Monday, May 28, 2018

To Dance


He was a graceless man. 

The neighborhood kids called him "Plug". It fit him. He was stubby like a fireplug. If he dressed well, I never saw it. And he was too much of a character actor to ever be called "handsome". He passed his anachronistic military haircut on to his sons -- one of those sons was my friend growing up.

He shouted. Or he growled. That's because it's hard to shout around the stub of a cigar.
His wife tamed the family. Good thing, too. There were daughters.

Growing up, one rarely speculates the romance that brought our parents generation together. The world starts the day we are born and everything that came before just was.

And then I saw them dance. Plug and the wife out on the floor at a family wedding. The transformation was almost shocking. How could Plug and the wife suddenly become Fred and Ginger? How could they move so beautifully together? 


Dancing is an intimacy that even the most staid and modest are not embarrassed by. We know what's being acted out and yet we witness it with joy and without a blush. 

Plug will always be Plug. I'll still remember him puttering around his lawn. But I know now that he's not without grace.

 Abundant grace.

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