It was the first night the bars were allowed to open. At the door, the masked bouncer checked my temperature and examined my ID. I was wearing a facemask too, like everyone else in line, standing 6 feet apart. He didn't ask me to remove it to see if my ID matched my face. As I entered, another attendant waited for me to put out my empty
hands so he could baptize me with sanitizer. There was a puddle of rubbing alcohol on the ground at our feet. I stepped over it as another masked attendant motioned to me to follow her to a table, as if this was an upscale club.
I told her I was meeting someone. She shook her head, said something I couldn't hear through her mask.
"What?"
She repeated herself.
"What?"
She pulled her mask down and shouted "You can't pick your seats. Do you know where your friend is sitting?"
I looked around but couldn't make out anyone with their faces covered. I ignored the girl trying to detain me and walked past her to find Michael.
On the far side of the hall, he waved at me and pulled off his facemask. A wave of relief washed over me. I felt oddly out of place, like this was my first time in a bar, and the familiar face was a long lost soul.
I'd been there a hundred times before. Still, it felt as if the place was somewhere I'd never been. It looked the same, dim, with a neon red strip along the the ceiling. The large dance floor in the center was surrounded by the tall wooden bar top with empty stools, and the regular high tables scattered around the hall. The glittering disco boot rotated over the center of the floor and the band on the stage played deafeningly loud country music. But something felt unfamiliar. Unwelcoming. It was past the time I would normally have gotten there, when the place would be crowded...yet there were only about 2 dozen people in the whole place.
I walked briskly across the room to Michael's embrace. This was my old stomping grounds, only 6 months prior before the pandemic shutdown. But it was as if I was in a forbidden speakeasy, breaking the law, wearing coverings to hide my identity. I shifted from foot to foot, stealing glances around me.
I brightened as I recognized a couple I knew across the room. With my mask reattached, I walked to their table and opened my arms for the hug we normally greeted each other with. But the woman shrank back, frightened as if I was a stranger invading her personal space.
"We are being safe," she explained. "So no hugs, I'm sorry. And we aren't dancing with other people."
I awkwardly backed up a couple steps, feeling like the reject who wasn't allowed to sit at the cool kids' lunch table. Her dance partner, standing behind her, raised his eyebrows apologetically and shrugged his shoulders. I told them I was happy to see them out having fun but I better get back to my friend, and I quickly retreated to my corner.
I pulled off my mask with a gasp like a woman wearing too tight jeans unbuttoning her pants to let her gut spill out. I didn't realize I'd been holding my breath. But as soon as I got it off, Michael invited me to dance to the next song. I had to put my mask back on because we could only be bare-faced when sitting at a table.
I smothered my mouth again and followed Michael to the dance floor. As I twirled and two-stepped, the mask sucked in with my inhale and became moist with each exhale. I was gasping, having such a hard time breathing. Had I gotten that out of shape since the pandemic closed the gyms and dance halls?
Panting, I ripped off the mask as we sat down at our table. I never used to sit out a single song, and now, somehow, I could barely make it through one. I sat and watched the 5 other couples sweep across the floor. Not a single couple met each other's gaze. Bodies connected by arms, their eyes on their surroundings, not once looking at their partners. Smileless. Faceless. Eyes glazed over. Lifeless movement.
"Look at your partner, not at the ground," I always told my dance students. "Dance is about connection in every aspect of the word. It's a language of body movement, send and response by touch, and facial expression. Smile at them so they know you are enjoying dancing with them, talk to each other, laugh."
I thought of my prom more than 20 years earlier, the theme "My Heart Will Go On" from the movie Titanic that had come out that year. I recalled the chilling image I saw back then, watching my fellow classmates swaying to Celine Dion's song: bobbing heads on water, bodies clinging to wreckage from the sinking ship until they slip into the icy depths below. Teenagers too embarrassed to look at their dates, easier to sway with heads on shoulders than to meet eyes, disconnected, lifeless... their hearts far away.
When I had shared that thought during my prom, my friends thought I was morbid and crazy. I couldn't explain it then, but now I know the importance of emotional and physical connection. Dance especially has the unique ability to connect people through touch and facial expressions, I can now identify what I couldn't back then, how essential this social activity is. Without touch, without physical presence, without cognitive attunement, without facial exposure, without eye contact, without social closeness, there is no transfer of energy, no shared experience, and no sense of safety or belonging. Humans are wired for connection, and without such, existence is lifeless.
I shudder to envision ghostly bodies dancing together, only able to reminisce about a time that used to exist...Once Upon a December.
A few days later, I met a friend dancing at an outdoor venue. Because it was outdoors and we were outside the county, the mask rules were relaxed. Couples and friends clustered in groups, faces exposed, masks forgotten. On the concrete in front of the stage, fans danced and they drank. They laughed and they played, carefree and wild, their arms flailing, their feet stomping. The gaiety was contagious, the joy unstoppable. My heart sang and I smiled. This warm and welcoming atmosphere was what was missing at the masquerade ball.
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