Crazy Little Thing Called Love

I have a recurring dream every few weeks that I really enjoy. Unlike my other recurring dreams, there are no snakes or floods or robbers. No dirty diapers or finding out that I've completely missed a semester of a college class that I now have to make up in three weeks' time. No sweats or fears or restlessness. No, no. This is a good dream. A great dream, actually.

In it, Nick and I are dancing.

The venue varies with each dream. Sometimes we're at a talent show at the high school where he teaches. Sometimes we're in an international competition against the best dancers in the world. Sometimes we're at my parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary party. But each time, we dance our hearts out. And we dance, every time, to Crazy Little Thing Called Love as sung by the fabulous Michael Buble. It’s never Sway, nor is it ever sung by Frank, and each time we dance, it’s the best feeling in the world.

He swings me around his waist, my skirt flying through the air and fluttering around my knees as I slide between his legs from behind to land in front him on the stage, facing the audience. We jitterbug and jive. We tango and shimmy. It’s amazing that I can even form dance steps in my beyond-white-non-dancing-brain, but each time I dream about our dance, it’s alive and breathing inside me.

You should know that I can’t dance. Not in real life. I can’t even keep time or rhythm. I’m hopelessly, helplessly white. Don’t ask me to clap in church- I’ll throw off the congregation. Don’t ask me to two-step or slow dance- I’ll tear my partner’s toes off. I’m terrible.

Nick and I won a free dance lesson soon after we were married, and I’ll never forget our pro smiling, her expression stuck like glue into a full face, fake smile, while she said, “No really, you’re great. You show great promise.” As I recall, Nick’s toe was mashed when we got home.

In my dream, though, I’m graceful and confident and sexy. And that’s something else- a real important detail- this is a dream where I still have my chubb-o body. I’m not a size two waif in a dress with diamond cutouts along my slim torso. No, no. I’m still fat. My thighs still rub and my arms are still thick. But it doesn’t matter because I can dance. I glide like a swan capturing the attention of everyone in the room. Every female in the room wants to be me. Hell, I want to be me!

The dream always ends the same, you should know. We always finish our dance, breathless, chests heaving and sweat sliding down our faces. We’re always smiling. And then, without our permission, the music begins again. The crowd watches for our movements, any signal that we are about to move. Nick turns to smile at me and raises my hand, clutched inside his own, for a kiss. And as he takes the first step of a new dance, I wake.

I’m not sure what the dream means. I could, I suppose, ask a dream expert or do a Google search, but I won’t. I’m choosing to believe that who I am in the dream is who I am today, in this life, a better, stronger version of myself that I long to discover. Only in my dream, I think, I value myself more than I do in my wake.