Tuesday, June 23, 2015

This is not really happening

As you may nor may not know – you SHOULD know but I scarcely rant about it here, so you may not – I am a Jane Austen addict. I love her writing, her time period, the clothes of her characters, and the dancing! oh, the dancing is perhaps the best part (well, maybe). I love to dance, and Regency line dancing is my favorite kind.
I posted this a year-and-a-half ago when I was about to attend a dance that a dear friend's sister was hosting. Unfortunately (or fortunately) she got married and didn't plan to have any more dances. Well, one thing that's good about being friends with this very dear friend is that we spur each other on. When she thought we should start a writing group, I had reservations but she spurred us on. When her sister got married, I decided these dances must continue. We must have the dances! She had reservations at first, but with my relentless nagging and whining consistent encouragement, we were soon planning our first dance, a Christmas Ball (mentioned very briefly here). We were thrown into the world which is modern-day Regency dancing, searching our library and our homes for music, our brains and our computers for dance instructions, and our closets for what to wear. Planning our first dance was a little overwhelming at times, since we were entirely in charge of it (though her sister did give us a few helpful tips) and had no one to ask for help. We ended up having the dance in my living room on December 12, 2014. It was a great success! We each called five dances and I think only one of them gave anyone too much trouble. It lasted three hours and that was not enough.
We planned to have four dances a year, once a season, as often as we could while still having lives, but not so infrequent as to make everyone (well mostly us) very, very sad. We'd have several small free dances in my house, then branch out into inviting everyone in the town and renting a space, asking for donations to cover that. Due to extreme busyness, we did not have a dance in March as we had planned to do, but we are now two days – Two days!!!! – away from our second dance. !!!!!
I know those aren't attached to a sentence and so are grammatically incorrect. That is simply the only way to express my feelings right now. !!!!
My friend and I discussed it over email, and I said this nervousness seemed worse than last time, for some reason. She replied "much worse. I don't remember doing any of this last time." I said "Oh, we were NERVOUS", to which she answered, "I remember being in a hurry and scared, but I don't remember feeling that the sun was never going to rise again and we were going to die."
So yes, that's about how we feel.
Because we are holding it only five days after Midsummer's Day, and because we are dancing upon the lawn of my backyard, the theme of this dance is a Midsummer Night's Dream Ball (we refer to it as the fairy ball for short). It has been incredibly fun to plan the decorations, the food, and the costumes, but in a few short days we'll actually have to do it all! It's terrifying. I vacillate between logically going over each of my dances and my list of things to do and telling myself I can do it, and feeling as though the world will end.
I hope everyone has fun. I am less worried about that than I was last time, though, because many of these people were there last time and they're still coming again so they can't have hated it too much. Mostly I'm worried about being done in time. Okay, I need to stop writing and thinking about this. I'm freaking myself out more.
Anyhow. We're going to be dancing in the grand Regency style, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post. One month and a day ago today I danced in the Assembly Rooms of Bath, where Jane herself danced. There was no grand event, just a sister and myself turning single and casting (props to you if you know those terms). And in two days we'll dance again.
!!!!!
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3 comments:

  1. I second your thoughts !!!!!!!
    I have this odd feeling that once the whole dance goes off well, at the end we will be so relieved that we will be rendered completely and utterly useless.

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  2. A fairy ball sounds like a grand idea!

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    Replies
    1. By the way, I posted this last summer, but for some reason anyone who follows by email got an email saying I just posted it... Blogger is weird sometimes. ;)
      So thanks for the comment! The ball did come off well, so I think it was a good idea! ;)

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