Nobody Watching

Dance like there’s…

So goes the platitude. Thing is, these days it’s not so much an exhortation to uninhibited joy as a prescription for the opposite. Almost always, now, at my age, at your age, at my age, at your age, young man! Almost always, now, I dance when there literally is no one watching. And only then.

But not tonight, strictly speaking. Not that anyone was watching, particularly, but it wasn’t the usual enforced seclusion. 2016 ended. I wasn’t the only one it ended for.

There was, peripherally, dancing. There were others present. Quite a few. I guess, peripherally, they saw the dancing happen, not that they had any particular reason to notice.

Noticing isn’t the point.

Pointlessly, I danced. The world didn’t end, only the year.

And what a year it’s been. May we never see its dreadful like again.

I can’t tell, through tears, whether the same should be said of the dancing.