Twinkley twinkley dreamland

Oh my word! I am Obsessed... with a ginormous, capital O.

Completely, utterly. From inner core to out. Jump up and down. Giggly. Dreamily. Fantasmically. Over the moooon.

I had it. My first one on one...

And it was the best thing in a hundred years! Oh wow! I cant stop thinking about it. Day, night - three in the morning, five to five... (when my stupid new phone woke me up to tell me that my next lesson was about to start!! Bloody thing!... The phone was only 6 days and 12 hours too early - go figure that one out! But then... guess what...... I was ALREADY awake anyway, thinking about dancing! At that time in the morning! Tossing and turning and trying to sleep... and failing abysmally with just one thing in my mind)

So - as I said in my last blog.. I started group dance classes 3 lessons ago. In a crummy school hall with an odd assortment of english people. The women outnumbering the men. The men rather nerdy looking. But I was absolutely determined. Odd people aside. On a one way mission to achieve my life long dream of learning how to dance. And blissfully free of the shackles of a disinterested boyfriend who refused to join me despite years of begging (perhaps that was just my pathetic excuse for being a scaredy cat).

For years I had been put off ever going to another class after my first experience in the sweaty tropical city of Darwin, Australia. I got some guy who thought I was after a pickup and wouldnt let go of my hand, even long after the music stopped. Eugh. Sis.

So - 3 group classes later, persevering through the line ups - men, "honorary men" (i.e. me as I had to partner with another woman), opposite women; the painfully slow explanation of the footseps; and a female partner who was rather uncoordinated... I then saw an article in the local paper about a couple who had just won some national competition and had trained at a rival dance school.

My cue... :) :)

Hoop-la! Have you ever spent a whole hour beaming from ear to ear? ME me me!! I did! I felt like I was floating in a twinkley dreamland.

My teacher was this ordinary slobby looking kind of guy in an old t-shirt and very sweaty and smelly!! Euuww! so English!! (No wonder - he'd been on the dance floor for the past 8+hours!) But he was gorgeously sweet and wonderful. He waved his magic wand - I shimmied up close to him... body touching right up close! Sweat and all. And we sailed across the floor, backwards and forwards for an hour. Past the 5 or 6 other one-on-ones, the teachers asking us if we needed more room. "My" man mumbling something about, am I SURE i've never done any other lessons before? I promise, never!! Mumbling more about "you do that really naturally"... say what ... am I a natural?! And then... to cap it off I was moaning about my stupid shoes that kept slipping their heel and saying I cant do that properly because of my shoes... He took me into their little store-room... no.. not what you are thinking! .. he took me into their steamy hot storeroom and showed me the rows of shoes for sale but said... these are for Ballroom and these are for Latin... But if you want to Compete, you need these ones, so its best you wait until you decide which you prefer, Latin or Ballroom........ Say what again!? Competing! No way!!! Cool! Never thought about that. What fun!! I want the shoes now!!! Puleeeeez! I want it ALL! Every single dance imaginable - Argentinian Tango, the Waltz, the Salsa, the Quickstep - everything! I want to come to your class tomorrow and the next day and the next... but now I have to wait a whole week! Impossible! I cant!

I feel like my soul is bursting, overflowing. This incredible release of energy. Oh my word. Honey on my wounds. I want to talk about it non-stop. Tell everyone I see. "Do you know what I did on Friday..." the hairdresser, the bank teller... Everyone. :)

:) ... :) ... :) ... :)

Dreams are funny things

I relived dad's funeral last night. But this time, he was alive. Very surreal.

I was at home, in Ndola, the town where I grew up in central Africa. The church was supposed to have organised the drinks and the food, but they let me down. So I had had to do everything myself. Mum and dad arrived at the house at dusk, in the landcruiser, just in time. So with only half an hour to spare I sent dad off to buy drinks and a $100 note to change into Kwacha. I found mum curled up on the bed saying she couldnt come to the funeral as she had atrocious diarhoea. I was getting really anxious as dad hadnt even got ready for his funeral yet.
Finally he returned and we were at the Cathedral. He had a glass fronted office there and people were all milling around. We had some spare time so I invited 3 men to come in and chat with dad. I touched his hands. It was so vivid. So real. Real flesh. Real sensation. They were cold and I realised the ominous sign. He needed to rest immediately or blood would start pouring out of him. He had jet lag and was exhausted. I shovveled the men out including one guy who wanted to leave his suitcase in the office. But then I couldnt get dad to relax. He started wandering through the back warehouses of his old office unlocking great barred doors into the empty workshops with their blackened floors to look around nostalgically. Someone else was there. And then this beautiful singing started. Drifting to us from the Cathedral. He was late for his funeral. Dad... we HAVE to go..

Today its so freezing the water in the bird bath is frozen. Smoke from the houses in the village sitting, grey above us. Everything grey. Days and days of grey. I'm supposed to be doing dad's final tax return and am finding everything under the sun to mess around with, but that.