dancing, accidentally

we are dancing, accidentally. it started out as a hug, but now i am watching the world over his shoulder sway slowly back and forth. he loves to do this, to stop in the middle of everything, but usually i pull away after a minute or two, afraid i'll get caught in the moment and forget my train of thought. i am always having important trains of thought. but this time, eva cassidy is singing in the background. the cd must have been playing all day, but i don't notice this until we are dancing.

in an hour, we will walk down our dark, rain-filled street and up the block to the irish pub where two friends are waiting to take us out to dinner. we will be celebrating this momentous day, the day i matched into my first choice residency. it will still seem a little surreal, even then. they will laugh about my instinctive response to the good news - a spring cleaning spree that settles me back in, letting me imagine myself here for four more years. but we won't tell them about this moment when all the shaking out of rugs and dusting behind radiators is over, and we are hellishly dirty, and he hugs me close.

we are dancing, and nothing is more important than this. there are no trains of thought today. my mind is spinning in a circle around a hope that turned into a fact, and it seems appropriate that my body should be spinning too. we dance until the next song starts and ends, and as the dance turns back into a hug, i lean in and wait there just a bit longer. i smell the rain on the street, and the lemony clean of the floor, and the faintness of cologne still on his neck. i feel like i haven't been this awake in a very long time. perhaps that's a consequence of accidental dancing.