I learned to Polka soon after I learned to walk, and by the time I was in the middle grades, I was performing in a Polish dance troupe.

In high school, I never missed a “sock hop”, and my girlfriends and I used to practice dancing the Lindy Hop and Cha Cha with each other.

In college, we (both guys and gals) gathered in the Student Union after classes every day to dance to all of the popular songs. On Friday’s, it was TGIF, dancing at a bar before the regulars took over. I also danced in college musicals.

I married someone who didn’t dance (except brilliantly with words), and that should have been a clue that it might not last. And so after we divorced, I went back to dancing.

In my late 30s-early 40s, it was Round and Square and Western dancing.

In my 40s it became Disco partner dancing. With partner dancing, I learned to let myself flow into the “zone” — going where I was led, without having the think about it. (My favorite line about myself is that the only place I enjoy following a man is on the dance floor.)

In my 50s Latin and Ballroom. Again, dancing with partners who could lead me into the “zone”. My dancing then ended in my 60s when I retired to spend a decade taking care of my other, who had severe dementia.

In my 70s, after I moved to East Longmeadow in Massachusetts, I found a dance studio over the border in Connecticut that had open dances on weekends. But because they were at night and my knees and back were giving out, I had to stop going there.

And so that was the end of my dancing. Except with my hands.

Now I take lessons in African drumming, giving myself over to the enticing rhythms of the African and Caribbean cultures, feeling and internalizing the rhythms throughout my body, letting my hands to the dancing that the rest of my body can longer enjoy. I’m still learning, but my soul embraces those mesmerizing rhythms, and I look forward to the time when I get good enough to again, enter the rhythmical “zone”.