After a week of sitting in front of a monitor (mornings on the motel Stairmaster notwithstanding), my body felt like the rusty scarecrow on the dance floor. This monthly dance was far out in the country, in a parish hall, and I had driven most of the way on empty roads with my brights on. There were only a dozen of us at the first line-up, but within 20 minutes the hall had a hundred people dancing on the worn, sometimes sticky wooden floor.
"This is the peak dance for us in Maine," someone said. "all the hot dancers are here." It's the state’s version of the Greenfield, Mass dance. People travel for this one, and I recognized several faces from other dances. There was a larger sprinkle of community people though, and the calling was less complex than at an urban dance. We had a contingent of "puppies" too, a group ranging between tweens and twenties, that danced in the new wild way in a clump.
My waltz partner was an eleven year old, Payge, who was one of the better dancers in the puppies. She had a habit of, during the balances, jumping up half her height. "My sister’s over there," she said. "Our parents usually drop us off, though sometimes my dad dances." She told me she likes to sketch the dancers, and later, absorbing my box of photos, she would study intently any shot that showed feet in motion.
I left halfway through the final set. The hall windows glowed orange, and were coated with condensation. It was a brilliant, clear night, and I welcomed the cool air on my face. My car thermometer registered four below zero.
More photos from the evening are on my Flickr site. 
Look, it's me.
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