Friday, August 04, 2006

Knock Down Drag Out Dance Party

This is a very short, but very recent memory. I want to throw it onto the electronic canvas for posterity before I forget to remember.

I was recently lucky enough to attend a dance party where all inhibitions were completely abandoned. It has been a long time since I have danced like that, and it was long overdue. The girls were so very aware of their fashion style and their dance moves were fluid and graceful. They were teaching each other the steps as they danced them. The boys moves were fully athletic, more clipped, and some could even be called military. I was spared the need to employ my hands, which is a concern of mine when I dance, because I was holding my newest little partner, who just broke the eight pound mark. The Egg Lady commented that we wouldn't have to mop for a long time because the boys got to spinning out some breakdance moves.

There is no feeling like that when your house is filled with your own new blood. You feed them, nurture them, engage them in revelry and ribaldry when it is right to do so, and you enjoy the uninhibited, unconditional response. I remember when their father was a goofy giggling little kid, saying stupid stuff and wearing his weirdness on his sleeve. He wasn't standing with me, having a beer and commenting on the idiosyncrasies of our children because he was escorting the family of a friend around the base. The family was with him, but the friend was lost in the desert. Now he, my own flesh and blood and the father on whom these tittering children so heavily rely, is again mounting the machines of war. Another of my brother's sons will join him in harm's way very soon.

There is no feeling like dancing around the kitchen with the kids, but it may be selfish. It is a fantasy to think that you can keep them with you, and keep them safe. It is a fantasy to which I cannot subscribe, no matter how much I wish I could. So we equip them with the morals to make good decisions, arm them with the strength and self confidence to actuate the convictions of those morals, and the will to heal their minds when it is done. No matter what heart pounding, blood roaring adrenaline rush they have to endure, no matter what foreign shore on which they find themselves, no matter how the traumas they might encounter manifest themselves, they will always have a giddy spin around our kitchen floor.

And I hope that will bring them back.