Dancing at 2:00am

I am going to go back and describe last night's dance lesson again because in re-reading what I wrote about my day, there is no poetry or beauty in the description. Hopefully this is better.

It was 1:30am and we had left the bar behind. Karaoke was accomplished and it was getting late. My girlfriend's friends were ready to go and so we left. Out on the street we hugged our goodbyes and I told all these strangers, these new friends how nice it had been to see them and that I would see them "next time."

Now came the hard part of the night. Since she and I live almost an hours drive away from each other we always come and leave again in separate cars to separate directions. We were faced with the unavoidable goodbye. I was parked closer so we walked to my car and then we drove to hers.

At this time of night, the streets are empty of people and cars. The noise of the city has died down and even the sounds of the nearby freeway are hushed. She was parked in the lot of a nearby office building and so I drove over to her car and parked in the next spot over. We had the entire parking lot to ourselves. It was one large empty space with white lines and a wash of orange light, and us.

There we sat in my car with the radio serenading us with the sounds of a vaguely Latin band that I had heard of though a friend's wife. The moment to say goodbye had come and neither of us was ready or willing to say it. We sat and talked a little, we kissed a little, and we were silent a little. There was talk about what we each had planned for the next day, we mused about the karaoke songs that we had sung or heard at the bar, and there was talk about when she would teach me to dance.

I sat there looking at her smile, at her eyes and knowing that the affection that was clear on her face was also clear on mine. I asked her when we would make time for her to teach me how to dance and as always, we just shrugged it away as "sometime."

"Why not now" I asked her.

She smiled and said "sure"

"I don't know if you are serious" I said tilting my head to the side and smiling."Lets do it!" I turned up the radio and got out of the car.

"Are we really going to do this?" she said getting out of the car as well with a big smile.

So there in the lights of the parking lot and with the privacy of 2:00am she pushed and pulled and spun and danced me. I stepped and danced and stumbled and spun and turned and all the time I touched her and held her and we were together and alone.

Finally after about an hour spent in the parking lot dancing and kissing and dancing some more, we could no longer put off what was inevitable. I had to go east and she west. We held each other for another long moment and parted.