Dancing in the Sun Room...

Dancing in the sun room.  That's what we did.

For the past 8 months, my parents, Faustino and I have been diligently working on fixing up my grandma's ranch which includes her house that's been vacant for years.  My grandma was a pack rat and after she passed her children sorted through a lot of her possessions but there was still a lot of stuff (I'd like to think of a better word to explain what it all is but stuff just seems to encompass it - there are treasures, junk, and family memories all rolled together).  So month after month, the four of us (and sometimes my brother or a family friend) would work at the ranch - my dad outside working/playing on his tractor and my mom, Faustino and I inside the house.  We would go from room to room to room sorting, cleaning, painting.  And what do you know, because of all the hard work we put in we were able to have our first family Christmas at that ranch in almost 10 years.

The first weekend of January we were at it again and this time we had little helpers - my niece and nephew.  While my nephew was helping the property's "caretaker" my parents, my niece, Faustino and I were working in the house.  Now mind you, we would have liked to have been outside, but it was not possible - 20 mph winds made it unbearable.  This gave us the opportunity to finally do some decorating throughout the house and to finally get around to cleaning the quaint sun room which my grandmother had added on to her bedroom during my early childhood.

With music blasting, we were busy cleaning and rearranging the sun room.  I'm not sure what inspired me - maybe it was my grandmother's spirit that my mom said she could feel, maybe it was my loopiness that I felt after working so many hours getting the house back to the way I remembered it, or maybe it was just because I was so happy.  One thing is for sure - I was feeling the music and just had to dance.  It started off with me doing the dance from the Breakfast Club when Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez and the other guy are dancing on the railing and it quickly turned into 3 generations dancing to Donna Summers.  My niece was the first to join me, while my mother watched from the ladder.  But soon enough my mom climbed down and joined us.  We danced a mixture of moves for the next five minutes, laughing, singing and just enjoying the moment.

I can't remember the last time I had that much fun dancing - I just felt so alive and seeing my mom look so happy (and my niece having such a good time) brought a warmth to my heart.  I have to agree with my mom, my grandma's spirit was definitely alive in the room that day and it felt great to have her there.