Dancing

You have never left me.

I was standing at the counter,
I was waiting for the change,
When I heard that old familiar music start.
It was like a lighted match
Had been tossed into my soul.
It was like a dam had broken in my heart.

It wasn’t so long ago. I mean, of course it was, it was a thousand years ago, it was yesterday, it was, it is – like me – somewhere tumbling in time. I was sixteen and on the phone with a girl from school. She was at her boyfriend’s house. I heard a voice in the background, and interrupted her mid-sentence. “Who is that?”

“Who is who?”

“That guy I just heard in the background.”

“That’s just William. Why?”

“Because I’m going to marry him.”

And like that, I knew. That probably sounds crazy. It probably is a little crazy. But we do that in my family. My grandmother saw my grandfather on a street corner one day in high school, and pointed him out to her friends. “I’m going to marry that boy,” she said. She didn’t even know his name. They had been married for 48 years when he died.  My grandmother always claimed to be something of a witch. I inherited some of that from her.

Somehow, I don’t remember how, we met. Maybe even that day. And somehow, I don’t remember how, we became lovers. And somehow, and this I do remember, I fell in love with you. The first man I ever loved. No, not that. Not exactly. The first man I ever fell in love with. And I fell hard. Didn’t even extend my hands to break the fall. The kind of hard you can only fall at sixteen. When you’re heart is young and un-bruised, when you still believe.

You were older than me (not much) and from the wrong side of town (very much). You had quit school and were working construction. I kept it from my parents that we were dating, knowing they wouldn’t approve. I kept a lot from my parents in those days. It never occurred to me not to keep things from my parents.

We dated all that spring and that summer, and then in autumn, we broke up. I don’t remember why anymore. I doubt you do either. Just one of those silly, teenage things.  

I guess something must have happened,
And we must have said goodbye.
My heart must have been broken,
Though I can’t recall just why.

So that’s how it ended.  

Except, it hadn’t ended.

I dated another guy for a while. And you dated my best friend, Marla (though I wouldn’t know that for years). I tried to convince myself I loved this other guy. I failed. And finally, in failing, I broke up with him.

And the next day, I mean actually, the very next day, you called. I remember my breath catching at the sound of your voice on the other end of the phone. Was I busy Saturday night? No. I was not busy. Yes. We could go out.

You were working 12 – 14 hour days. I was in school, and working as a waitress as night. Somehow we squeezed each other in. We would go to drive-in movies (“flicks”), and you would hold me in your arms, and I would sleep through half of them.

We spent a lot of time in your car on back country roads.

You used to hold me down and wrestle with me, and I would laugh and laugh. You and your friends taught me to play poker. You tried to teach me to dance in crowded bars. I was too shy and self conscious to let you.  We went on walks some nights in the moonlight.  One night, I stretched out on the top of your car and looked up at the stars and thought, “I will remember this moment for the rest of my life.” And I did.

On rainy days, I would skip school to spend the day with you. God, how I loved a rainy day.

And there was a God in Heaven.
And the world made perfect sense.
We were young and were in love –
We were easy to convince.
We were headed straight for Eden
It was just around the bend.
And though I had forgotten all about it
The song remembers when.

By the time I was ready to graduate and move on to college, we were engaged. I had finally let my parents know about you.  They were… skeptical. You spent most of that summer trying to get me to run off to Vegas with you. I’m still not sure why I didn’t. God knows, I loved you beyond reason.

But I think somehow I suspected you weren’t ready for marriage. And maybe somehow I suspected that neither was I.

My freshman year of college, your phone calls started coming less and less often. I tried to call you one night about 3 a.m. and when you didn’t answer, I knew. I had been replaced.

One of your friends started to call me. And I liked that he was calling me.

So that’s how it ended.

Except it hadn’t ended.

Years later, both fresh from a divorce, we found each other again. I was living somewhere else. You sent me a plane ticket, and I spent a week with you, lounging about and reading while you worked. Ironing a shirt you so shyly asked me to iron. You wanted me to move back. And I still don’t know why I said no, except that I suspected you still weren’t ready. And maybe I suspected I wasn’t ready either.

You ended up at my sleepy little town on business, and tried to call me, but I was at a friend’s house and missed you. By the time I got home, the hotel switchboard had closed down. And we missed each other. You called a couple of times after that, and then you didn’t call any more.

And that’s how it ended.

Except it hadn’t ended.

For all the miles between us
And all the time that’s passed,
You’d think I haven’t gotten very far.
And I hope my hasty heart
Will forgive me just this once,
If I stop to wonder how on earth you are.

A week ago last Friday you called me. Your voice was the last thing on earth I expected to hear. But there you were. In the area on business. You would think less than a week had passed since we were starry-eyed kids. We picked up right where we left off, all those years ago. Not where we left off after our first divorces, when we were both bruised and a little wary. Where we left off way at the beginning. I fell back into your arms like I had never left. I fell back into your arms like a sixteen year old.

And my parents?  The ones who had never quite approved of this high school drop-out from the wrong side of town?  They now remember you as “the nicest guy” I ever dated.  Well, they’ve seen me through two bad marriages. They have some perspective. So do I.

We had dinner and while sitting on the couch talking,  I turned to you suddenly, and asked, a little shyly,  “Will you do me a favor?  Will you teach me to dance?” And after all these years, in our bare feet on my living room floor, we danced. We danced and danced, and by the end, I wasn’t half bad. There I was! In my forties, figuring out what to do with my feet!

I had the time of my life.

And William, somehow, no matter all the loves that have passed between then and now, I still love you. Every bit as much as I loved you at sixteen. Though less blindly. With eyes wide open. I like that we’ve both set our feet a little deeper in the ground. I like that we’re older. I like that we’re beyond the need to impress each other or be something that we’re not. I like who we both grew up to be. You grew up to be the man I always knew you would be. I’m enormously proud of you. Proud for you. You are still the man I fell in love with all those years ago. You’re more the man I fell in love with all those years ago.

I know, you’re still not ready. Different reasons this time. Your business takes too much of your time. And you know what? That’s okay. Because – in my way – I’m still not ready either. I have all these ghosts. I need to figure some things out. Your business is going to require everything of you for a few years. My ghosts, my mountain of ghosts, may require everything of me for a few years.

I don’t know how this story ends. Maybe in a few years, it picks back up. Maybe it just ends with us dancing in my living room. If it does, that’s okay.

In fact, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

But I do know this one thing: true love never dies.

And my heart dances.



Musical interludes by Trisha Yearwood from “The Song Remembers When”