Dancing While the World Falls Apart

When Roger and I wed in 1992 we didn't have a song that in any sense was "ours." We had our particular romantics, but no song. We liked much of the same music, and often listened to our favorite oldies, only introducing contemporary stuff in small doses. In 1997, though, we heard a piece of music that became our song. We played it often on the stereo in our house in Santa Cruz, in the room we called the Fireplace Room, and we danced to it. It grounded us, it reminded us of our dreams, of what it meant to be alive and in love with each other. It reduced the chaotic noise of the world, and focussed our attention to just the moment, our dance together. It was a small sweet song (you might even think it's insipid), but it was ours.

In 2003 we sold our house in Santa Cruz and rented for a year while we both worked before we could move up to the house we had bought in Washington. We didn't listen to our song. The CD was packed away in a box, and we didn't have an iPod. Really, we were too busy and distracted to take the time. When we finally moved up to Washington, we bought an iPod and put nearly a thousand songs on it, but not that one. We were now living our dream. Our work was the work we did for ourselves. We were spending our days together. We were living and breathing what we had envisioned. Two years passed here without even thinking of it.

Suddenly the world fell apart. Not our personal world. It's never our personal world, but the bigger outside world that shreds our hearts. Ancient enmities hold the world hostage. Ancient beliefs justify everyone's actions. We sense the ultimate outcome of this macabre dance in the Middle East. There is no resolution but that one, and we see it and know it. That is why we ache with despair, because it seems inevitable.

Then, I remembered how dancing to our song assuaged our broken hearts. I hunted and found the old CD and updated the iPod. We played it for the first time in our house the other night, and we cried and danced. Slow dance. Loving dance. We let the world slip away and remembered that our small dream is sometimes all there is to sustain us while the wide world falls apart.

you and me
by Patti Larkin

you and me baby
we're impossible
who'd have thought that we could
you and me babe
we're nobody's fools
we are nothing but good
you and me babe
we're something else
who's to say we're not
you and me babe when all else fails
we have what we want

this is all i wanted
all i've waited for

you and me babe
we fell down laughing
couldn't get out fast enough
who's to say there's a
right or wrong way
we don't believe in that stuff
you and me took a breath of air
and spit out all the dust
others tire of their love affairs
leave em there to rust

this is all i wanted
all i've waited for
this all is wanted
all i've waited for

you and me baby
we know everything
and we have been everywhere
you and me babe we
grew a couple of wings
and flew away on a dare
you and me
in a silent room
we prayed for what we got
forever after will be too soon
cause we will have what we want

this is all i wanted
all i've waited for
this is all i wanted
all i've waited for