A Dream of Dancing Version 2

A Dream of Dancing

In the movie, the actors are dancing, in period clothes, to period music, and then just weaving about the dance floor, clasped in one another’s arms; from time to time the tune changes, but the dancers are the same and wear the same outfits. The camera focuses on the dancer’s feet; they are close together, stepping back and forth in time to the music.

I am dancing with a rather tall, slender young woman wearing a soft wrinkled silk dress that I feel rather than see. We are dancing close together and I have one arm behind her waist and the other one in her hand.

I realize that I am dreaming.

The music is slow waltz time, soft and languorous. I concentrate on feeling my hand behind her waist, I move my hand up to her back… I feel her warm, living body with my fingers, I am feeling the skin and the muscles underneath… arteries, veins, and under it all her living skeleton… I feel her muscles are warm… I feel her muscles warming my fingers…

The dream is pleasant… I want it to go on… the dream goes on… I feel her body with my mind… the dress, her skin, the play of her muscles as she turns forward and back…

The dream ends.

There is a state of feeling in the dream, in which time seems to have stopped, but the dancing doesn’t stop; my hand touches the dancer’s shoulder torso opposite me, in fact behind her in a peculiar fashion which would be difficult to duplicate unless we are melded together, facing each other in one body… there is no awkwardness…

The dance continues, as if the dream had not ended.

The air is cool; it is early morning.