Slow Dancing

I love country music. I love the stories and the feeling and the redneck honesty.


This past weekend we went to Big Valley Jamboree which was straight up fantastic. Our first night was eventful to say the least.

To make a long story very short, we were towards the front and for the last concert there was a mad rush of people running from the back to the front. I had a girl face-plant and get her head stuck in my chair, others were tripping and falling and pushing and yelling. It was a GONG show! Needless to say, 3 chairs got destroyed, my mom got punched by some drunk idiot pushing through the crowd and I lost my mind on a guy with a cigarette smoking in my dads face. So we decided to relocate. The getting through the crowd was a nightmare and my heart rate was way beyond what it should have been. We drug our broken 3 legged chairs to the handicapped seating area and I was mad, upset, shaking and crying from the shoving and the close proximity of angry drunk people.

Once I caught my breath, I began to look around and what I saw brought tears to my eyes. 2 girls in the handicapped seating area threw their arms around me and starting dancing to the music with the most beautiful smiles on their faces. One was hilarious and kept pretending to shoot me – over and over again until I fell on the ground like I had been hit. The other told me her parents had died and was all alone in a group home and asked my mom if she could be her mom.

As we were dancing and chatting, I looked over to see an older down syndrome couple slow dancing to Blake Shelton’s song “Austin” right then and there I lost it. It was the purest sweetest love I have ever witnessed. Every hair on my arm was standing up, and tears had filled my eyes. The lady looked over and smiled and pointed so proudly to her wedding band and told us they had been married for 2 years. I have never seen a couple so obviously and unashamedly in love. I watched him gently touch her face wearing his lopsided cowboy hat, as they swayed out of beat with the music. Their world was perfect. In the midst of the chaos and noise, they were so quiet and in love.

This is the way the world is supposed to be.

I really want to live my life like that. That in the insane and bizarre world, I want to be found slow dancing, making the world a more beautiful place.