The Last Waltz

I always wanted to be a good dancer. It started as a first grader at Ella Darling Elementary School in Greenville, Mississippi. I had seen my friend, Marilyn Arnold, dance in her tap shoes at a class talent show, and I knew that's what I wanted for myself. I even lied to other friends about taking dancing lessons, ballet and tap, but I knew my own single mother was too poor to spend money on such a luxury.

When I was around ten though, my mother hooked up with a new boyfriend. Evidently, she shared with him my goal of taking dancing lessons. He agreed to pay for them. I remember the excitement of putting on my soft pink ballet slippers for the first time. I knew that I had a wonderful career in front of me. Unfortunately, what I didn't count on was having two left feet by that time; I had reached that pre-adolescent stage with a stiff body that was anything but "light on her feet." Fortunately, my mother broke up soon with her boyfriend, and my potential dance career ended.

I danced somewhat awkwardly as a teenager when rock and roll was the rage in the late '50 and early '60's to the tunes of Elvis, Chubby Checker, The Big Bopper, and others. I slow danced to those of Johnny Mathis, The Platters, and Marvin Gay. As a young married woman, however, I did not dance. My husband had been raised in a Southern Baptist Church (as I had), but his church did not believe in such amusements as card playing, movies, drinking, smoking, and certainly not dancing. I never lost, however, my desire to glide beautifully across a dance floor with my partner.

I thought about my childhood dreams on Tuesday afternoon of this week when I went to see the small independent film That Evening Sun. The Hal Holbrook character deals with such issues as aging, the longevity of relationships, stubbornness, class, land, and so on. My husband and I wanted to see the film because of those themes but also because it was Holbrook's wife, Dixie Carter's, last movie. There is a poignant scene at the end which shows the two characters dancing a slow dance and loving their relationship. It reminded me of the brevity of life and the transience of it. I used to think as a graduate student at Ole Miss that the Romantics' interest in this issue was obsessive. Now I see their point. While "a thing of beauty is a joy forever," people aren't. They grow old.

This summer I will have been married forty-five years (and my mother said the marriage would never last). While I know I will never be able to glide in this life seamlessly across the dance floor (now because of creaking old bones more likely), I envision a time in eternity when I will enjoy "the last waltz" with my husband. It will be beautiful, and it will last forever.