The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.  ~Carl Jung

You know sometimes I can be a bit of a goof.  That is, for no reason I  just start acting silly.  Doesn’t matter where I’m at, who’s around me, what I’m doing, sometimes I just need to bust free from the moment and escape before coming back to “normal”.  I’ve always been like this, and I forget how my family and friends are just used to me.  Even Kyle knows no difference.  He either ignores me or joins in on the fun.

You see these outbursts have created some very funny scenes and characters.  Example, I’ve always carried the movie Flash Dance in my heart, not because of the good storyline or acting, cause it reached neither, but it was a movie about the passion and love to fulfill a dream to dance.  Ever since I was a little girl I’ve always wanted to dance.  All sorts of dance.  I did take a year of tap when I was a little tyke, but the lessons and costumes became expensive, not to mention it was difficult to get us back and forth to the lessons.  Thus ended my career in dance.  Well, that is to say if I actually had a talent, I could have made a career out of it, which actually I think I could have.

So what does Flash Dance have to do with my silliness?  There are two reasons.  Maniac by Michael Sembello and What a Feeling by Irene Cara performed by Jennifer Beals with body double, Marine Jahan.  I made a dance to each song similar to the ones performed in the movie, kinda.  In fact, one time my sister and I were somewhere and I think it was Maniac came on the radio or TV, and it seemed to stop me in my tracks. I stopped, and turned toward my sister with a smirk on my face, and instantly she knew what I was thinking.  Nicole laughed, gave me a smile and replied, “Yes Heather”, with a ‘My sister is so weird but funny’ type of tone to her voice.  Actually I think I’ve had more injuries resulting from that dance than from snowboarding.  Once, when Nicole was home from college, I was kicking around the living-room to What A Feeling and I kicked her crate full of video tapes with the top of my foot.  I actually thought my foot was broken.  My sister busted out laughing and my brother just sat there with a smirk on his face like ‘idiot’.  I even think he rolled his eyes at me.  On another occasion, I was wearing a long skirt and one of the songs same on the TV for a commercial.  I instantly started dancing and flailing my arms and legs around, and the next thing I knew I was laying with my shoulders square to the floor.  I kicked too high for my skirt and the makeshift booby trap pulled my grounded leg out from under me.  Ahh I guess that happens.  On a side note, as I’m typing this What a Feeling just came on the radio!

Anyway, there have been more songs that I have made up dances.  As an influential kid, besides adoring Princess Leia, I loved Wonder Woman!  Yep the cartoon and the shows.  Of course I was too young to watch the original shows, but every summer I caught the re-runs.  I used to run around in my swim suit, with a head band, those workout wrist bands, and a jump rope on my hip.  I loved the fact that we both had dark hair.  Over the years I created my impersonation of Wonder Woman, and yes it includes spinning around in a circle with my hair in a ponytail, loosely placed, so it would come out and I could run off to save the day.

Then let’s not forget Fame! …. remember my name.  O yes, back to the first paragraph where I wanted to be a trained dancer.  I watched the show Fame on Sundays and loved it, loved Debbie Allen, loved the idea of going to a school to dance! My “Fame” dance included trying to do a split leap and yelling out FAME!.  Of course it was more fun to do it across a doorway to take people off guard in another room.  Now I’m not saying what I accomplished was a split leap, but it was funny.

Then there’s the Dirty Dance dance.  No it’s not bad!  It included placing your arms out in front of you in the air as if someone was dancing with you and moving your hips and feet in a cha cha motion.  Then doing this in a circle just as Jennifer Grey did when she practiced by herself in the movie.

My friend Christina and I made up a few little ditties.  One was the steam press, where you’d set a folded piece of clothing on a chair and the other sits on it and makes a “Purshhhh’ sound, like an industrial iron pressing the cloths with steam.  And of course my favorite, the Bee.  We would fly around making buzzing sounds like we were bees, then we would move our backsides in a direction to touch someone with our tooshies and say, “Buzzzzzip” as if we stung them and then fly off.  If you can imagine a couple of grown young ladies buzzing around you and then stinging you, it was hilarious!  What brought that one on, I truly don’t remember but it was fun.  Ironically, now I’m allergic to bees…

Now I have to discuss Solid Gold.  Yep another one of those shows I watched as a kid in the early 80’s.  It was kinda like a prelude to MTV.  They had their Solid Gold dancers, performing routines to pop songs.  Sometimes they would have a guest singer or group perform their hit song and little skits.  I would again, dress in my swimsuit and try to mimic their moves to the music, so when I heard the tune later on the radio, I would bust out in dance.  Well, this brings me to my final dance, which I did not make up, but has since become a classic.  Naturally it was called Solid Gold, created and executed by my friend Keith.  We were working together at the Ground Round and you know how things get started when you start joking around.  Again, I don’t know how it got started, but I believe I gave my demonstrations for Fame and Maniac, and then Keith out danced me with the best dance ever!  He was standing with his back toward me, turned his upper body around with a jazz hand in front of his face yelling Solid Gold!  Then somehow he was crawling on the floor in my direction.  Hilarious doesn’t even truly describe it!  Not only did I love Solid Gold as a kid, but he made it into such a dance that honored the show.  It was great! Over the years I’ve tried to recreate the dance but alas I don’t have the grace he extruded and his performance power.

I’ve never really seen Kyle act like this and I don’t think he will.  He’s never really wanted to act anything out or mimic a character.  He is just content building his Lego’s and playing with his cars.  Well, nowadays playing with his video games.  To each his own…