When we dance...

"Sabes que seria la mujer más feliz si bailas conmigo diario?" Dije el domingo mientras trabajabamos en el patio afuera y tomamos un break para bailar cuando empezó una buena canción.

"Do you know I'd be the happiest woman if you dance with me everyday?" I told my husband on Sunday afternoon while we were doing some house projects outside and a good song prompted us to dance.

When I had dreams of being Nancy Kerrigan...

Growing up in rural Minnesota, dancing wasn't often on my mind. Though many young kids in my state like me may have started out figure skating (land of 10,000 lakes are frozen half the year there) or I had many friends do gymnastics or cousins who did jazz or tap dance, I never considered myself a dancer.

Dancing was never something I thought I could do. Whether it's because I didn't know how or because I had this idea that dancing was "wrong" (think Footloose and super conservative community), I just always said "I don't dance."

Yet, it's funny how today, dancing is one of my favorite pastimes. Ironically, dancing is how Walter and I first met. Granted in the beginning I had no idea what I was doing, but 10 years later we're getting better. Things were pretty awkward at the beginning and a lot of misstepping, laughing, apologizing and stopping to start over and try again. We had to figure out our rhythm and I had to learn how to follow his steps.

We make a pretty good team on the dance floor on Saturday nights or on our rooftop patio dancing the afternoons away. And I was reminded of the simple power found in telling your partner what you need and want when I told Walter that I want to dance every day with him. Even after a decade together, he can't read my mind. And he still needs me to tell him what I need.

Maybe for you it's not dancing, but there's something else that connects you, that sparks a fire, that makes you laugh, that helps you stay together.

So often, we get distracted. We get stressed. We get overwhelmed. We get upset. And so often we turn those negative emotions against our partners. When really, we need to be a team and work together to fight all the other crap that gets thrown our way.

For us, that means we dance.

When we dance, we laugh.

When we dance, we connect.

When we dance, we're reminded of the young and fun love that first brought us together.

One of our spontaneous street dances

What about you? What keeps you grounded, connected and in love with your partner? Don't forget to tell them.