Wallflower

a last minute party invite took me on a journey through a portal in time.  it was frankly a dark and unexpected corridor to an awkward past.  i arrived at a dingy garage with a construction permit posted on the window of the entrance.  surely i had arrived at the wrong place.  it was all wrong.  the cold winter wind blew a chill down my exposed neck.  i heard laughter on the other side of the door.  “i guess this is it” and i shrugged, turned the handle and entered.     

the room was poorly lit except for the christmas lights hung everywhere along the rafters and in the fake ficus trees.  one wall, i presume where the garage door had been, was stuffed with insulation and covered in clear sheets of plastic.  the music was blaring from old speakers in the corner of the room.  there in the middle of the room was a couple dancing.  the rest were in audience against the walls of this small space watching and cheering them on.  as i entered the world became silent except for the ringing in my ears.  all eyes turned and bored into my flesh.  

my friend jumped up, came quickly to me and ushered me to a chair along the wall as the dance continued.  i looked around to take it all in and realized i was being taken in as well.  the men were dressed in sleek black polyester pants and shirts.  the women were dressed in gaudy sequined colorful gowns.  i was dressed in in blue jeans, a button up rolled to the elbows and boots.  i was properly coifed for a butch lesbian and completely and utterly out of place in this dumpy, homemade, wannabe dance studio filled with straight couples who eyed my every move.    

a Vietnamese couple got up to dance.  it seemed me and my doc martens intruded on the space that the Viennese waltz would occupy, so i was removed further into the depths of the wallflower.  after all was said and done my toes never were in jeopardy of being waltzed on but it was a demilitarized zone claimed and guarded never the less, a no man's land except for those prancing and flashing about.  i was clearly an outsider.  i did not fit.  my welcome was tenuous.  

my brain was flooded with the awkwardness of the social dance in my preteen years in south america.  i was the tall, blonde, gawky, tomboy who didn’t know how to dance.  i found myself dropped off and alone on someone's patio ablaze with christmas lights strung across poles.  on a record player blared some rock and roll i did not recognize and latin boys sat around the edges staring at me.  they got up picked their partners and danced.  i hugged the wall.  i had a sick ‘out of place’ black pit in my stomach. i could not wait for it to end and my parents v-dub van to pull up and take me out of there.    

this scene repeated itself over and over and eventually i learned to dance.  i still hated those patio parties.  when i started going to school dances at the american cooperative school it was a whole other thing.  my friends where there.  i fit in.  it was not awkward.  i could be myself.  but not the patio parties where i was still a gringa, a stranger.  here i was again a stranger.  the same familiar black pit returned after decades of laying dormant.  i had completely forgotten it but recognized it now as though not a second in time had passed.  i wanted to crawl out of my own skin.

i am well versed in being out of my comfort zone.  i have either been placed there or have actively sought to do so since i was a small child.  it’s made me flexible.  it’s made me open.  it’s made me a chameleon.  i can adapt quickly and fit in.  but the black pit that returned did not leave me.  in fact the feeling lingered for days after.  i have no vested interest in these dancers.  it was not that at all.  it was the realization that no matter how confident i feel within my own skin there will always be something in this world that causes me discomfort.  maybe that is as evolved as it gets.  or maybe there is more.