I had my first belly dancing lesson this week. On Sunday my younger sister married a man of Iraqi and Syrian descent. The wedding was intimate, beautiful, and quiet, but the reception was another story.
It began demurely enough. Everyone politely clapped as the bridal party was introduced, and then laughed sweetly as the bride and groom made their entrance to the theme of Indiana Jones. We all waited patiently for our turn at the buffet which included prime rib, chicken breasts, and a lovely assortment of baklava.
They cut the pumpkin chocolate chip cake, completely suited to an autumn wedding, and then we watched father and daughter dance to Louis Armstrong’s “What a wonderful world.” It was so touching. So moving. So serene.
But then the lights dimmed and the music changed to something similar to what you might expect to hear from a snake charmer. Remember that ol’ childhood ditty we all got in trouble for singing?
There’s a place in France where the women wear no pants.
There’s a hole in the wall so the men can see it all.
I’m positive that’s the song they were playing. Only it was much more sensual and the words were in another language, so I don’t know if they were saying the part about the hole in the wall.
Suddenly all the women in the groom’s family took to the dance floor. Beautiful ladies with finely coiffed black hair and eyelashes so long you would get scratched if you stood too close, were wearing halter tops and satin pants slit all the way to their thighs. They executed the most beautiful, graceful moves I have ever seen in real life. Their hips swayed in hypnotic circles, but it was the seductive motioning of their hands that really made the whole thing very sexy.
Much to my surprise, the groom’s mother motioned for me to join them. I picked hubby’s tongue up so it wouldn’t get stepped on, and tentatively headed out to the floor.
Having grown up in a good Baptist home, I can tell you I have absolutely no dancing experience, and still retain just enough inhibitions to feel like a fool when I try. In the world I grew up in, it was no secret that premarital sex was a sin because it might lead to dancing.
Hubby’s Quaker background wasn’t any more lenient, so when we dance we simply cling to each other as tightly as we can and sway back and forth, each of us praying desperately that the other won’t lose balance. One time, many years ago, hubby tried more intricate moves at his company Christmas party, but the deejay made him leave the floor because he kept knocking into people.
I stood in front of the groom’s mother, and listened carefully. “Move your feet like this,” she instructed as she took tiny little steps on her toes. Forward two, backwards two, and somewhere in there she moved a couple steps to the side. It seems that if you move your feet just so, your hips will automatically follow in a slow, graceful, seductive manner. And then you can tuck one hand behind your head while the other waves through the air, motioning for all to come hither and gaze upon your beauty. Or, if you are really talented, you can move both hands in a way that causes the weak-willed and easily seduced to come forth and worship your writhing body.
No one worshiped me that day, except maybe my two-year-old who thought I was doing the Baby Bop hop. I stood on my toes and lurched two steps forward and two steps back. My hips refused to cooperate, so I tried incorporating the sideways steps, and nearly lost my balance. The only thing I could convince my hands to do was tuck my hair behind my ears, straighten my sweater, and occasionally wave at my other Caucasian, non-dancing, relatives who couldn’t decide whether to look away from my humiliation or laugh their behinds off.
Suddenly, all the women on the dance floor started trilling their tongues in a high pitched sound that, frankly, scared the jeepers out of me. The groom’s mother shouted over the bedlam, “It’s an expression of joy!”
Since moving my hands and hips in any sort of graceful movement was a completely futile effort, I decided to be joyful from the sidelines. Unfortunately, you can’t teach an old Baptist new tricks.
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