I don’t know why, but lately, for some reason, lots of Cajun cooking shows have been coming up while scrolling. I guess the universe knows that I love Cajun food, music, and such.
So, today, the clouds rolled in and it’s a good time to make a pot of cannellini beans with andouille sausage with lots and lots of chopped peppers and onions, celery and garlic and even some shredded cabbage.
First, I’ll saute those vegetables in some bacon fat until soft. Then in goes the andouille, to infuse the vegetables with that good smoky flavor. After, pour in the cooked beans and let it simmer until dinner time.
Along with that, to freshen things up, I’m making pickled beets and a chopped cucumber salad.
All I need now is a Cajun man and a barn dance with music played by a Zydeco band. I’m always so jealous when I see these Louisiana folks dancing to a live Zydeco band, bodies bumpin’.
I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with eating white beans with andouille sausage and playing some music on the stereo, nice and loud.
I’ve always been a dancer. I started out dancing standing on my daddy’s feet. He was a master “jitterbugger” and danced at the drop of a hat.
I was enrolled in tap dance when I was 4 years old. I took ballet classes as a young child through high school. I even danced in The Nutcracker Suite at the Keller Auditorium. As an adult, I taught dance aerobics for years.
At 47, dance had always been a big part of my life. I was fresh from Mexico where I danced myself almost to death. I learned cumbia and salsa and folk dancing. When I returned to the States, my first goal was to find a place to speak Spanish and to dance.
It was at ChaCha’s where those wishes came true. The Cubans were newly arrived from Guantanamo Bay where they had wiled away their lives imprisoned for two years for trying to leave their country. Their first goal here was to find a dance/social club as soon as they could.
Many were lonely. Many had experienced horrors you can’t imagine. Many missed home. Most did not speak English.
I descended the steps at Cha Cha’s into the basement of the dance club. The music was shaking the walls and the people were shaking the floors. It took about a minute or two for a beautiful dancer named Ramiro to grab my hands as he guided me onto the crowded dance floor.
I won’t go into this story because I’ve written about what happened after that first night in Cha Cha’s in other blog posts. But this is where I learned to dance casino, salsa and rumba, Cuban style.
At first I just copied what Ramiro did. I secretly described the rumba as the chicken dance. As it turns out, I was right. He held me tight for the slow dances but with incredible rhythm and finesse for the rest. I was hooked.
After that, for the next 3 years, days and nights were filled with dance. It was like an attempted murder when that was taken away from me. I thought I would die but I survived but not unscathed.
Ramiro in his love and kindness led me to believe for all this time that I could dance as well as he and the other Cubans. I don’t exaggerate to say that he was the best among them. If I was around any of the Cubans still, you actually could ask them and they would agree.
From my other stories, I know that you know that I have an arm that was affected by polio. Because of that and the subsequent surgeries pertaining to the weakness in my right shoulder, I don’t have a full range of movement. If you know anything about dancing, having a full range of movement in both arms is essentially imperative, so they say. But not to Ramiro.
Ramiro never mentioned my arm. He just made it work. He skillfully used my left arm and the limited capacity of my right arm to spin and twirl me expertly. I don’t think anyone ever noticed… until the night a friend of Ramiro’s asked to dance with me.
This night, there was a gathering at a friend’s house. As always, there was music and people dancing. Ramiro and I, of course, were dancing and drinking and eating and laughing and talking.
It was this same night that I was nearly mortally wounded. I survived but still suffer to a small degree. The scars are still painful. My heart bled then as it does now and my tears still flow with the memory.
Who or what hurt me so terribly that I remember it with a sharp pain in my heart? What happened? Who hurt me and what did he do? Let the guilty be named and let him be prosecuted. His name is La Meda.
You might say that this is overly dramatic, but to me, it is not. Remember, I had been dancing since I was tiny when I was enrolled in tap dance and had classes in ballet. My parents danced in the house and when visiting family and friends. Their nights out would be at dance clubs. Dancing was a big part of my life, polio or no.
La Meda was a Cuban, A so-called friend of Ramiro’s from their days in Guantanamo. I never liked him and I never trusted him. You know how some people can just give you a vibe that you don’t trust, that you don’t like. I knew he had an American girlfriend and I knew that he cheated on her every weekend. I knew his girlfriend and I knew the girls he cheated with.
So when La Meda asked to dance with me I was reticent. Ramiro loved to dance with me and I think that he wanted to show La Meda something he was proud of. He was also proud of my fluency in Spanish. But I don’t think La Meda really wanted to dance with me, I think he had bad intentions.
He grabbed my hands and we began to dance. He immediately started to do all of the arm things, which I couldn’t do. It didn’t take more than 2 or 3 minutes for him to show that I was unable. As we danced, he was scowling, looking in my eyes and looking at Ramiro, scoffing.
He dropped my hands and gave me a slight push. As he walked away from me, he said to Ramiro, “she can’t dance”. To that, Ramiro was silent. He grabbed my hands and we danced throughout the rest of the night.
From that night on, we didn’t see La Meda again… at least I didn’t. I’ll be forever thankful for the time I had with Ramiro and all of the love and all of the dancing that we did. Have I forgiven La Meda? Apparently not.
eyeamdust 