Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

13th March 2009
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I’m back! If you’ve been following this new blog I thank you for your patience! It seems last week was “see if you can recover from THIS crap, week”. Life threw me a curve ball last week and this week’s been me with a low platelet count and low energy, recovering from the week before. Again I say that I’ll never ever take my health for granted.

Back to the bus stories.

It was the week before Christmas and I was riding the bus with the few poor souls like me who were working the break rather than enjoying the southern hemisphere summer. Kiwis tend to bugger off from work between December and early January, so the buses are bereft of passengers, and the offices are as well. The only benefit to working at this time is you’re pretty much left to your own devices. It’s all horizon and no interruptions.

That means no distractions. It made it easier for me to see this beautiful sight this December morning: Two people dancing, teasing and playing together like two school kids. God it was beautiful, and they were dressed just like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

I was awestruck.

What made it even more amazing was that the two really seemed to be made for each other. They both had Down Syndrome, but that obvious fact wasn’t the reason for their bond. First, the guy was doing things like pushing his girl; she liked it. Then he nearly pushed her over, in that playful 9 year old way, and she loved that too. She pushed him back! They rough housed like two people who’ve known each other forever.

Then they danced.

And I couldn’t stop watching! He spun her around the bus stop; they were waiting to go the opposite direction from my bus. Where were they headed, I wondered, but I couldn’t even focus on that. Their dance moves were so spontaneous and yet so skillful at the same time.

I wish this bus would stop moving so I could watch some more!

As my bus lurched out of sight I couldn’t help wondering if I was as happy as those two were in that shining, graceful moment? Have I ever been that happy and uninhibited?

The sad part is not that they had Down Syndrome, but that I’m not sure of the answer to that question.

When was the last time you were that uninhibited?

(Photo credit: Sit transit gloria mundi)

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Nathaniel Flick

I'm a Front End Web Developer passionate about usability. My primary specialties are HTML5, CSS3, SCSS, LESS, and jQuery and I am very familiar with Foundation and Bootstrap frameworks. I've worked on top of and with WordPress, Shopify, Rails, Python, and ASP.net/Umbraco frameworks.

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