Dance

What is the likelihood that you would or could slow dance with your spouse to a nice song in your kitchen?
 

_____ Don’t be ridiculous!

_____ It would never occur to us.

_____ Hmmm . . might happen.

_____ Guaranteed!

Our Experience

January, the bitter cold, and Libby’s retirement have produced the closeness conditions of the pandemic. In other words, we have been in a moderate state of mutual irritation. Of course, Libby wants to talk about it (as if that won’t be irritating). I would rather be left alone, which she is more than willing to do. Brrr!

I recently watched one of my favorite movies, Notting Hill with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. Back in the day my church was fortunate that I did not do a multi-week sermon series on the profound lessons from this movie: the emptiness of fame, the value of friends, the danger of group-think, and the power of vulnerability. However, I did show a scene to make a point in a sermon. (Email if you would like to know which scene and the objections it
inspired the following week.)

The song, When You Say Nothing at All, sung by Ronan Keating caught my attention and I had it playing while washing the dishes the other night. Libby was putting food away. Towards the end I invited her to dance, and she accepted. When it finished, I asked Siri to play it again. She chuckled and we kept dancing.

It was nice.

Unusual, but nice.

Thinking about it now, it seems that it might have been a good check on the vital signs of our relationship. It required a little vulnerability on my part and could have back-fired if Libby’s response had been, “What are you
doing?!?” Or if she had just tolerated it. But she accepted it.

It was also a nice re-calibration of our experience with each other. Neither one of us used it as an opportunity to criticize the other. “I wish you were more like this all the time.”

And it had some staying power.

There are all sorts of reasons why we might not feel like slow dancing with our spouse. Most of them are probably not good reasons.

What song might you slow dance to?