When We're Alone, We Can Dance
The cruise ship was crowded with people off for three
days of pleasure. Ahead of me in the passageway walked a tiny
woman in brown slacks, her shoulders hunched, her white hair
cut in a bob.
From the ship's intercom came a familiar tune - "Begin
the Beguine." And suddenly a wonderful thing happened. The
woman, unaware anyone was behind her, did a quick and graceful
dance step - back, shuffle, slide.
As she reached the door to the dining salon, she
re-assembled her dignity and stepped soberly through.
Younger people often think folks my age are beyond romance,
dancing or dreams. They see us as age has shaped us; camouflaged
by wrinkles, thick waists and gray hair.
They don't see the people who live inside - we are the wise
old codgers, the dignified matrons.
No one would ever know that I am still the skinny girl who
grew up in a leafy suburb of Boston. Inside, I still think of
myself as the youngest child in a vivacious family headed by a
mother of great beauty and a father of unfailing good cheer.
And I am still the romantic teenager who longed for love,
the young adult who aspired to social respectability - but whom
shall I tell?
We are all like the woman in the ship's passageway, in whom
the music still echoes. We are the sum of all the lives we once
lived. We show the grown-up part, but inside we are still the
laughing children, the shy teens, the dream-filled youths. There
still exists, most real, the matrix of all we were or ever
yearned to be.
In our hearts we still hear "Begin the Beguine" - and
when we are alone, we dance.
By Beth Ashley
from Condensed Chicken Soup for the Soul
Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor
Hansen & Patty Hansen