Dancing Lessons

"As Bokonon says: 'peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from god.'"

- Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle"

 

 

Looking back at my life there are many times and places that, at least in retrospect, don't seem to make sense.  It's not that I'm confused about what happened, but perhaps more in awe that the universe somehow conspired to put me in that place at that time.

 

Arguably one of the most dramatic dancing lessons I've received happened when I was 11 years old, barely old enough to really see what was going on in the world.  In that year my mother packed up the family and moved us from Michigan to Iowa.

 

There was a time in my life when I wondered what my life would be like if we had stayed in Michigan. Would I be a doctor?  Would I be a famous poet?

 

All that I can say with any measure of certainty about that move was that it left me feeling very alone, and very vulnerable.

 

The next few moves in the dance seemed more like a horrible misstep, ending in my dropping out of high school. It was never that the work was hard, or that I didn't love to learn.  My decision to leave high school had more to do with being surrounded by teachers and students who didn't seem to care. 

 

Somewhere inside my heart I just wanted to get on with life.

 

At the age of 17 I was married, and at the age of 19 my first daughter was born.  Instead of going into nursing school as I had planned I took a job with a convenience store chain (that will remain nameless so no one can decide to sue me later). 

 

I will have to admit, I've never been one to suffer fools gladly.  And considering some of the, let's say colorful, examples of humanity I had to deal with at 3 am, it's a miracle I stayed there as long as I did.

 

Stumbling along through life, doing the best I could, just trying to be the kind of person other people wanted me to be, hating myself for no good reason.  Eventually my wife left me and took my kids away to a far off land.  My employer decided it was time we had a parting of the ways.

 

The darkest days of my life.  Yet the dance continued. 

 

Step by step the dance brought me closer to the next lesson.  Going to college for at least a few semesters, a few dates here and there.  Work was a challenge I enjoyed, and gave me opportunities to travel. I got to see other parts of the country I would other wise have missed. 

 

The need to lose weight twirled me into taking hikes, which dosey-doed me into photography.

 

Somewhere in there I two stepped into the notice of another amateur photographer.  The dance turned into a Virginia reel, and started one of the most hectic periods of my life. And the most important.

 

So here I am.  Some times when I look back it seems like a crazy dance, some times it seems more like a pinball machine that had gone haywire. 

 

I could still ask, what would my life be like now if we had not moved to Iowa, if I had not dropped out of school, if I had not become a photographer.  In the end it's an empty question, you can never know what's down the road not traveled.  And I truly don't care any more.

 

I'm happy where I am, and eagerly waiting the next dance step.