Feel the Music

We were watching '18 Kids and Counting' the other day (ok, I admit, I'm addicted to reality tv families). Normally I kind of admire the Duggars and the values they're trying to instill in their children. Let's face it, Michelle Duggar is the definition of patience. But this week I found something that baffles me... these children are not allowed to dance!

No dancing!

It's like those words don't even make sense to me. Dancing is something so fundamentally a part of who I am that I can't understand that some people don't (or won't!) engage in it.

Now, let's be clear. I'm not a *good* dancer. My moves are somewhere between Elaine from Seinfeld and Pheobe from Friends in that episode where she takes up jogging.... I just wiggle around and jump up and down and move to the beat of the music. If there's no music, I imagine some. I'm sure I'm embarrassing to others. But that's what dancing is SUPPOSED to be! It's a reckless abandonment of all the things that makes one a 'grown up' and a return to just FEELING life, the way we did when we were kids. I don't understand what complaint someone could POSSIBLY have against that. How can feeling wonderfully free and innocent be a BAD thing?

My very favorite time of day has become the evening dance-a-thon that my daughter and I share. Nearly every night we crank the stereo and dance around the living room until we fall over from exhaustion. All sorts of music inspires us, but Bob Marley, IllScarlett and old school jazz are our perpetual favorites. These moments with my kids, just being free and happy, are going to be the memories I look back on when I'm old, as the very best that life has to offer.

If you don't dance, for whatever reason, just let go... crank up the music and ask a kid how it's done.