_{Why do I dance for an hour each day?}

Beyond the physical benefit, dancing is the moment when I
slip into a kind of “mental time travel,”
a soft form of episodic memory.

As I move, fragments of past experiences rise to the surface
— places, moments, people —
and they blend into new stories of their own.

It’s meditative, cathartic, and deeply fulfilling.

I have plenty of memories to draw from.
As a guitarist, I was fortunate to play in Southern Africa,
Europe, and up and down the East Coast of the United States.
In New Jersey, I can still recall those
Sunday afternoon dances at The Polish Falcons (nest 104) in the Ironbound,
or the late nights at Casa Galicia in New York.
There were the dances at Colombo, an old club in Elizabeth,
the afternoons in Brooklyn and Queens,
that unforgettable venue in Washington D.C.,
and countless others across the tri state area.

It’s not just the nights themselves, but the episodes around them
— the travel, the people, the small moments.
Like the time when the fog machine on stage went completely overboard
and everyone cleared the room while I was in the middle of a guitar solo on Nights in White Satin.

All these glimpses come alive again when I dance,
sometimes even stretching the hour into something longer,
because I don’t want to step out of this metaverse built from real life.

Let's dance!

_{Tony A.}

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