Richard Rayner, MD
From my earliest years I can remember my parents’ beautiful dancing. It didn’t happen often, but at the occasional wedding or banquet where “their music” was available, boy could Robert and Esther Rayner cut the rug. It was beautiful to watch. Neither fancy nor showy, it displayed an effortlessness and oneness that spoke of familiarity, connection and love. “How do they do that?” I wondered. “How do they keep in perfect step without any visible cues?” My attempts to pry from them what their “trick” was were met with, “You just have to listen to the music and move together.” Simple as that. Right…
The word “dance” can conjure up all kinds of images depending on one’s experience. It may have been restricted to a class that involved tights and an elegant instructor with soft rhythmic music, or insecure middle schoolers huddled in groups as cool, trendy music blared throughout the gym, each person waiting for someone else to bravely venture onto the dance floor. Dancing can be fun, and as YouTube has proven with countless examples, glaringly embarrassing at times. We’ve all seen the wedding reception videos. For some reason, in that setting, people lose their minds on the dance floor!
Particularly interesting are the dance routines, usually involving groups, that demonstrate an important facet of a particular culture. These are formal, often intricate, ritualistic dances, with costuming and movements that send a message or tell a tale. Training for these usually starts with the very young, and proceeds into the adult years with added skill. In ballroom dancing there is a clear leader in the dance who skillfully and subtly directs the movements of his partner. At the professional level, costuming and staging reach a level of extravagance usually reserved for fairy tales. Most of us occupy the edges of the ballroom (or computer, or tablet) admiring the seemingly effortless movement of the dancers. The goal for these professionals is to eventually move together as one unit. The Latin group is my personal favorite!
All of life is a dance of sorts.
Relationships, in many aspects, are like a dance. In the beginning there may be lots of stepping on toes and bumping into each other as you work to learn about the other person’s natural tendencies and how you will move together. Parents of newborns begin to orchestrate the movements from the baby’s first breath. The dance is slow, rocky, tiring and far from graceful at first. Intimate relationships done well take it slowly at the start and learn the rhythm and resonance of each other as time progresses. Initially one may be hearing music for the fox trot, while the other is hearing the rhythm for the cha cha. Complicating the relationship dance, however, is the reality that we’re never the same day to day, moment to moment. The inconsistency is easily seen in others, but harder to recognize in ourselves. In its healthiest sense this can translate into something that is interesting, but often frustrating. Just when we thought we knew the steps, the other person changes the music!
If one can press through the bumps and bruises in the early days of learning the dance, eventually those involved develop a true, deep knowledge of the other person and each can anticipate their moves. The clumsiness is necessary to achieve the graceful moves. While as in dancing some have some natural talent, some have relationship skills that make relating to another easier. However, there are no short cuts to meaningful ,coordinated movement – you gotta step onto the dance floor and start moving. When there’s love shared between two people, the knowing leads to mutual encouragement of the good moves, and less demands that the friend or loved one change simply to meet the other’s needs. And when that kind of caring love grows, move over Fred and Ginger!
Relationship vs. Transaction
Healthy relationships are entered with care. The dance music is bright, friendly, light even, not too fast, not too slow, and not too heavy on the bass. The melody is simple. The music and chords fill out as time goes on, with the introduction of music that is sometimes slow and sad, other times raging with excitement and energy. Eventually the moves become increasingly coordinated, comfortable, beautiful. Contrast this with the so-called “friends with benefits.” We’re back at wedding reception dance videos! This is neither friendly nor ultimately beneficial. It takes what should be a shared, mutually beneficial loving relational situation and makes it totally transactional. I do this for you, you do this for me. No commitment, no heart, no soul. Someone suggested to me that perhaps a transactional approach is a survival tool that is helpful, maybe even necessary. Yet I think if we’re honest it’s not what we ultimately want.
Parent-Child
There’s even a dance between parents and children. While the dance starts in infancy – simple swaying (literally!) with the child being completely held by the parents. Through the grade school years, it involves fairly simple steps. What you see is usually about what you get. But hold on. Here comes adolescence. That’s when things really get interesting. The tween and teen years provide countless opportunities for lots of dancing. The dances at times retain that childish flavor, full of emotions, with the kids emotionally twirling and spinning like they used to physically demonstrate in the open living room or yard. Then without notice the dance may change. Suddenly the music is heavy, slow, serious, with little movement but a ton of emotion lurking like lava beneath a restless volcano. Step carefully! The child involved isn’t sure what tune they want to play, and the parent isn’t sure what to expect will be coming out of the speakers next, or how they will need to respond. But like it or not, the dance will happen.
There may be times when the music shuts off entirely, one or both dancers having left the dance floor, the room dark and empty. It may take years before the music cranks up again. It can be a painful, lonely, puzzling time. The son or daughter may then return to the dance floor as an adult whose music choice has radically changed since the last dance. Life has not stagnated for the parent, either, with refining of the musical taste. The process of learning the relationship dance will need to start over.
Listening to the music, judging the setting
Formal or loose, it’s all dancing, but the beat and tempo changes per the situation. Applying the same dance and moves to every situation will lead to embarrassment and awkwardness, being out of step. A Scottish folk dance done in a club might go viral on YouTube, but it’s not sustainable and would be at best a token event and certainly would not be taken seriously. Again, while parents will find themselves initially in the relationship dance with their child as the older more experienced partner, they should not be surprised when the beat and tempo changes suddenly. Expect it. The trick is to lead while simultaneously allowing for and promoting learning, and maybe even be open to new moves.
I’ve bruised a good number of toes in my life. There have been dances I’ve rushed into or didn’t appreciate the skill required or the desire and skill level of the others involved. Sometimes I didn’t know the moves, sometimes I was trying but was just bad at it, and other times I honestly didn’t care. My way, my tempo, my moves. Refusal to listen to the music and read the subtle moves of the other person meant the dance was sloppy, uncoordinated. Oh yes – at times it got ugly. Still does.
But “nothing ventured, nothing gained,” right? Fear can keep us standing on the edge of the relationship dance floor forever, recreating the junior high dance scene throughout our entire life. Take a look around. Who are the dancers? Where are they in their skill level? What’s the beat, the tempo? What’s my role in this dance? Can I get my groove on or should I sit this one out? Don’t be afraid to step on some toes as you’re learning, but be quick to ask for forgiveness after doing so, and extend grace when stepped on.
Dance ‘til the music fades
My parents enjoyed 62 years of life in the same home until the talons of dementia locked into my father’s brain, never letting go, until it dropped him, out of sheer physical necessity, into a nursing home at age 83 where he spent the next 5 years becoming increasingly silent until his quiet death. No longer could Bob and Esther join each other on the dance floor, trading the hardwood for quiet moments of mostly one-sided conversation as my mom sat by his bedside. In the waning hours of my mother’s life, she is not in a nursing home due not to cognitive issues, but rather wracked by physical problems and pain that left her non-ambulatory. We still talk about my dad and their decades together. “He never uttered a harsh word toward me,” my mom said with sincerity. No checklists, no tally, no keeping score. Just years of being for each other.
That, my friends, is true relationship…and the most beautiful of all dances.
