Dancing

When the music knows better than I do.

The metaphor:

I’m back in Western New York, where inconceivably, it’s still damp and cool as we round the corner into June. The fact that I spent last week in California is starting to feel as surreal as the audiobook I listened to as I faded in and out of sleep on the redeye home. But I keep having these flashbacks to the amazing band that played at the wedding reception last Sunday, which hit me like arrows shot straight at a target.

The story:

My second job was fancy. Even at 23, I knew I’d never have a nicer office. My first job was in a cubicle farm, and my third and fourth were open offices; then the pandemic sent me home to my own living room. From 2009-2013, though, I had my own office door. Behind it, I sat dressed in Anne Taylor Loft, looking out the window over DC’s Dupont Circle. I may have been sorting invitation lists and mail merging name tags, but I was doing it in style.

I was often out of my social depth at that job, which had me regularly traveling abroad or coordinating events in DC for high-level dignitaries. I still smile when I see Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio, which I’d be sent to buy when one particular luminary came to town. Once, the cork broke when I was opening a bottle in our conference room. At a loss, I pushed the other half down into the bottle with my thumbs, where it bobbed around for the duration of the lunch meeting, out of place just like me.

Given the hustle involved in planning these events, I always looked forward to the one when I was just a participant: the annual holiday party. Formal emails went out in mid-November, inviting staff to spend the night at an executive-retreat facility across the bay in Maryland. It was an hour’s drive and a world away, with stand-alone cabins spread across a thousand acres of woodlands and sparkling river views. We’d put on semi-formal attire and convene in the event center for a reception and seated dinner, giving way to an open bar and DJ.

It was fantastic even as, like any office holiday party, it was a little weird. It’s bizarre to pursue merriment alongside the full mix of well-heeled executives with published books, the IT guy who compared swapping thumb drives to unprotected sex, and fellow junior staffers who’d race to the kitchen when emails announced extra bagels. But it was well worth it to leave work early and bring a date to a fancy event: to pretend I was the dignitary.

At my third holiday party, I was struck by a couple of changes. The DJ was playing as we first walked in, with hours of sun still ahead, and there was a special cocktail station that seemed to be making only chocolate martinis. I spent so much effort trying not to stick out among my colleagues: I couldn’t fathom asking for a peppermint-rimmed beverage that would get me too drunk, too quickly, all in a tippy glass. Hands empty, I joined a few other young colleagues around the edge of the square dance floor. Dead sober in full daylight, we exchanged derisive glances, careful not to put a single toe over the wood floor’s perimeter. “Can you imagine dancing at this point?” I whispered to the friend on my left. “I wonder who’ll be the first one out there?”

Just as I was scanning the group to see who’d be the sucker, the DJ put on “Set Fire to the Rain,” the newest single from Adele. It was 2011 and her second album, 21, had dominated the year: it’s still the best-performing Billboard 200 album of all time, spending 24 weeks at #1 and guiding my roommates and me through many a post-party cleanup. My attitude changed as quickly as the music.

“Oh!” I gasped, as I became the sucker. I was already stepping involuntarily onto the empty floor as I turned back to my colleague, almost mournfully. “It’s me!” Then I was enveloped by the song, waving my arms and at one with the music. I like to think I was joined by other people, but I don’t remember: all I’ve stored is my complete transformation from skepticism to surrender. I love reliving how certain I was, how derisive – and then immediately after, how wrong.

That moment came back to me last weekend, at Steve’s cousin’s wedding. There was a beautiful ceremony with vows and remarks that made everyone laugh and cry. We’d cheered at the pronouncement and recession, and then stood in line for drinks. I assumed that we’d have an hour or so to talk about it, then sit for dinner, followed by a toast or two and dancing. So I was confused when five people in neon-sequined outfits came out on the stage. While I took my first sip of wine, they picked up instruments, the drummer counted down, and they started to play.

I was standing next to another elder millennial who had the same reaction. As the opening chords rang out, he looked at the clock: 7pm. Then the windows: fully bright. Then back at the band, where two musicians were starting to sing distinctive “Ooo-ah oo-ah” sounds over one of 1997’s most popular riffs.

Then they started to sing in earnest.

Everybooooody!

“Oh my gosh!” I looked at him.

Rock your booooody!

“But it’s too early!” He looked at me.

Then we both looked around in disbelief as millennials streamed around us onto the dance floor, summoned by a primal call. I stood frozen for another few seconds, sure it was too early to dance, until the questions began to ring out.

Am I originaaaaal?

Then my body understood this was not a drill. We were going to dance, immediately, as though it was late in the night. I rushed to an open chair as I sang back the answer, “Yeaaaaaaah!”

Am I the oooooonly ooooone?

I deposited my purse and jacket, then gestured helplessly at the friend I’d been standing with. “Yeaaaaaaah!”

I had a beat to rush towards the gathering crowd as we all yelled together while bemused Boomers looked on.

AM I SEXUAAAAL? YEEEAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

For the next hour, we tried to rock our bodies right. There was a break for pizza and toasts, but we were quickly back on the floor for another hour. The band covered Queen and Journey, Lit and the Killers, Kesha and Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan: a litany of undeniable danceable songs. Each brought dozens of ghost-memories of past dances to that same song, whether 3 years ago or 30, in bars and house parties and middle school gyms. It was a glorious, sweaty, sneak attack of a dance party.

When I go out to the movies, I like to think about who is being targeted by each preview. I imagine each audience member is a little bulls-eye, and the screen is shooting out arrows that hit some people and fly by others. Trailers for horror or action movies might whoosh right by me as I casually eat my popcorn, only to freeze with excitement over a new Jane Austin-style period piece for whom I am the exact target audience, the arrow sinking into me with a resounding thunk!

From its opening number, I was directly in the target audience for this wedding band. As I near 40, this is increasingly rare – I feel like the conveyor belt of time keeps moving me farther from the spot that pop culture is directed at, and sometimes I don’t even hear what’s happening there. I have to Google things that I used to just absorb from the zeitgeist, like who is Benson Boone and what is cheugy.

The only thing better than being found by something that’s targeting me is being surrounded by dozens of other members of the target audience, where we’re all getting hit together. I mean, not everyone – as we jumped around to Green Day, I heard my brother-in-law remind his mom that she’d confiscated that CD when she saw it was marked as explicit. Though I felt a twinge of apology for the Boomers lining the room, who might be waiting for Shout or Love Shack, I felt a much greater rush of joy to be back at the center of the entertainment’s target, just for this one night. To be making a whole new set of memories tied to these songs, to relive whenever we hear them next.

The question: What song gets you out of your chair every time? What memories do you have of dancing to it?

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