I’ve been pondering this question since I was a young woman hopping in my socks at the Y with a girlfriend.  Why do women like to dance more than men? I thought about it again at a birthday party for a friend,  when I excused my husband with, “You probably don’t feel like dancing,” and urged my girlfriends to put down their wine glasses and get out there with me.

I probably should stop trying to figure out dance-averse males. They have their reasons. When I asked a guy who was hanging back in the kitchen why women like to dance more than men, he laughed and gave me the Norman Mailer line. “Hey, don’t you know? Tough guys don’t dance.”

It could be that some men don’t dance because they think they have to be really expert at it. Even though we would applaud them for moving just a little, shuffling their feet even, they approach dancing like laying tile or building a deck as something that must be perfectly executed. Or not attempted at all.

I know it’s a generalization. There are men born to boogie and women who would rather clean grout than shake a tail feather. Perhaps, too, it’s only my generation.

But what I have observed is that women, more often than men, dance just for the pleasure of moving to music. They will grab hands with a three-year-old and jump up and down and call it dancing. They will hold a baby in their arms and twirl around. They will dance with their dogs, dog-willing. And they will dance with each other. Men do not kick off their shoes, yank a buddy from the bar and say,  “Let’s dance.”  At least not the guys I know.

Perhaps men worry that if they are dancing people are watching and judging. Actually if women are watching they are more likely thinking – wow, how cool, how bold, how self-assured. How lucky for her.

A friend scouts around  for men wearing Hawaiian shirts to lure onto the dance floor, figuring, I guess, that if you go out in public wearing something covered with pineapples and macaws you don’t mind, in fact, may even welcome, calling attention to yourself.

Dancing women consider it a form of self expression, not a talent show. They do not aspire to be taken for Ginger Rogers or Lady GaGa. They hear the drums and the juices start to flow.  Maybe it’s tribal.

We are fine about being amateurs. We know that dancing, except for ballroom, is an imperfect act. It’s basically improv plus hips and attitude.

There are lovely exceptions to dancing as a woman-dominated sport. A conservative friend ended up with a most liberal fellow because he taught her to tango. And is there anything sweeter than watching long time couples glide onto the dance floor perfectly in sync?

I have a card of a woman dancing barefoot in a red dress – lone dancers are so often in red dresses – painted by Anna Oneglia, with a quote by Anne Lamott. It says, “And she is going to dance. Dance hungry, dance full, dance each cold astonishing moment, now when she is young and again when is old.”

I would add dance happy, dance to heal yourself, dance away sadness, dance under the moon, dance to bring rain, dance in the moment because you must and the world needs your good energy. And by all means, if you don’t wish to dance alone, grab another dancing woman.

At his birthday party Peter Cooper greeted guests with the declaration, “80 is the new 79.” Then he smiled impishly, pointed to the bar and led you to his mountain view.

At her birthday party Alice Waco asked for suggestions on what new challenges she might take on in her next decade, this also being Alice’s 80th. Most agreed it would be something extraordinary and not found on most senior activity listings.

Having friends turn oh-my-God 80 when you’re in your 60s probably isn’t that much of a surprise. But it does make one ask, how did this cool person I hang out make it so well to 80?

Peter and Alice don’t know each other but with their birthday parties on the same weekend it gave me a chance to consider what is it about aging that works better for some people than others. I’ve known both of them since they were in high middle age and they’ve always had a busy house full of friends and family. Both have quick minds and a sense of humor, get outraged about injustice, care passionately about the world and are people you hope to sit next to at a dinner party.

They both also might credit vibrant marriages for keeping their sizzle. Alice’s husband Bill was killed in a bicycling accident seven years ago when he was 79. Before that they were always “Bill and Alice, Alice and Bill,” and if you were describing them, you’d have to add that she used to be a nun and he used to be a priest and so, of course, they were made for each other.

Peter is married to Robin and when you ask her, “How’s Peter” her first response is almost always, “He’s wonderful.”

You could tell you’d arrived at Alice’s party because of the bumper stickers. Alice spent years running the Sonoma County Peace and Justice Center. When she was a teacher, she led the biggest strike in Santa Rosa (Ca.) history. If there’s a demonstration or vigil against war Alice is there with a candle, a sign and if need be, waiting to be arrested. Not all of her friends lean to the left. At her party an attorney introduced himself as probably the only Republican in the room and everyone applauded.

Peter was a TV guy in New York who traveled the world producing commercials for peanut butter and beer. He and Robin regularly return to New York to see plays, stay up late and visit his childhood buddy, director Mike Nichols.

But when Peter retired he didn’t stop, he simply changed coasts. He got involved in community theater as an actor and director, took writing classes at the junior college, held folk music concerts at his house, raised dogs, became a Californian.

Peter looks like a theater person. At one of his openings he stood on the sidewalk in black turtleneck and tiny earring, chatting up theater goers. He was likely hurting that night. His body is pretty beat up, from surgeries and a couple of car accidents, but he doesn’t talk much about that. The only time you realize he’s slowing down is when he plants himself in a good spot – at his party on the deck looking to Mount St. Helena – and instead of working the room lets the room come to him.

The week before his party Peter had finished a month’s run in the cast Stalag 17, playing the commandant. A guest who saw it told him he’d given her the creeps. He said, “Thank you.”

At her party Alice talked about the Parkinson’s she is now integrating into her life. Then she announced she’d be gone for a while, heading up to the prison in Susanville to do some non-violence training.

Sometimes I feel like our political leaders are involved in a street fight. And it’s getting ugly and scary and we’re not sure what the fight is really about. And who started it and how it will end. But one thing we do suspect is that when it’s over the blood will be on us.

Or it’s like a domestic squabble where the police are called to figure out what’s going on and in the process one of the cops gets shot. And we’re the cop.

I’ve been dealing a lot in images lately because I feel there is such little straight talk on what’s really happening in the free-for-all over the deficit, spending cuts, tax breaks, tax loopholes, entitlements, revenue increases and the debt ceiling.

We’re just sitting there waiting for the fight to end and see how we get hit.

The president likes his metaphors. He says we have to rip off the Band-Aid. He says we have to eat our peas. Tighten the old belts. I know he’s talking to me when he says that and people like me. But, is that everybody? Are the rich eating their peas?

I’ve pretty much stopped paying attention to political leaders of either side who talk about “our seniors” as if they really care. If you care about “our seniors” you don’t bludgeon Medicare and Social Security. Right now I feel like those of us who thought we could rely on both are being pushed to the edge of a cliff and some people are yelling “save them” and others are saying “jump.”

It’s particularly telling when members of Congress talk about “our seniors” as if they aren’t one of us. The average age of both houses of Congress is 58, which is old enough to be long on the AARP mailing list and to move into a retirement community. You’d think they’d relate but they don’t. Is it because nearly half of Congress are millionaires? So they don’t personally worry about safety nets. And so all the talk is about getting rid of programs rather than figuring out a way to save them.

Here’s another image. We like to say we’re all in the same boat but this one feels like the Titanic.
The rich are on top and the rest of us are in steerage. And when the ship starts to take on water, the people in steerage are the first to drown and the people upstairs keep dancing. But then the whole thing goes under. And even the rich are looking around for the security of a life boat.