Time Won't Give Me Time

In the 80's, we danced with our arms way up high, and spun around slowly with intricate little footsteps. Perhaps this move, with our bodies open to the wind, was an expression of freedom from the tight, dancy shoulder-shakes of disco, a smoothing-out of the Travolta-esque rapid-arm bag punch. Maybe we were reaching upwards for four minutes at a time to draw the air and sky and sun toward us as we entered an earth-conscious age that joined us in world-wide human love and ended the Cold War. The time proved us eager to dissolve the board room establishment, escape land-line constraints, and render "the Man" powerless. We greeted each other with open arms, hugged trees, and lifted ourselves into the bliss of self-awareness. Our dancing jived with our anthropology, a fluid uprising of collective souls.

Debasing these noble evolutions through truth and vanity, I must admit that logistics played more of a role in our dancing style that any earthy or spiritual expressions, because we wore huge clothing. Our physical movements had to accommodate for our enormous outfits, and our sleeves in particular. Dolman sleeves, they were, and our jackets and shirts had big shoulder pads and tight cuffs, with yards of swingy, wingy fabric to connect them. The nightclub crowd looked like a party of bats trying walk upright, moving with arms above our heads and cautious little steps.

We wore our big, beautiful sleeves in lime green and neon yellow, with matching bangle bracelets, pounds of them at a time, jangling above our heads. Girls and boys alike rocked those sleeves sewn into grey pin-striped zoot suits, in fatigue army jackets, and in torn black sweatshirts (which made us all, instantly, flashdancers). Eventually our pants went dolman ("can't touch this"), and we were sailing through the 80's like paratroopers, arms and legs wide open.

Now, I am a creature of habit not only in my day-to-day, but from decade-to-decade. I've made my bed, every single morning, since I could walk. I cannot sleep without shutting all the closet doors in the house and whispering the prayer that I learned before I could speak. And when I feel crappy, really blue and despondent, I play a smooth beat like "Clock of the Heart" and dance around with my arms up high above my head. For thirty years, nothing can compete with that song to get me nearer to cool again, I close my eyes with a shy smile on my face, and I find comfort in every breathy word. Today, I needed to breathe like that again, and smile that smile again, and dance just that way. I wore the closest dolman top I could find, a whispy robe that flows around my arms, and turned up the speakers to hear my youtubed savior, George Alan O'Dowd. I gave myself 3:40 break from my chores, and danced like I did when I won my junior year dance contest. And like the clock of my heart, it worked.

Here, try it yourself, and check the billowy lab-coat:



PS. If you don't feel quite awesome yet, or you have nothing much going on right now, check out this original video. You don't want to miss the sleeves on Boy George's Amish-inspired overcoat at about 1:20.