THE DANCE

W B T I
e have spent so much time apart that she has begun to disappear, as if all that remains of her is memories that become more out of focus with each passing day and words that increasingly seem to be empty echoes of some forgotten meaning. eing apart means more than the lack physical proximity, because I have found that we can be apart standing next to each other, it means the emptiness left by the absence of those shared times of a common meaning and peace that was sometimes underneath all of our apparent disagreement and strife. his commonality, this shared peace beneath the visible strife, I will call The Dance. The Dance was something that seemed to promise that it would last forever. I like to think that it could, would and does continue yet forever in Eternity that is aside from time, ever present, forever more, not of this fragile mixed up world. struggle to remember how it was, this dance of ours, as if I could ever recapture the magic with a few snippets of polished memories. I know this to be impossible to reconstruct it in this way, because what matters is not the receding memories, but that memories continue, day by day, to be remade anew by happenings that each moment rebuild a relationship anew, a continuing dance of shared moments.

ometimes, out of the corners of my eyes, I still see her Dancing

y goal was for us to continue Dancing for as long as we could, regardless of how the world frowned upon The Dance and thought it wrong. Somehow I always believed that it would continue forever, that it was not bound to succumb to misunderstandings, ours and the Worlds. I was always sure, in deep sense, that the Dance was right, no matter that some frowned upon its very existence and saw an evil that I believed was not there.
B. W. Reed August 19, 2009 & August 4, 2010

he thought that all my fine arguments for The Dance were justifications for my unclean motives and desires, strenuous sophistical gymnastics in the service of something wrong; what I saw as a rightness that transcended the lifeless rules of society that we too easily prostrate ourselves to, she saw as a slippery slope argument leading her to a dangerous path that led to some place abandoned by God.

T I

his worrisome and feared danger, was always there for her, constantly attacking The Dance, denying its rightness, its reason for existing. For me the Dance was everything and I thrived for those times when we could both momentarily forget the worry and guilt and just Dance. Though she was able to momentarily give in to the Dance, it was never long before her doubts would force themselves into her attention. felt only alive when we were Dancing without care for the rest of the world. And yet, these times of perfect peace were precarious and transient, and the price for our momentary and transient peace was exacted by the always present cares and concerns of the world which battered their way into the quiet silent stillness that was our Dance at its best, ending my peace as she inevitably pulled away, leaving me feeling alone and rejected again.

ometimes, in the back of my mind, I still see her Dancing and I smile.

B. W. Reed

August 19, 2009 & August 4, 2010