The Waltz

At a Finnish wedding, the tradition is for the newlyweds to dance to a wedding waltz during their reception. It doesn’t matter what kind of wedding it is, the waltz is an essential part of the program.

I hate the waltz. Compared to the Latin dances that I have been learning, the waltz is too stately and prudish to be of much fun. So I have jokingly told my boyfriend that at our wedding we will not be dancing the waltz.

In part this is to gauge his response to my presumption that we are getting married (a bit sneaky, I know). In part it is also to make sure he knows that I am most definitely not Finnish (though I tell him that I am 50% Finnish, 50% Indian and 40% American).

When I last told him there would be no waltz at our wedding, my boyfriend didn’t flinch at this challenge, to his immense credit. He just laughed. At which point I realized I didn’t even know how to waltz, which only made him laugh even more.

Somehow, after this exchange, he decided to put on some waltz music and grab a hold of me. We started bouncing across his tiny living room. The dance itself was still uninteresting to me but I found myself still laughing at the thought of someone seeing us and wondering why we were dancing in our kitchen. I was also unduly impressed that my otherwise rhythmically challenged boyfriend was dancing so well.

We both were trying to figure out the dance as we went along so I stepped on his toes more than once while we sashayed around. Despite our lack of knowledge (in my case) and practice (in his), we tried increasingly difficult combinations.

That is, until he slipped in his woolen socks, and I, trying to avoid the puzzle sitting on the side table that we have been working on for the past 9 months, was dragged down with him. We both were so surprised that we lay on the floor laughing at the sight of the other’s giggling.

In that moment, I decided that I liked the waltz after all even though it is decidedly less exciting than bachata, merengue or salsa. There may be space between your bodies and no alluring movement of your hips. The music may be orchestral and (to my unrefined ears) boring. But as I looked into his sparkling eyes in the middle of his kitchen, I saw happiness and contentment. And there was nowhere else either of us would rather be.