Not Quite All Night

Dearest Rachel –

I hardly need to remind you that we were never exactly what you’d call “party people.” We didn’t hit the town to go clubbing but once every few years, and those times that we did, we found the atmosphere too dim and too loud. Even in college, I probably attended more fraternity parties during that freshman orientation weekend then throughout the rest of my career there. I don’t know what your experience was like when you were trying to rush for one or another of the various sororities there, but I can’t imagine the party scene was exactly for you either. Certainly, the sororities seemed to think so; while you might’ve been heartbroken by their rejection, I’m still not sure it would’ve been right for you. Then again, I had a vested interest in you not becoming a sorority girl, because then we would never have met.

That being said, we did attend – and enjoy – the occasional dance, be it a ‘formal’ or one of the more raucous ones held on or near the campus by the various college organizations. I suppose that, given my upbringing (where, for the longest time, the church I grew up in viewed dancing with a particularly jaundiced eye – “a vertical expression of a horizontal desire,” as George Bernard Shaw, of all people, is said to have put it), the chance to go out dancing had the same illicit charge to it as going out drinking, as far as I was concerned. And although you could easily get both at a typical frat party, that was probably just a little too rich for my blood at the time (and, to be fair, it still is, for the most part).

Still, the residence associations would put together the occasional events – both formal and informal – and while we didn’t necessarily attend all of them by any means, we certainly didn’t avoid them, either. It was all part of the campus experience (and one of the things we thought Daniel ought to participate in when he enrolled in college and spent a couple years living in the dorms; unfortunately, he preferred to come home every weekend, somewhat to my dismay, so I’m guessing that he didn’t involve himself in such stuff).

And while I don’t think I’m required to give an explanation for why I’m writing you about one topic or another on a given day, I might as well do so this time around. It’s a case of wading through one’s stream of consciousness like we would occasionally do in the middle of our own conversations, only this was a little more obvious, coming as it was from an external source. The fitness center, like virtually every other retail establishment, has music piped in through the ceiling; and with the usual thirty- to forty-year cycle of pop music being what it is, the best of the stuff we were listening to back then is now considered “classic” rock, and played regularly. So, as long as I’m not too engrossed in watching the odometer or my calorie count on the treadmill, spending time listening to the background music can be a literal walk down memory lane. And for whatever reason, this particular song hit me surprisingly hard this morning:

I’ll be honest, I’ve never gotten a particularly good look at the lyrics to the verses until now (and no mistake, they’re sufficiently salacious that I can understand why we were warned against the rock-and-roll music of our day; whatever one can say about AC/DC’s musical talents, one cannot credibly accuse them of being subtle). All I can remember when this song came on was a room full of us would be practically screaming along with the chorus, in order make ourselves heard over the din.

In particular, you and I would be looking at each other in this moment; we were, in effect, directing the title line at each other. In so doing, it became a cross between a promise (to shake the other all night long), a challenge (for the other to respond in kind) and even something of a threat, depending on how either of us viewed the promise inherent in the line. For my own part, my inability to stay up past midnight, even during my college career, rendered this expressed wish from you to be a challenge that, had I given it more thought at the time, I would be fearful of not being able to live up to.

Of course, as with the whole song (and indeed, all the music we would dance to, regardless of the lyrics – which, as I said, we could barely make out more often than not), this wasn’t meant to be taken with that much seriousness. If I were able to rock your world to the extent that the singer described, I’m sure you would have been overjoyed – eventually, when we allowed ourselves to indulge in that sort of activity – but it wasn’t meant for the dance floor, or even for the subsequent hours thereafter. Indeed, for all that you tried to be the energetic night owl of the two of us, I have photographic evidence that your stamina wasn’t even necessarily equal (let alone superior) to mine:

So as you can see, we weren’t quite able to shake all night long, as the song suggested. Sure, part of that was because we had no intention of going so far before we were officially one, but also because we simply had our limits, even at that age. It’s almost funny to see it, especially given that the memory comes back to me as I’m exercising as vigorously as I am. I’d be curious to discover what my stamina is like in comparison to those days; would I be able to measure up?

Of course, these questions have to go unanswered for now, and probably for ever. Even if I were to find Megumi, she would have no means of comparison to my younger self, nor could she compare notes with you about those days (and if she could do the latter, this whole mental exercise would be a moot point, as I could just ask you myself, and she wouldn’t even be part of the equation). As much as I would like to know, I have to accept that it’s just not possible, and move on.

Still, if you could keep an eye on me regardless, and wish me luck, I’d still appreciate it, honey; especially since I’m pretty sure I’ll still need it.