button, then proceeded to wait four months before redeeming the offer the week it expired. Despite delaying my first class as long as possible, however, I've gone to a lesson every week since.


Learning the Lindy Hop has been fun and challenging, but forming any sort of relationship with the people in my class has been harder than I anticipated. The class is set up so that you rotate partners frequently. You only dance with each person for a maximum of five minutes, and there's barely time to reiterate what's written on your name tag before the instructor counts you in. It's also tough to multitask at our current coordination level, so the time you spend with each partner is devoted to silent and intensive concentration on your feet. After trying a move a few times, you high five, change partners and start all over again. I suppose it's a little like speed dating, except you engage in awkward dancing instead of awkward conversation. And most of the men arrive with their girlfriends.


Given the quiet whirlwind of my social interactions in class, I was pleased to see one of my dance partners when I looked up from my empty mocha at a coffee shop. I went to say hello, glad for the chance to talk without the "tri-ple step, tri-ple step, rock step" rhythm pulsing beneath my thoughts the entire time. We chatted about class briefly, then talked about his current graduate studies and my potential ones. It wasn't a long conversation, but it was several times more extensive than all of our previous verbal exchanges combined. I left feeling proud of myself, both for enrolling in the class and approaching this person outside of it. I had stumbled upon a potential new friendship, and I was eager to cultivate it further during the following week's lesson.


The next time he came to class, I watched as he progressed from one partner to the next, up and down the lines of followers that stretched the length of the dance floor. Finally I was next in the rotation. I greeted him by name without looking at the adhesive-backed reminder on his chest, and I asked him about something he'd mentioned at the coffee shop. Then we started dancing. My chatting to him had caused him to miss the instructions about which steps we should be practicing, and I felt pressure to be a really good dancer. We both panicked. He worriedly explained that he didn't know what we were supposed to be doing, and I found myself completely unable to follow his unusually anxious lead. I not only stepped on his feet, but I somehow managed to bash both of his knees with my own.

I've stepped on partners' feet before. It's bound to happen when you pair two inexperienced dancers. It's slightly embarrassing, but the feeling fades quickly as you focus on not doing it again. Crippling someone with a double-knee smash, however, is ungainly beyond belief. I was immensely relieved when the instructor's cry of "Rotate!" resounded through the room. The hot humiliation settled into disappointment midway through my casualty-free stint with the next partner. Of all my classmates, why did I have to succumb to extreme clumsiness while paired with the one person I'd encountered outside the dance studio?


I think I managed to redeem myself later that evening. The class had shrunk considerably since the first lesson in the session, and we actually completed the entire partner rotation. I saw that my bruised friend was coming close to having to dance with me again, and I decided to make the most of the opportunity. When he (perhaps reluctantly) took my hand, I smiled as winningly as possible and said, "I promise I won't step on you this time." I thought it best not to bring up the knee incident, even jokingly. He laughed graciously, and I was grateful to put most of the awkwardness behind us. I didn't step on his feet again, nor did any of our joints collide. I suppose I might consider that a small triumph.


But he hasn't been back to class since.

Up next: Going It Alone: The Promising

Going It Alone: The Bad

Being without a significant other means that I no longer have a built-in person to bring along when I discover that Vicious Vicious is playing at the Entry in a few hours. The challenge of dating was finding things to do together, but now that task has reversed into finding people to invite to the things to do. No-one was without plans so late on a Saturday evening and, while I prefer to be able to share my show-going experiences with others, I rarely allow the lack of a companion to deter me from hearing a band I like. Especially when they are as reclusive as Vicious Vicious. I decided to go on my own.


This was nothing new to me. I quite frequently ventured out alone when I lived on other continents, whether it was to visit a museum, watch a Liverpool match down at the pub, go on a wine tasting tour, or listen to a trad session or poetry reading. Nothing especially untoward ever happened, and I almost always talked to some interesting people. 


The individual I met at the Entry that night was, well...interesting in a different way. Some people in front of me went to refresh their drinks after the opening band finished, and I moved a little closer to the stage. This was a rather large mistake, since it put me next to the person who was to put a damper on the rest of my night. He saw that I was holding an empty beer bottle and asked if I needed another drink. I said no but decided to chat with him anyway. 


During the course of our brief conversation, he revealed that he was nearly a decade older than me, told me he hated jazz after I said I used to play saxophone, referred to himself as a poindexter, extended his driving-gloved hand for me to shake three times and forgot my name. Finally his friend, who had been at the bar, returned and started talking to Driving Gloves. I took advantage of the diversion by inching imperceptibly away from him while feigning great interest in some old text messages. I carefully avoided any further eye contact until he reached over and took the empty bottle from my hand. I smiled a thanks at him for relieving me of that burden but did not engage further. 


At long, awkward last Vicious Vicious took the stage. I honed in on the lead singer/guitarist because he was the furthest away from Driving Gloves and there could be absolutely no mistake about where my gaze was resting. After the first song, Driving Gloves shouted, "Free Bird!" No one laughed or acknowledged the joke, and I cringed for both of us. I cringed again when someone in the crowd had to ask his friend to stop flailing so much because he had clipped an innocent bystander. I doggedly continued to avoid glancing anywhere near their direction, and I thought Driving Gloves had taken the hint.


Up to this point, my encounter with him had been nothing more than a slightly uncomfortable bit of small talk, much like any conversation you might have with someone with whom you just can't connect. But about three or four songs in, he reached across the people I'd allowed to squeeze between us and extended his outstretched pointer finger into my peripheral vision. This juvenile method of drawing attention to himself worked: I looked at him. But since I don't respond well to vague threats of being poked in the eye, my response was probably not what he'd hoped. I glanced over only long enough to shake my head and say, "Don't do that." Then I promptly resumed ignoring him. At least outwardly. It was hard to regain much focus on the music, and I'd lost much of my initial excitement about being at the show. 


Surprisingly, that was not the first time a man has attempted to garner attention by pointing his finger in my face. When I was studying abroad in London, I took a side trip to Barcelona with one of my fellow classmates. He began to annoy me less than a day into the four-day holiday, and we very, very narrowly avoided a bus debacle that would have caused us to be stranded together for another night. I was quite ready to keep to myself and write in my journal by the time we boarded the plane back to London, but he had other ideas. When he wasn't putting my tray table down repeatedly, he was hovering his finger an inch or so away from my body without actually touching me. I suppose that pointing experience was more troublesome than this more recent one, since I wasn't trapped on a plane with Driving Gloves.  


I soon learned that being with a friend or boyfriend at the Entry probably wouldn't have saved me from unwelcome advances. Soon after the finger-pointing incident, an extremely drunk guy came up and started loudly hitting on a woman standing behind me. His pickup line was, "That girl's not wearing a bra, is she?" referring to the backup singer on the stage. Eventually the poor targeted woman's boyfriend started talking to Drunkety Drunk, who told Boyfriend that his girlfriend was wonderful, amazing, and he was going to go find someone who would get effed up with him. When he left, Boyfriend remarked to Girlfriend, "I guess he didn't notice I had my arm around you the whole time."


I didn't wait to see if the band did an encore. I squeezed through the crowd as soon as they'd finished their main set, periodically checking to make sure that Driving Gloves wasn't following me. He didn't, and I'm sure he was harmless. I hope he keeps going to the Entry, taking chances and initiating conversation with people. I hope he chats up someone who will let him buy her a beer, laugh at his jokes and connect with him over a mutual hatred of jazz. Most of all, I hope he's not reduced to having to point his finger in her face.


Next up: Going It Alone: The Ungainly