There is a saying “your attitude affects your choices and your life”. Sometimes we have a good attitude and sometimes we feel we have a bad attitude. The way you get up in the morning, either on the wrong side of the bed or the right side of the bed can affect your mood upon wakening. However, if you stop to ‘talk’ to yourself when you are feeling this way; perhaps you can change your emotions and passions for that day.
Some people are what I call smiley people. They always have a pleasant smile on their face and you think they are what we call happy folks. Others rarely smile because they are considered serious people. I know a couple that carry those two characteristics. She is serious and he is very comical. At first glance, you wonder how they even live together because of their diverse personalities. Somehow, they have been married fifty-seven years and courted for almost three years before the wedding. Somehow, their different attitudes blend and they do get along most of the time. Sometimes he irritates her with his joking all the time and she wishes she could have a real serious conversation with him without a joke being said.
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When they courted, she did not see his always joking moments, they saw each other on the weekends because he was going to college and she was working long hours. When they did see each other on Saturday and Sunday, they were so enamored of each other and so sexually attracted; their moments and hours together did not show these two different personalities. They say that opposites attract and so this is true in their situation. I wonder if they had realized their differences, would they have married and stayed married for such a long time.
Sometimes, things are not what they seem. Uncle Julius was quiet; Aunt Adele was more loud mouthed. When they had a disagreement, he would walk out of their tiny house, not say a word and come back from a long walk in about one hour. She meanwhile was seething with anger and wanted to shout at him, she could not because he was not there. When he did arrive back, she was quite glad he had returned, because her nightmare was that he never would. That is how they got along and stayed married for dozens of years. I saw this many times when Mom and I visited (he was her older brother) and I as a young teen would wonder how they ever married. They seemed not to enjoy the same things other than their two daughters. However, they did remain together until his death.
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She really missed him a lot; she had no one to argue with. She did love him in her own way, and he her in his particular manner. Opposites do attract.
We see that in our ballroom dancing very often. The man is dragged into dancing not wanting to attempt this but goes along because he wants to please his wife. Soon he is enjoying the challenge of it and being able to brag to his working buddies that he is a ballroom dancer. He does not really let his wife know that he does enjoy it most of the time. I have seen couples stay together in a marriage because they had the common goal to become fabulous dancers as a couple.
I have seen men and women get together as dance partners and then marry each other whereas they actually met on the dance floor. They seem to be happy to have found each other in this hobby they took up and therefore, they appear happy and content. There was a lady named Margie who came to dance classes and dance parties with her friend Margo. One was Margie and the other one was Margo. They yearned to get married and if he did dance, that would be an additional perk because both loved to dance.
Margo found someone first and Margie seemed a bit miffed or jealous. She tried not to show it, but I could see it. One day, I told her she should go to another studio to dance and to look for a husband because somehow Margo and Lionel seemed to be inhibiting her scouting possibilities because they were always with her. They did not want to somehow dump her as a friend and fellow dancer since Margo and Margie had gone together to all this husband looking for dancing places was where they frequented every weekend of the year. Since Margo had discovered Lionel and he her, that left out Margie.
She took my advice and we did not see her for about eight weeks and one night lo and behold, there was Margie up with us all at the dance party and she brought along David. She introduced him to all of us and especially to Margo and Lionel. They were delighted she now had a dance partner and the four of them sat together from then on every Saturday night.
After about six months, David asked the owner could he make an announcement when the owner was giving out the coming events of the studio to the dance audience on that Saturday night. He got up and in his beautiful deep voice said “I always loved to dance and one day a few months ago, I met the love of my life when she asked me to dance a Rhumba with her at one of these dances at another studio. So Margie my love, will you marry me?” She almost fainted and so did the other twelve or so ladies who were looking for a man at a dance. I guess they were a bit envious, but Margo got up and gave the first toast to the new bride and groom to be. I forgot to mention that David gave his bride to be a lovely diamond ring in a heart shape. He said she had taken his heart and loved ballroom dancing for bringing them together somehow, some place, this someday.
It was what is called beshert (meant to be) and it surely was a beshert evening.Two people loving the same sport/hobby and finding each other at a dance studio. He traveled there forty-five miles to dance and she traveled only six miles and the rest was history (dance history).
The married six months later and used the dance hall as their ceremony sight and their reception hall.
They invited about fifty guests from the studio that they saw every Sunday when they ballroom danced.
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The owner of the studio played D.J.music and their first dance after the ceremony was choreographed by one of the dance coaches that taught there. The wedding cake was made in the shape of a dance shoe and atop it the bride and groom statue had the bride in a competition dance dress and the groom with a number on his back symbolizing when a couple do competition ballroom dancing.
The music featured the song ‘I could Have Danced All Night’ and you never in your life saw so many good dancers dancing to the music which was entirely dance music geared to fine ballroom dancers. Usually the first dance now days has been taught to the bride and groom by a teacher for about six lessons so they can show their wedding guests they ‘know’ how to dance. In this case, both bride and groom were competent dancers having danced for years before meeting one another.
Ballroom dancers seem to gravitate to each other. In 2002, a tribute dance was given to Robert Jacob Meyer who retired from being the editor for twenty-four years of a magazine called Amateur Dancers.
I was there to present Bob with a plaque citing his complete devotion to ballroom dance and the editing of the magazine for so long.At that time, I was the senior page editor of a senior section in that magazine.I was not a senior yet then, but I did cater to senior activities and encouragement for seniors to dance even at their maybe advanced ages. A man I met through the internet who read my articles had emailed me if I was going to be there, because he loved my dance articles in the magazine and he was an accomplished photographer. His name was Mike Wong and he passed away a few months ago. He told me he was going to photograph me to honor me for my writings for at that time twelve years. He told me to bring a few different jackets or blouses to change to, so the photos would be varied.
So my husband and I went and he kidded me on the way there that Mike might run off with me and he would lose me and then he would never have to dance again. He would not admit that he really loved it.
So there was Mike, a very tall man about six feet five tall and I felt like a really tiny person when he asked me to dance. He was from Tibet he said and very nice looking. He made me pose for a few shots and sent them to me on the internet and through the regular mail. He touched them up and made me look about ten year younger which was very nice. I enjoyed meeting him and he posted all the photos from the tribute dance on his website. We corresponded via email for several years and then it stopped.
I emailed him once a few years ago because I had not heard from him and he said he no longer could dance and was not feeling that great and did not use the computer or camera much. He said he enjoyed my articles and taking my photos and that was probably about the last time I heard from him. About six months ago, I was notified that he had passed away and I wrote a nice note on the funeral home’s memory page, how we had met that one time after emailing for years.
You can make many friends in lots of places. It seems that your ballroom dance friends are very special and very dear even though you barely know them in actual face to face. However, for the common love you both and all enjoy, you are brought together in a room of happiness that is not actually a room that you are physically in together. Mike and I saw each other once for about two hours at a tribute dance to Robert Jacob Meyer way back in September 2002. I shall never forget his love of the photography of dancers and his love of ballroom dancing and his love of my dance articles. He was tall in stature and very soaring in his love of the sport.His name was Mike Wong. He passed away a few years ago.He danced with me during the dance.
Dancing gives us great friends, friends in person, friends on the internet and email and friends in our hearts. Some we never meet unless it is over the internet and the email and they can be just as dear as our in person people.
In a poem I just read, it said “Some rainbow coming from the fair.” That is what dancing is to all of us ballroom dancers, a rainbow seen by us even when it is dark outside. We meet strangers through the internet and we all have in common the love of dance and that makes us buddies, friends, pals and comrades. Your attitude does affect your choices in life and your life affects your attitude.
