Dance!

Out visiting a friend in Colville, Washington this weekend, and got to see some Irish step dancing and listen to a really great band. I did Scottish and English Country dancing back in the day, rather than Irish, but they share some steps and have a very similar feel. It made me really long to get back into dancing again. And made me want to put more dancing in my books…

Of course, dance is one of those things in print that’s like some art or music, where you can’t actually put it into the book, you have to convey it by how the characters are experiencing it. I’m filing away the feeling of watching people do dance I’ve done myself–it’s more than just appreciating it because you know how hard it is, for me it was a really visceral sort of sense memory or what it was like to be moving to a beat. They started a clap to the beat in the crowd for some of the songs, and I was surprised how few people kept it up for more than a few beats. Keeping the beat makes you part of the music!

Of course, I may be spoiled. I came from a musical family, so getting a visceral sense of the beat is something that comes naturally by now. Oh, younger self, who would have thought that you would one day be thanking your parents for nudging you into band and choir for all those years. (Lest anyone think they’ve broken their “screwing me up by not screwing me up” record, I did band for two years and I practiced the minimum amount possible to pass the class, and they mostly left me to that. Further choir I actually–gasp–signed myself up for.)