My friend Julie Anna had never seen Clueless. That's how it started. She posted the confession on her Instagram account, and a movie night was immediately scheduled to rectify the error. (Paul Rudd, you guys. The king of the blandly handsomes.*)
But a couple of days before our Clueless watch party, Julie Anna and Courtney found a flyer at the YMCA.
LINE DANCERS!
JAMBOREE DANCE AT SEAPLANE OPRY HOUSE SOUTH OF MOULTRIE
And somehow, when Friday night rolled around, the three of us wound up in Courtney's car, headed to meet the rest of our country fusion classmates at the Seaplane Opry House.
We drove around what appeared to be fairgrounds, maybe a deserted airport, in the pitch black, my nausea growing with every turn. "Maybe we won't find it," I thought, thinking fondly of Alicia Silverstone and Julie Anna's big, comfy couch. But then, in the distance, colorful Christmas lights and a slew of cars. My stress vitamins kicked in, and we laughed and giggled nervously as we approached the door, my friends in their cowboy boots and me in my Keds.
Do you remember that scene in Dan in Real Life, when Steve Carrell and Emily Blunt go dancing at the hole-in-the-wall bar? Or The Family Stone, when Luke Wilson and Sarah Jessica Parker do the same? Replace the actual bar with a church basement-style potluck, and you'll have some idea of what we walked into that night.
To the left of the door were church tables all lined up with chairs facing the dance floor for optimal viewing. Plates were filled with fried chicken and pimento cheese, and the average age of the people seated had to be 65. Under red lights and a disco ball was the dance floor, and up on a stage was a live band -- the Southern Comforts.
I felt like we'd opened the wardrobe door into Narnia.
Outside, it was cold, and still, somehow, January. The world was burning, literally and figuratively. The hatred of the Internet, the incompetence of the Senate, climate change, Kobe Bryant.
But inside, it was warm, and there was dancing, and no one cared who we were or why we were there or what was happening in the rest of the world.
Inside, George Strait and Hank Williams still reigned supreme. Couples who looked like they'd been there for decades dotted the dance floor, and there, in the very front, was our YMCA class.
For nearly three hours, we watched and danced and laughed and marveled. We joked about the sacredness of the space, only it wasn't funny, not really. All of a sudden we felt like we understood Pam Beesly's infamous "I feel God in this Chili's tonight." Because God really is at Chili's, and on dance floors, and in honky tonks.
We walked into that room, and everyone was exactly who they were, no pretenses, no airs, no judgments. I didn't need to worry about my Keds, or my wool sweater, or not fitting in, or messing up steps, because no one was paying attention. They were too busy having fun.
There was freedom under that disco ball, I swear.
I didn't grow up dancing. I went to my seventh grade social, and I vaguely recall doing the limbo, but it was my first and only school dance. In college, I participated in Jamboree, a musical-esque situation I can hardly begin to describe here, and it's really something only Christian college attendees would understand anyway. But even in that, I was terrible, probably because I'd never really danced before, and because rhythm is a real struggle. I'd rather be diagramming sentences somewhere.
So in October when Julie Anna invited me to country fusion class at the Y, I could never have imagined I'd be line dancing in Moultrie with strangers just four months later.
I stumbled all over myself in that first class -- several fellow students seemed deeply concerned for my welfare -- but I had an absolute blast. I loved being bad at something, but trying anyway. I loved no expectations and no judgments and no one really paying me any mind. I loved laughing with my friends and jumping with excitement when I finally got a move right.
Last Friday night was just like class, but somehow even better. No judgments, no expectations, lots of laughter. And surprisingly, all those moves I'd been learning in class? They translated to the actual dance floor. Sure, there was the occasional misstep, a hip bump or shoulder touch with a stranger, but again: No one cared. Including me.
As the dance floor began to clear, we headed to the car, breathless with joy. We found a 90s country playlist on Spotify, and all the way back to Thomasville, we blared Brooks & Dunn and John Michael Montgomery and Reba, singing at the top of our lungs. I felt 16 again, but with none of the angst and a little more wisdom.
So yes, we could have stayed home in our sweatpants watching Clueless, and that would have been fine, fun even. We would have laughed and commented on Paul Rudd's inability to age, but it would have been so passive. It would have happened to us, instead of the other way around.
Last Friday, we did something. We got off the couch and off our phones (mostly) and danced like no one was watching, because no one really was.
I can't wait to do it again.
* Just kidding. We all know that honor is reserved exclusively for Seth Meyers.
