Dancing Barefoot in the Kitchen
There’s this commercial where a young couple is walking hand-in-hand in the the park during the Fall. There is no dialogue and no need for it. I don’t recall the product or service being advertised. I’m going to guess it’s one of those Diamonds Are Forever commercials.
I just remember how they walked along, in love, and then caught up to a much older couple walking much more slowly. And then how, in order to keep walking and not disturb the pace of the elders, they *Let Go Of Each Other’s Hand, sort of smiled at each other and came around each side of the older man and woman and reconnected and kept walking.
But the younger woman, now ahead of the couple walking slowly, glances back and catches the eye of the older woman.
And they smile at each other.
And they get it. There’s ‘in love’ and then there’s Into Love. If you ask me anyway.
The first time I saw this commercial I resisted the eye roll (I’m a guy. It’s in The Rules…we have to roll our eyes at this sort of commercial)…and let myself think about how well they portrayed Journey. How well they captured the mellowed Finally Stopped Rushing Needlessly of the elder couple. How the younger couple, because they were walking too, were appreciated for their youth and all the ways They Didn’t Know The Didn’t Know. And how the elder couple smiled at them as if to, in the smiling, tell them, without words, “You’ll get here. You Will. And we can promise you it will look different than you think.”
It’s my strong belief, that that Getting There isn’t a newness…but a Return. A homecoming.
*Letting Go Of Each Other’s Hand. Did you catch that? When I saw the commercial a few more times, it began landing with precision: that there are times where you find yourself Letting Go like that, metaphorically…proverbially…whatever you want to call it. In the commercial everyone was smiling gently with no small measure of understanding. I like too how the elder couple stayed constant…slow…sure…steady…and secure…while the youngers drifted apart, not for very long…but apart. And then came back together.
It matters to all of us that there are couples much further down the road, or just up ahead around the bend, who’ve seen it all too. The commercial conveyed Letting Go as a momentary happening.
But sometimes the moments last longer than we wish they did. Sometimes the hands never come back together.
I’m looking for a quote by Tozer, I believe. It’s something like “…returning to the place you began and knowing it for the first time.” I can’t get it out of my head, and at the same time, I can’t recall it exactly. And it’s driving me nuts. If anyone knows it, please tell me what it is.
So.
I have been thoughtful, lately, a lot, of the first few steps Cute Redhead and I took together. I think of the silliness of premarital counseling (read: no one listens, none of us listened, and no one ever is going to listen, so let’s all be real about it lol). No need to bore anyone with any personal info about how she and I have, many times, stepped on each other’s feet learning to Waltz. There’s nothing new I can tell anyone who’s already on the dance floor.
But I titled this post “Dancing Barefoot In The Kitchen” because it conveys (or I want it to, anyway) to me a house in desperate need of a housekeeper, dinner started twice now because the first pot of pasta boiled the water into vapor and then scalded itself into the metal for the rest of eternity, homework, jobs, living paycheck to paycheck or with excess, loving like cats and dogs (that is, when there’s time) (and there’s not), and all the other moving parts that make up Journey.
And the times where, in the midst of the insanity, I’ve snared Cute Redhead who’s tried to pass through the kitchen safely, swung her into me to dance. With music. Or no music. Or just to give her a hug so that we can recite our famous lines to each other:
Either Of Us: “I love you.”
Then The Other (all forlorn and resigned): “No you don’t…*sigh*, but that’s nice of you to say.”
And then, having walked around the promise that We’ll Get There, and holding hands again, we keep walking.
And dancing.
Todd – I always loved that commercial…. I would see Greg and I as both couples…. wierd, huh? And of course you know how important I think it is to hold hands :)
Glad I’m not the only one who remembers that one—and I love how you saw yourselves in both sets of characters!