Won’t Give Up

I’m taking dancing lessons with Husband. For the wedding.

Correction…for the weddingS!

We have two Junior Tribe Members getting married within a month this summer.

Cah-RAY-Zee!

Seriously…shouldn’t you feel like a grown up all the way before you have JTM’s getting married? I’m not there yet.

Anyways…I grew up in a culture with a rich musical tradition…it wasn’t uncommon for spontaneous 4 part harmony prayer to break out before a meal when I grew up. We played musical instruments alone and in orchestras and bands and for Oma and Opa at Christmas at the grandchildren’s recital.

But not dancing. Never dancing.

Last year, when I married Husband, we had a “basketball wedding”–because as a family of multiple JTM’s who like sports more than dancing, it made sense to start our two-families-who-are-also-one-family that way.

So…when we had not one, but TWO JTM’s getting married soon (!), it seemed like a fun thing to finally learn how to move to music. So, Husband and I, our two sons and their fiancee’s and the two sets of parents of the fiancees are gathering together for every Tuesday night in May at Arthur Murray Dance Studio to let Alicia and John teach us to dance the light fantastic.

We watch him do it to show the men. Then we watch him demonstrate the steps for the women. We try it without music. Then we try it with music. We are awkward, and mechanical…and definitely not pretty.

But we are having fun. Learning.

He tells me with his hand on my waist where we are going next, and I work to listen and respond. He notices my legs are shorter than his, and he makes his steps smaller. We work to dance–together.

We bang into each other instead of moving in sync. And we laugh–together.

And we stick with it…through the endless counting and the “Slooooooow, quick quick” of the steps. And we begin to learn.

Dancing…moving together in rhythm…awkwardly and clumsily–but earnestly. Together.

Communicating, wordlessly…finding the patterns. Losing it and then finding it again. Together.

Experiencing the movement of life…to movement through life. Together.

The first dance song is traditionally chosen to represent something about the couple’s dreams and hopes…or perhaps reflecting their experience or desire. One couple chose Jason Mraz, “I won’t give up”.

I’m loving the song they chose.

Isn’t it beautiful for a couple to be aware that the skies are gonna get dark, but they’ve got a plan to not give up? That sometimes, one of them may need to say to the other. You are “needing your space, to do some navigating, I’ll be here patiently waiting, to see what you find”? Isn’t is profound for a couple, at the beginning of their marriage, to know that they are worth the fight…that they are worth not giving up on?

These weeks we’ve been dancing to Mraz’s lyrics that profess:

I dunno, I’m just thinking that if each bride and groom, as they launch into their marriage, could find a way to hold onto their own lovability and worthiness, it would change the way they related to their spouse when they faced a disagreement.

I just know that it would reduce defensiveness and increase collaboration if a spouse could be curious with the other with their own spirit quietly confident.

If they lost their rhythm, there would be no need to point the finger about whose fault it was…they could just work to find the rhythm again.

Moving forward–together–valuing oneself, the other, and the pair together–would have them face challenges together, rather than see each other as the challenge.

The fundamental bonus of seeing self, other, and the couple unit as valuable and lovable and worthy is a calm, stable ability to be fully present, steady and boundaried, calm and powerful.

Together.

Dancing through the rhthyms of life. Together. The joys and sorrows, the relationship ruptures and repairs. Listening and responding to the cues of the other. Hearing the musical score of their lives and letting themselves respond to that music and gently move to it. Together.

Always together. Never giving up in the dance lessons of life.