Twirl.

I vaguely remember being able to twirl for very long periods of time as a kid and I would stop only when I literally couldn’t stand up anymore. Andrew V and I would go outside on the lawn, stare up at the sky (so as to have absolutely no reference point for our eyes to lock onto) and spin and spin and spin ourselves until we collapsed into a dizzy nauseous haze. We’d lay on the ground totally paralyzed until the feeling passed, then get up and do it again.

Then I took dance classes and was taught how to pinpoint an object or a spot on the wall, and twirl my body while doing a ‘whip’ with my head to focus on that object. The idea, of course, is that when you’re dancing in a production you don’t want to dizzy yourself up and whirl right off the stage. Although I maintain that a little dizzy and unchoreographed crowd-surfing can liven up any production. (Yes, I did take dance lessons. Stop laughing at me. I dance like Elaine at an office party because, despite KNOWING the moves, I cannot put them together or do them in time to the music or be ‘graceful’ in any way. And when I’m not doing the Elaine, I’m also QUITE FINE with my Jen-Dance*, thank you very much.)

Last night while making pizza (because last night was Friday, and we make pizza on Friday) I twirled around the kitchen for a while, but it only lasted five or six rotations before I thought my brain was going to liquify. I love soft fuzzy socks on a clean floor. Twirl! Twirl! Twirl!

Is my brain out of practice? Did I wreck it with the whole ‘spotting’ thing from dance class all those years ago? Do adult brains just get crabby when spun?

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* In my first and second year at York, there was a girl named Jen who was friends with one of the guys I lived with. As such, she was sort of a peripheral friend of mine. Jen was a fine arts major who dressed all in black and dyed her hair black and was kind of a pudgy girl with a fuffy bowl-cut containing more bobbypins and barettes than I ever owned. We used to go to a pub on campus called “Jacs” on Thursday nights. They played “alternative” music (as opposed to pop or dance stuff) and we’d all get drunk and dance and have a lovely time. Jen was always in the middle of the dance floor doing what has come to be known as “The Jen Dance” – her feet were essentially glued to the floor (she never moved them) and she’d ball her fists up and hold them in the same position you may think of when someone says “old man jogging”. She’d wiggle her bum and twist her hips and bounce her knees a little, while sort of punching the air directly in front of her belly.

I still wonder whether Jen wanted to dance that way, or whether she knew it as “the Dave Dance” and was stuck doing it for all of perpetuity as a result of once mocking some guy she knew from the past. Maybe she was fine with us ‘mocking’ her because she knew it was contagious and we’d be stuck doing it for the rest of our lives, just like her.