a love letter to Mercer Dancehall

I love Sunday afternoons at Mercer. I love meeting up with all the dancers (regulars and first-timers, travelers and dabblers, couples and singles) who are there for whatever reason: to live, to forget, to be swept up, to find love, to exercise, to not be alone, to be held and to hold, or to leave behind sorrow, loneliness, hardship, and heartache for a little while.  All of us are free for those three hours.  All of us smile in our own ways.  Nothing else exists. This is afternoon church even for those who did get their religion in the morning. 

Week after week, I climb the stairs to the door - the same steep wood steps that many of us will hobble down afterwards, grabbing the railing - and my heart pounds with the sound of the guitars and drums inside.   Movement flashes through the glass doors.   This is not a place to arrive fashionably late - the music starts right at 3pm and the dancers file in 15 minutes beforehand.  Gay, the owner, always asks how I am and I always grin “so happy to be here” as she takes my $10 bucks and fastens the neon ticket bracelet around my wrist. 

Through these doors is a full sensory experience:  the clean smell of aftershave; the hush of boots scuffing the wood floor; the colorful swirls of dresses flying to a fast tune; the feeling of my nerves as I walk out on the floor for my first dance; the sound of low voices, a twangy steel guitar, sometimes a flighty fiddle; and the taste of joy.  All of us are welcomed in to catch these moments of life while we can.