I Don't Want to Dance

By Michelle Mahurin

Michelle weaves together stories of her childhood along with the trials of living in rural Idaho. Growing up, she received messaging that being different wasn’t acceptable, and worse, being a lesbian was a one-way ticket to burning in hell for all eternity. I Don’t Want to Dance is a coming-of-age, coming-out collection of stories written in an honest, funny, and sometimes raw manner. In her debut novel, she reveals her resilience growing up misunderstood as a daughter, friend, and eventually, partner through her poignant and relatable sense of humor. She also reminds readers relatives are part of your DNA, and family are the folks you choose and who choose you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662435683

Book preview

1

Flying Novels and Rubik’s Cubes

The book sailed through the air, skimmed across a table, and skidded across the carpet before finding its final resting place. This was the conclusion of a hard-fought battle. I’m not sure if the book was meant to hit me, or if it was a final act of defiance. It was student versus teacher but also student versus exponents on the math assignment. The math had unfortunately lost the battle and was lying shredded in the blue recycling bin. The pieces looked forlorn, clinging to themselves there in the can. My student was furious with me for suggesting that he do math during math class. To prove his outrage at this miscarriage of justice, he proceeded through the stages of angry math denial.

Stage one was verbal abuse, Fuck this shit. I’m not doing it. The verbal abuse began toward the math and moved to the teachers in the room. He generally did this by chattering away and didn’t stop. He insisted the math was too easy, although he could not do it. He refused to work on the computer and refused the other assignments given to him. It was a traditional lose-lose situation.

Stage two was pencil destruction. He proceeded to break every pencil at his desk and threw them against the wall. Unfortunately, he threw them too hard. They often came back and hit him in the face after ricocheting off the wall in front of him. His choice of seating, of course.

Stage three. This might be the most annoying to a teacher who has other students in class: the head banging on the counter. The adults in the room were seasoned enough to know it was an attention-getting scheme, and we could ignore it, but it was harder to convince the other kids to tune him out. He pounded so hard once, he bounced his head against the printer and turned the power button off on it.

The fourth and final stage was the destruction of the assignment, the shredding into thin equal strips, and flinging them into the recycling bin. These small scraps reminded me of the papers you might line a bird or hamster cage with.

The book throwing was a new development, and truth be told, I hadn’t had anything thrown at me since the Rubik’s Cube incident of 2005. A student became so angry, she flipped several tables in the classroom and then flung my Rubik’s Cube across the room. It smacked the corner of the wall and exploded into a rainbow of colors, the small squares flying all over the room in all different directions. It actually looked cool, like nothing I had ever seen in my life. But I had to snap back into action because her next move was tossing chairs.

How did I get here? I remember wanting to teach kids from a podium in front of the class, lecturing about US history, the students captivated by my lectures. Ducking flying books and picking shredded assignments out of the recycling bin had never crossed my mind.

Things certainly change. We never know where we’ll end up, or the journey we take to get where we are now.

2

Beginnings

My brother Scott and I are five years apart. And he was my first student. Even though he couldn’t talk yet, or write. I forced him to sit and take spelling tests as I gave them to him. He had no idea what he was doing. At this point, I felt I had two career paths before me: school teacher, or professional football player. I believed each option to be real and viable and so I practiced each often.

I was a weird kid. I was organized, and I actually wanted homework. I liked sorting. I wanted to do paperwork at home. I wanted to read the books at home, do the work at home. I wanted to read everything I could get my hands on. I took notes in elementary school when it wasn’t necessary, and no one else knew how to do it. Then at night, I recopied them so they were neat. I highlighted them and organized them. I used index cards to study for tests. For Sunday school, youth group, and church camp, I memorized verses by writing and rewriting them hundreds of times. I loved the art of writing. I wrote thank-you notes (and still do). I wrote letters (and still do).

Even weirder, though, I was obsessed with sports, playing them and watching them; football was my passion. I didn’t see any reason why I wouldn’t be able to play professional football. I was good. I was usually picked first. Even when I was forced to wear a dress to school, I managed to sneak out of the house with shorts on underneath, so as not to hinder my recess performance. I played soccer since the second grade, and I was good at this too. Then one day, my mother came home from work with a question that would change the course of my life forever.

She asked me, Would you rather dance, or play an instrument?

I looked at her. I blinked. I thought about this question because it didn’t make sense. Were these my options? To be frank, neither seemed particularly attractive to me. Maybe if I stayed silent. Eventually, I mumbled, I don’t want to dance.

She took this to mean I wanted to play an instrument. She replied, Okay, instrument it is then. Nothing more was discussed that day.

However, the next day, she came home with a black case, and inside was a shiny new flute. And I was promptly enrolled in private lessons. Kids normally do not start band until the fifth grade. I was early. I was not happy. This encroached on my sports. In two years’ time, another instrument was added. This continued until I had more instruments than I knew what to do with. I was playing in community concerts, plays, and giving lessons to students in junior high school on the bass guitar. The next thing I knew, I was in college on a scholarship for music. But I was studying to be a teacher.

3

Taking the Pot

My college education classes were horrible, and I hated them. They were boring, and I felt I already knew how to teach. I don’t know if this was because I had several teachers who did not know how to teach, or to the contrary, I had several inspiring teachers, but I felt I knew how to do it. It was my opinion as a twenty-something kid that teaching was an art and not something that could be taught. I made fun of older students who commuted to class and had kids. We called them nontrads, or nontraditional students. They knew everything because they had kids of their own. And we knew everything because we had nineteen years on this earth and had read three books on educational philosophy. I was a smart-ass. I came to class hungover. And then the rude awakening came in the form of a letter in my PO box. In order to student teach, a student needed a 2.5 GPA. All my screwing around and skipping class had caught up to me.

I knew I had to get my shit in a pile and get my grades to a place where I could student teach, or I would never become a teacher. I wanted to be a high school history and English teacher. I dreamed of explaining to kids about history and reading the classics with them. I thought of myself standing at the podium and making them laugh. They would be hypnotized by my every word.

On most weekends, I came home from college and took care of my grandma’s lawn and other duties as assigned. Grandma (my mom’s mom) paid for my undergraduate school at the University of Idaho and, as such, felt she had certain rights to my grades and progress. I’m sure if she had it her way, there would have been grandma-professor conferences.

I was not a perfect student at the University of Idaho. I had discovered freedom, people with fake IDs, and marijuana. My grades were terrible because, for the first time, I had to study. I wasn’t used to having to open my books and read them. In addition, it wasn’t just reading one book, it was nine books for one class, soccer practice, and the party down the hall. Priorities. It took me several years and academic probation to figure them out.

Back to Grandma’s lawn I had finished mowing. I did the front and the back. Usually, she stood on the driveway and watched, inspecting each row as I mowed. This day was different, though, and it made me nervous. Why wasn’t she watching me as I methodically squared up the rows? The answer was waiting for me in the living room, as she watched The Oprah Winfrey Show.

I came in the house and helped myself to a glass of water and a Popsicle. Grandma was in her chair. Lips pursed.

How’s school going? I knew she would ask this. She asked it every time I was home.

Good, I responded, same response as always. Truth be told, I was on my fourth year, and I still had student teaching to go. I had to have a 2.5 GPA to be considered for the education department. I was nervous. My past mistakes were catching up with me fast.

She continued, I was just wondering why it’s taking you so long to finish. I looked at Oprah on the television, secretly wishing I could jump in and join her on the couch. I stared at my grass-stained shoes. I didn’t have an answer except that I was a huge slacker, and I had been partying too much. Evidently, she read my mind. Her follow-up question sealed the deal, Michelle, have you been taking the pot? I sucked in the last bite of my banana Popsicle and coughed. My initial response came out of my mouth before I could think about it.

Taking it where? I whispered.

She said, "Well, I called the college of education to see what was taking you so long, and they wouldn’t