Words to Live By

Glass vases held live tulips and flickering candles. The high school gym, a charity-auction prom, thudded with live music. As I bobbed back and forth on the dance floor, I felt my tights working their way down to my knees. Wasn't feeling like such a hottie, no, not really owning my beauty. In fact, I was wondering exactly how stupid I looked dancing in my glasses and the old-lady top that was the only thing that vaguely went with my most comfortable boots.

I remember when I used to flail with abandon in college -- the only time in my life when I really felt comfortable dancing in public, and always because the dance floor of whatever smoky bar I found myself in was always packed with other people, also dancing, and usually more drunk or high than I was.

Somewhere in there I became self-conscious, uncomfortable changing in front of my friends or using a public bathroom or dancing for a good cause.

Beloved gave me the chin-up-the-little-angel-is-probably-fried-in-the-auction-daycare wave. I looked over at my closest friend. "I think we're going soon," I mouthed over the music. She peered at me. She could've been my sorority sister -- my age, from Iowa, someone I would've been friends with in college -- all of them were. She bumped me in the hip, still glorious.

"Dance until you have to leave, Rita!" she yelled.