Square Dance

[drscott]

Misty-rainy evening as one of the first of the Pacific winter storms came through, we went to the square dance our club (ECR) put on, at a venue I've never been to, St. Mark's Episcopal on Colorado Ave. in Palo Alto. Attendance: surprisingly high considering the bad weather; a mixed group of the usual suspects from area gay clubs, older straight dancers from the Sunnyvale Singles, and a few randoms from Stanford and the like.

Michael Levy (aka sfleatherbear) did a fine job calling, though I lost a few of the calls in his singers because he somehow sings them too well to be distinguished from the rest of the lyrics. Most embarrassing moment: not recognizing his partner bibliocub while talking to him. While it's true I hadn't seen him since he moved here and he looks a bit different now, it's just more evidence of age-related decline.

Some addenda: we're attending the ECR 'A' class on Thursday nights. We were halfway to being accomplished at Advanced when we stopped making an effort to get 'A' floor time, so we've lost a lot of it. Part of this has to do with competing interests, some is just a decline in interest in square dancing itself. Ten years ago when I began, I was single, had recently moved and knew no one locally, and the club was my social anchor, a weekly community centering, and dances were full of romantic possibilities. Today I have a husband (who I met at ECR) and other competing interests, and the square dance community is older and grayer. Rarely do I meet someone new and interesting. This means I'm smarter, or more jaded, or something; not sure. But like a lot of square dancers, I've drifted toward the edges where we attend when we feel like it, but not compulsively.

Comments

[abqdan.livejournal.com]

Definitely a 'me too' there. Gary and I joined ECR in an attempt to meet new people in a (then) foreign land. Then of course, it was a different type of anchor when my relationship with Gary ended; and all-importantly, it was how I met Bill. However, with only one club locally, and a fairly static membership, I seem to have lost interest recently. While I do still go from time to time, I no longer move things out of the way to allow for my square dance nights; rather, I'm happy to accept competing events and invitations.

Someone told me the average life of a square dancer is five years - I think I've lived a couple of lifetimes in that case. Interestingly though, I do meet many people that have taken breaks from the activity, and have found they came back to it after several years. I suspect I'll find myself doing that in a year or two. And of course, the social aspects remain important, even though each year I dance less and chat more at conventions and fly-ins.