A Gentle Nudge - Follow My Lead

My dear mother looked at me last weekend with lifted eyebrows and a small pout. "You never post on your blog anymore."

Who am I to ignore a simple request from the woman who raised me? I'm no barbarian. It just requires a bit of creative time management.

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I've been told countless times in my ballroom dance class that I am a very good lead. Naturally, guys aren't as excited to learn to float, jive, or twirl around a dance floor, even if it means impressing a pretty girl (they clearly don't have their priorities straight). There's something that attracts girls to dancing; partially, I think waltzes and foxtrots make us feel like princesses, cha-cha's and tango's allow us to be sexy but not loose, and swings and polkas just let us have a rip-roarin' good time.

As one might expect, this leads to a imbalance of gender in our dance class - at least 60/40. I myself didn't mind the idea of learning to lead. I think it allows me to be a better follow. I was also confident in my rhythmic and motor abilities to handle both.

Now the girls I dance with as a lead tell me I'm better than most of the guys in the class. I'm flattered really, but my heart falls a little. As much as I like leading, I LOVE dancing with a man who is such a good lead that he can literally make you do anything, even if you don't know the exact steps. Dancing with a man who is in control is a beautiful thing, and it's much more fun.

A good relationship can be described using the metaphor of a ballroom dance. Some women would jump to say that this is an archaic idea; hear me out. There must be power on both sides in order to create tension between the lead and follow. The hand that grips the other's is pushing against their partner's. This creates what our instructor calls the "circle of energy." With this tension of strengths, the lead can push the follow forward, or pull the follow backwards.

The man leads, the woman follows, but the dance doesn't work if either part is weak.

Homework sometimes inspires me

This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond—
Invisible, as Music—
But positive, as Sound—
It beckons, and it baffles—
Philosophy—don't know—
And through a Riddle, at the last—
Sagacity, must go—
To guess it, puzzles scholars—
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown—
Faith slips—and laughs, and rallies—
Blushes, if any see—
Plucks at a twig of Evidence—
And asks a Vane, the way—
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit—
Strong Hallelujahs roll—
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul—

-Emily Dickinson

I'm sorry this is a complicated poem. I've only begun to understand it after the 5th read through. She writes about the afterlife, what exists after death or beyond this world. She (the speaker, not necessarily Dickinson) is torn between thinking of it in religious terms and in scientific terms. You can see this in the word "Species" in line 2, which can mean scientific classification or the physical properties of the Eucharist (who would have guessed?!). She personifies Faith, saying that it slips, laughs it off, blushes if anyone saw it fall... and then looks to science to direct the way ("Plucks at a twig of Evidence/ And asks a Vane, the way"). However, she concludes the poem with "Narcotics cannot still the Tooth/ That nibbles at the soul", which I read to mean that medicine/science cannot satisfy the longing in our souls for religion to be true.

This is the assignment I'm working on tonight. It's times like these that I am reminded why I am studying what I am.