A Time to Dance by Rose McCormick Brandon

 There's a time to dance. Ecclesiastes 3:4

Laughter and dance go together. The author's father and grandmother.

In an early memory, I’m resting my sleepy head on my grandmother’s knee at the Saturday night community dance. The strains of a kick-up-your-heels reel fills the community center. Grandma sat out most of the jigs, promenades and square dances because her partner, my grandfather, was the band’s fiddler. He played with vigor, bouncing the bow over the strings, his high-trousered belly jiggling as his rhythmic boot thumped the wooden floor. His longish silver hair, wet with perspiration flowed over his brow, skimming the rosy wood of his treasured instrument. 

Dancing, and the music that accompanies it, always warms my insides. My parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins all love to dance. Laughter and dance go together. No one has trouble finding a dance partner at our family weddings. 

One day, in the late stages of pregnancy, after my husband and little daughter left for work and school, I lowered my bulky body onto the sofa hoping our pre-schooler would entertain himself while I rested.  

The author's parents. 

“Mom, Mom, would you like to dance?” Carson had slipped his miniature tweed suit jacket over his yellow pyjamas. The vinyl-coated feet of the pyjamas flapped over the edges of his church shoes. He was dressed for an occasion. 

That day, I didn’t feel like dancing. 

What if tomorrow dancing with Mother should bore him? And a younger, prettier girl take your place? 

I gathered the hem of my fuzzy pink housecoat, planted my moppy slippers on the toy-strewn carpet. With the prince’s small hand resting on my large waistline, our mis-matched bodies shuffled and swayed amongst trains and Tonkas, keeping time to the music. 

The author's maternal grandmother dancing

with her son. 

After a few minutes he announced, “That’s enough!” His road-building business was calling. It was enough, enough to raise me from a lazy couch, into the shower, fresh clothing and make-up. 

When is it time to dance? Always. Because dancing lifts the spirits and fills the mind with good thoughts. 

Lord let me not forget that you planted rhythm in my soul and that I am meant to dance.

***

Rose is the author of four books - Promises of Home – Stories of Canada’s British Home Children, One Good Word Makes all the Difference, He Loves Me Not He Loves Me (with Sandra Nunn) and Vanished (with Shirley Brown) – plus dozens of personal experience pieces, devotionals, short stories and essays. Rose’s work has won awards in the personal experience and short essay categories. Her story, Manitoulin Connections, was published in Chicken Soup for the Soul, O Canada. A member of The Word Guild and The Manitoulin Writers Circle, Rose publishes two blogs: Listening to my Hair Grow (faith writings) and Promises of Home (stories of child immigrants). Rose and husband, Doug, summer on Manitoulin Island where her pioneer ancestors settled and the home of his favourite fishing holes. The rest of the year, they live in Caledonia, Ontario, near their three children and two grandchildren.