My Golden Dancers

HASHKAFA AND ETHAN SMILED AT ME
By Elita Sohmer Clayman

Ethan smiled at me for the first time in his lifetime and in my lifetime. Ethan was twelve weeks old when this happened. He lives in Northern Virginia with his parents, my son, and my daughter-in-law. We already had two older grandsons when Ethan was born. Having a young baby in your life when your other two grandchildren are 13 and 10 is a new and fabulous reality. There was a ten year span between grandson #2 and Ethan as grandson #3.

Learning to ballroom dance at a later age is kind of similar to age differences in children or grandchildren. It is a new experience in your older years. It is a fantastic happening in your older years. To learn to dance or to have new and younger grandchildren is being awakened to new thoughts and experiences in your life.

We learned to dance in our early 40s for me (four years older for my husband). When we look back now, as super seniors, we think it was young then. Of course, it was not as young as learning in our 20s. But learning in your 40s is not quite as challenging as learning later on in life. I have readers who write me that they started in their 60s and 70s. They are to be commended and applauded and emulated by others.

Learning to handle a new baby when you are in your senior years is quite a task - a wonderful task, by all standards, but still hard. Even picking up a new baby when your fingers may be starting to be arthritic or your back is acting up is sometimes difficult. Watching the baby for a few hours, that can be daunting too. Of course, you do not want to say no to your son or daughter, so you say yes. You pray the baby will sleep and you will only have to change the diaper or give him a bottle. So, in dancing you pray sometimes too. In the beginning, when you go to a social dance and you may be alone without a partner that night, you pray that someone will ask you to dance and then you may pray that someone will not ask you to dance.

You are critical of your own dancing abilities and you would rather hide a bit in your seat instead of going up on the dance floor and actually dancing.
When we first started to go to Saturday night dances at the studio, we were quite intimidated by a woman named Jean S. She would holler out the type of dance they were playing on the tape recorder because she knew we could not figure out if it was a Foxtrot or a Rumba, etc. It is a wonder that we did not quit dancing at that time because she was an embarrassing figure to have at our table. We persevered and we would never do that to any fellow dancers because intimidation is not the route to quality or enjoyable ballroom dance activities.

Encouragement is the road to being happy in your dance journey. I learned a new word recently. It is a funny looking word. It is hashkafa and is Hebrew for perspective. Now the true meaning of perspective is "Point of view, position, outlook, or frame of reference." We can alter our perspective when we want to learn how to dance at an advanced age. We can say to ourselves that learning something new gives us a new expectation. In addition, we are still growing and able and still desire to achieve even though we are seniors in every sense of the word. I heard a comment on a show that I watch on television. It stated that in this special room of the house, we will always find there peace. When we dance, at least, when I dance and many others have written me to say the same thing, we find peace. Peace in our mind, in our heart, and maybe only for the hours that we are there, wherever there is and that makes us happy. The peaceful room is the dance floor, the surroundings, and the people who all have gathered to do one thing - to spend a few hours dancing and enjoying this moment in time.

Zachary in California wrote to me that he has a dance partner who is not physically well. She still loves to go and dress up and sit at a dance; even though she is unable to dance more than a few dances, she loves to watch and feels that this is her peaceful room, a room away from her health problems at home. At the dance, she becomes someone else. She is healthy, she is able, and she is happy and becomes unaware of her health problems. Zachary brings her, knowing that she will only dance once or twice, if at all, but her attitude is glorious and she is happy and that is what counts. When she returns home, she still has the same problems but they may seem a little lighter because she has been out and socializing.

Hashkafa can be a stimulant to our thinking. When we are stumbling around and not knowing how we want to continue at this late period in our lives, we can change our outlook and go forward to attain new things in our lives. We can get off our couches and we can go and be seen in public. We can dance, we can talk, we can even sit and sit in a new environment.

My neighborhood was all young couples when we bought our first and only home 41 years ago. Everyone had children, some of us were pregnant with our second or first child, and the neighborhood was a melodious sounding place of children laughing and having a good time night or day. Now, the children have grown up and have children of their own and the young homeowners are old homeowners living the rest of their lives in their same house. A new phenomenon has occurred. Young families are moving in with their young children and again there is the melodious sound of youngsters playing and laughing. Therefore, the revitalization has taken over and the old folks are being revived with young people in the neighborhood.

Now Ethan finished his first year at preschool in Northern Virginia. He went two days a week and loved it. At the final day of school, the parents brought some food and watched the children play and have a good time. The teacher told my daughter-in-law that Ethan was the smartest and youngest child in the class and he is destined to really be outstanding during the rest of his life. Of course, we, as grandparents, already knew this because we are prejudiced. Voltaire would say that is opinion without judgment but Voltaire would be wrong. We have good judgment as did the preschool teacher because we know the person and we appreciate our own wisdom. Because we acknowledge our own common sense, we know it is a true and valid opinion.

Ethan will go far because he is smart, talented, and kind. We all hope that for our children and grandchildren. We also hope that our opinion of our delight and happiness in ballroom dancing awakens in us a spark that helps us go forward and conquer any fears we have about dancing. The dancing that we are attempting will benefit not only our social skills but our health physically and mentally. So our opinion and judgment will come through for us.

So it is with ballroom dancing. Those of us who were young when we started to learn to do it are now the older folks. We still dance and the younger people who start to dance now look at us and think how nice it is that us older folks still dance and enjoy ourselves doing the activity. They see that we dance really well and that we take pride in doing the dance scene and that we are really Sensational Seniors. We live and we prosper and even though we may have many aches and pains, we love our ballroom dancing and are proud that we continued and find peace in doing it. Our life is full of Hashkafa. Our perspective on our dancing is that we will attain happiness doing it and our perspective on the future of our grandsons and granddaughters is that they will prosper and be successful.

So having a grandchild now who is four and his sister Ava is almost two gives us great perspective on life. The two older grandsons are now almost 17 and 13 and they prospered in everything they tried so far. Of course, the Hashkafa on them was the same for me. I knew they would do excellent in everything they tried.

Also, I knew that ballroom dancing would become a vital source of comfort, happiness, and peace in my life. I had the good thoughts perspective-Hashkafa way - before I learned the word and now that I know it, it
sparks the contemplation process in my mind. It is a funny sounding word if you try to pronounce it but it is really a soul connecting word in meaning. Perspective is a panorama and outlook and meaning in life. So here is to Hashkafa in all our lives, including our beloved dancing.

Keep on Dancing.