A Lifetime of Goodbyes

by Samantha Touchais

  Chapter 10

  The Dance Class

  I am now on the main street, heading towards the glowing warmth of the shop lights. It is dark and people are hurrying home from their busy days. I walk past the hairdressers and I notice music blaring out from the basement beneath. I head down the stairs, passing underneath a neon sign showing a pair of dancers moving back and forth. ‘Hot Hips’ is written on the sign and I decide to take a risk and go where I have never dared to go before.

  As I enter the room I am overcome for a moment by the volume of the music. It is deafening! Couples sway back and forth, spinning away from each other to then swing quickly back. Hips swiveling, skirts swooshing and heels spinning. The teacher is leading the way at the front of the class but occasionally walks around the room, correcting posture or pushing hips closer together. He speaks with an accent I can’t quite place and walks with a posture that can only mean years of dancing. He is a thing of beauty, a statue of David in a black shirt and tight trousers.

  I watch as the couples stand next to each other, each taking a step forward and then immediately stepping back, as if they have changed their mind about the direction they want to go in. Feet then start stepping sideways and again stepping back, arms moving in strange circular motions. Bodies then come together in perfect unison, male hips moving just as freely as female ones. I think this is what they call Salsa.

  I decide to join in. I figure I don’t have much to lose, as no-one can see me and there is no physical body to injure. I listen to the beat of the music and try to take a step, but I miss the beat and have to stop and listen again. I try to let my non-physical body react to the music, to sway to the beat, but the last time I danced was at my wedding, and it was only in reaction to one-too-many drinks and a penny placed in the duke box. I listen again, this time deciding to let my nodding head find the beat. ‘Right, off we go!’ I say to myself as my feet start to move. But I’m completely out of rhythm.

  I start to laugh as I imagine how foolish I must look right now. I imagine the faces of my family as they stare, eyes unbelieving, towards their tightly-stitched father, the accountant, the man who clearly wasn’t hiding a talent for salsa dancing! I laugh and laugh. Oh it feels great! I feel so free and suddenly I don’t care that I can’t keep the beat, that my two left feet have met my two left hips! It just feels so liberating to be surrounded by people who are loving what they are doing, to let the music float over us and through us and to give our bodies over to magical notes.

  I move my arms like a train with two wheels moving at opposite beats, the movement naturally making my shoulders move. I stay with this for a while as I feel my body being led by the music. Next, I start to sway my hips, my eyebrows knitted with concentration and intent. Then comes the tricky part. I start to move my feet, one behind the other and then back again, the return signaling to the other foot to move backwards. The couples in front of me start to bounce their hips up and down as their legs move out to the side and back again. It’s all I can do not to fall over and I again find myself laughing out loud. I feel absolutely ridiculous and it feels wonderful! For the first time in my life I am laughing at myself, and it is so liberating! I decide to just go for it, turning circles on the spot and punching my arms in the air. I start spinning towards the wall, stop myself and decide to spin back to my starting point, like someone who has just miraculously regained the use of their legs. I bounce up and down on the spot, not caring if I am bouncing to the beat of the music or not, and I tip my head back and laugh out loud again.

  I decide to spin around and through the couples, feeding off their energy and giving them mine. I see the connection that the dancing has brought each of them, and feel the music knitting their souls together. Dancing to music is such a wonderful thing. Children innately understand this, and don’t let inhibitions stop them from throwing themselves into it whole heartedly, like a crystal clear swimming pool just begging them to dive in.

  There comes an age of course where they suddenly become acutely aware of the adults watching and smiling at them, and so they get shy and stop, but until that moment they are lost in the most wonderful world of colourful music weaving itself around compliant limbs.

  I feel just like a child as I float through the room, oblivious to anything but the music, the fast-moving couples and my own feelings of pure joy and weightlessness. It feels so good to let myself be free. To shed those years of inhibitions and embarrassment and just to give myself fully to the moment.

  I decide to take a break and so I sit down on the floor with my back against the wall. As I look around the room I notice shiny new shoes and old worn-out ones. I notice designer handbags and plastic shopping bags. I see high-quality feather and down winter coats and cheaper synthetic ones. The room really is full of all walks of life weaving together in a solidarity and oneness that comes from a shared passion or belief.

  I watch the couples, examining each of their faces and wondering who they are. One girl really stands out to me. It is not her bleach-blonde hair with the long dark roots, or the scruffy-toed dancing shoes she wears. Nor is it the hole in her tights nor the red and black check shirt vying for my attention. It is the intensity with which she dances, a look of total concentration and utter bliss on her face. She is completely lost in the moment, any thoughts of a bleak future or not enough money in the bank waiting in the cold outside where she left them.

  There has been a lot of talk about meditations and mindfulness lately. I always thought that the term mindfulness was misleading as I thought the point was to empty the mind and not to keep it full? But the message itself is pretty clear; focus on the now, you only have the present. The past is gone and the future is yet to be written, no matter what our negative thoughts and possessing ego have to say about it. We can only do something now. Make the most of now. The present is a gift as they say, and the word play appeals to my sense of humour. I have a chuckle as it dawns on me that I am seeing this before me right now. I suppose salsa dancing could be a kind of meditation or mindfulness in its own right. Any hobby that brings you joy, takes your mind away from cares and allows you to focus on this very moment must be not only good for the soul but good for the emotional and physical well-being of the participant. I’m starting to sound like a pop-psychologist but this is something I see so clearly now.

  I feel this is why mobile phones are causing so much concern. My wife and I didn’t go out to restaurants often, but when we did it astounded me to see how many young people (and those not so young) would be sitting at the table, surrounded by good friends and loved ones and they would be on their phones. As if something on social media is more important than being in that moment with those they care about! I remember once walking into a restaurant with my wife for our wedding anniversary and feeling annoyed that we were seated next to a very large group of people. Birthday balloons were tied to the backs of the chairs and bottles of wine were placed along the large table. I was about to ask if we could move to a quieter setting when my wife said to me ‘Darling, none of them are talking! They are all too absorbed with their phones. No-one has even noticed us sit down.’ I was shocked.

  The waiter brought out their meals and one by one a phone was held in front of the plate of food and a photo was taken. Conversation started up at this point as I suppose it was easier to talk than scroll while eating. But it left a heaviness in my heart to see such young people full of promise and life to not be living it. What message was it sending to themselves and their friends that no-one was important enough for them to put down their phones?

  I remember the advent of smart phones when I was working at the firm, getting close to retirement. What had been a delight of technology soon became a nuisance as people would enter the meeting room, heads glued to their phones, grunting a quick hello and going back to whatever world they were currently living in. The meeting would start, and phones would be placed firmly on the table, as if a status of some symbol I could never quite figure out. Importance? Busyness?
I’m not sure, but it sent a message to the room that ‘I am here because you asked me to be, but I am not going to give you my full attention.’ What was so important that a phone could not be packed away or turned off during a one-hour meeting? The world certainly wasn’t going to end, and the unanswered emails certainly weren’t going to go anywhere, and as the years went on and I noticed more and more stress around me, I couldn’t help but wonder if this constant need to be switched on and connected wasn’t the cause of it.

  I look back at the room of dancers and feel a rising of hope. There are no mobile phones in sight here, no minds anywhere other than where they need to be right now. Perhaps the world isn’t so doomed after all! Perhaps there is hope for the next generation, as a new way will be found to incorporate technology and connectedness into a healthier way of living. Connectedness has taken on new meaning with the invention of the smart phone, but at its roots is a very important lesson for us all. Human beings are supposed to be connected, but be connected in the moment, together, sharing energy and a smile and face-to-face conversation with each other. People may feel they are connected when they share a ‘like’ on their social media account, and yet we are lonelier than ever. It’s the art of small talk that is disappearing.

  I remember sitting on the bus next to a colleague I didn’t know very well. Everyone around us had their heads down, faces engaged with their phones, but for some reason she didn’t. She opened up to me that day about how her father was sick and how she was worried about asking for time off work. We connected that day, as trite as that sounds, and while I walked home with a slight spring in my step as I felt I had helped her, it wasn’t until we found ourselves at a company-wide presentation a few weeks later that the effect became apparent. It was such a simple thing but again as people were lost to their mechanical worlds waiting for the presentation to start, I caught her eye, walked up to her and asked how her father was doing. A tear came to her eye as she placed her hand on my arm and thanked me for asking and said he was doing much better. ‘What’s happened to your father?’ someone next to her asked, and as I walked off I heard her tell the story she had needed to tell, and another small but significant connection was made.

  It feels like years since that happened, and I haven’t seen her since, but something I dismissed and soon forgot about has resurfaced for me now and I can see its true significance.

  I look back around the room and I notice a rather shy-looking, elegantly-dressed woman in her thirties. She is immaculately turned out, dressed all in black and with a red and black tasseled shawl tied around her waist. Her low-heeled shoes look professional, but her body movements give her away. She does not remove her eyes from the floor very often, and her movements are tight as if her confidence hasn’t found her yet. I look over to where I saw her place her bag earlier and conclude that she is most likely to be wealthy. She is very attractive, is slim and her makeup has been applied with care. She should be brimming with confidence and yet, here she is, slightly uptight and certainly uncomfortable, and I think that one can never know what is truly going on inside another. We make assumptions about ourselves and others, and with repetition these become our beliefs, but these beliefs are false! Why do we do ourselves such a disservice?

  A light in the corner of the room is flickering and as it draws my attention away from the dancers, I notice the paint peeling off the ceiling. The once-white walls are marked, and the chairs scattered around the room have certainly seen better days. But it doesn’t matter. No-one notices as they throw themselves head-first into their passion with true abandon.

  I decide to get up and join them again and twirl in between an older couple. ‘You look beautiful,’ the man whispers to his partner, and she truly does. Her face is relaxed, her body is flowing and she doesn’t have a care in the world. I hope she can carry this feeling with her as it really is infectious!

  The music stops and the class comes to an end. Sweaty foreheads are wiped by tired arms, and cold water is poured down thirsty throats. There is an energy in the room that I can’t quite describe but it is captivating and uplifting and needs to be shared with the world! I feel drunk on happiness and exhilaration, and smile at each couple as they say their goodbyes and their ‘See you next week’s and leave the room. What a gift to give oneself! The gift of movement and dance and pure in-the-moment happiness that will create feelings of lightness that will carry them through until the next day, if not until their next lesson. Who cares what one looks like? Who cares if you can’t keep the beat! I realise now that no-one would have judged me for letting loose from time to time, so long as I did it with a full smile and a willing heart. That’s why we smile at children, as we watch them totally absorbed in the moment, in whatever it is they are doing, living that moment with the concentration and whole-heartedness it deserves. Living today like it is their last, but never realising it. Adults have so much to learn from children, and so much to give each other. The gift of freedom to be who you want and need to be is invaluable but completely undervalued in today’s world.

  I watch as the teacher wipes down his face with a towel, takes the CD out of the player and puts it away in its case. He takes a long, well-earned drink from his water bottle, takes his dance shoes off and puts on boots. A warm coat is added to the ensemble and he walks towards the lights. As he turns them off and heads out the door and up the stairs back into reality, I wonder what his parents think of his choice of profession. Is he living their dream or is he one of those lucky people whose dreams are being lived without being tied down by parental obligation?

  I walk back up the stairs and to the street, where I float off down the road, bouncing and twirling and singing to myself, having the time of my life.

  After a few more minutes I find myself twirling to a stop outside a large supermarket. It stands exactly where my wife’s family’s grocery shop used to sit. I remember the day that her parents announced to us that a large supermarket chain had offered them a much-needed chunk of money to buy them out and they had accepted. My wife was devastated as she saw all her parents’ hard work and dreams being flushed away. But who are we to stand in the way of progress? Certainly not my wife’s family, nor the butcher’s shop next door to them, nor the fish monger next to him. They all sold up and quickly got out of the way of the bulldozers as their lives were razed to the ground to soon be replaced with a different future.

  So much has changed in my lifetime. So much progress has been made. I remember sitting down in my neighbour’s house to watch the moon-landing. It may have been many decades ago but I remember it like it was yesterday. Five families crowded into the tiny living room all vying for the best spot in front of the black and white TV. The excitement was palpable as we watched something that had been completely inconceivable up until then actually unfold before our eyes. The world took on a different meaning for me in that moment with the realisation that perhaps anything really can happen. Perhaps I could even travel in space!

  I kept newspaper cutouts of the moon landing and associated stories about Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as a way of reminding myself that anything is possible. I heard that Buzz Aldrin struggled to adjust to life back on earth after that incredible experience. He didn’t like the limelight he was thrust into nor the position he was given in the airforce upon his return. No-one really knew what to do with him, and he didn’t know what to do with himself and he felt completely lost and hopeless. Depression and the bottle were his only comforts for a long time after that world-changing moment, which leads me to think about how we tend to abandon our heros once we have taken what we need from them.

  For me it was a dream that I eventually started to move away from, hopes for an exciting future starting to meld with the realities of an average one. I am OK with that, and I don’t think I was ever cut out to be an astronaut, but I realise now that magic can sit next to reality and incredible things can be born when the two are allowed to merge.

  A car horn startles me back to the supermarket an
d I move off down the street mumbling to myself about manners and people-these-days.

  I let my mind wander as I feel the lingering after-effects of the salsa class carry me down the road. Most of my life I have missed the beauty in the small things, missed the opportunity to experience life at a deeper level. Why didn’t I take a salsa class with my wife or let my astronautical dream last a little longer? I know I looked after my family to the best of my abilities and I really shouldn’t regret anything, but I can’t help but feel that I missed out on things.

  Chapter 11

  The Boss

  We all have dreams and aspirations and some of us are better at going after them than others. We live in fear of scarcity, fear of never having enough, but few of us are brave enough to try to change that. We work in jobs that don’t satisfy us because at least we get a steady pay cheque. We don’t believe ourselves to be better than our current situation, and we don’t strive to go after the sparks of inspiration that occasionally come our way. Inspiration eventually stops coming as we are too afraid to bring into creation the ideas it brings to us.

  I was like that in life. I had a good job, a very good job, that covered our daily needs with a little bit left over every month. It was the perfect middle-class lifestyle and while we didn’t have a lot of luxuries, we were able to provide the children with what they needed and then a little more. Was I happy in my job? At times, yes. I was with the company my whole working life and saw many changes, some good, others not so good, but I came to accept that things change and life moves on, and one must accept the good with the bad. Looking back on that view now, I realise how restrictive it was, how it can stop one from living one’s life in accordance with their true purpose. I feel I was able to contribute to society through the job I performed every day but did I make a major difference to people’s lives? Probably not. I know I certainly didn’t make a major difference to my own life, but it was a good solid job and I earned an honest living and what more can one really want, I used to think.