I took my daughter to Florence. We ended up dancing until 4 am, and it was exactly what we needed.
- I never expected to dance until 4 am with my adult daughter.
- Divorced the same year I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I survived more than a decade of single motherhood.
Recently my 23-year-old daughter Alana and I embarked on a bucket list trip to Florence, Italy. My mother had passed away a few months earlier after a harrowing illness. Weeks before, I'd settled my son on the campus of his dream university. As a newlywed, my daughter was eager to embark on her married life, so I knew this trip was now or never.
Alana had been one of those responsible teenagers every mom dreams of having. She got good grades, never missed curfew, and even volunteered to drive her ailing grandfather to his doctor's appointments. Only recently has she revealed she could never say no to buying him a forbidden ice cream sundae when she drove him home afterward. During her grandmother's final illness, she dropped off homemade soups each week and made time to decorate every inch of the family home so my mom could enjoy one final family Christmas, just like the "old days."
I wasn't thinking of our mother-daughter trip to Florence as a "reward." If I'm being honest, though, I did want Alana to myself one last time. After all, I'd always longed to spoil her, shower her with my undivided attention.
She was only 6 when I was diagnosed with cancer
I felt guilty that Alana didn't have the easy childhood her friends enjoyed. She was only 6 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and her incredible self-reliance made it easy for me to focus on the more chaotic areas of our lives as I juggled the dual miseries of chemotherapy and divorce. Every time I heard the buzzy phrase "work-life balance" back then, I rolled my eyes heavenward. Balance never played a part in my life as a single mother working several jobs at a time.
Florence was my chance to make it up to her. Each day we giggled our way through museums, wandered aimlessly down winding ancient streets, and, of course, never allowed a day to pass without at least one gelato. Alana even convinced me to follow through on my long-standing promise to get a matching mother-daughter tattoo.
She took me dancing
More exhausted than usual one evening late in our stay, I was relieved to be in bed after my nightly struggle to fold my large body into the apartment's toddler-sized shower. A new text pinged into my phone.
It was from Alana in the next room.
"When are we going out dancing as we planned?"
I leaped from my bed, crayoned a stripe of color across my lips, and off we went. Walking across the Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge left standing after the destruction of World War II, we enjoyed the folk songs several teenagers sang as they strummed battered old guitars. The black Arno river sparkled behind us as we snapped several obligatory selfies to mark the occasion.
Working her millennial magic, Alana had researched Instagram hashtags to find us the cheesiest dance club within a five-mile radius. Following directions on her phone, we trekked across town wearing our matching pink Nike Air Force Ones. My feet were already sore as we rounded the corner of Via Palazzuolo, an area that suddenly struck me as very familiar.
As we joined the long line of kids waiting to get inside the discotheque, it dawned on me I was the only person on the premises born prior to the 21st Century.
"What's the name of this place again?" I whispered in Alana's ear as we waited.
"Space," she whispered back.
"Wait, Space Electronic?" I gasped as dozens of teenage heads spun around to study me. A prick went up my leg. I can never predict when a hot flash will hit me.
"No, just 'Space,'" she laughed.
Not only had I been to the nightclub before, but I had also easily logged a hundred hours there during my boozy study abroad days. Back when it still had "Electronic" appended to its name, this nightclub is where I'd gyrated to the rhythms of Deee Light and Depeche Mode until dawn exactly 30 summers before. After nights of dancing, my friends and I would snatch a few hours of sleep, awaken early for language classes, and repeat the entire rigamarole again the next night.
Standing in line with my adult daughter beside me, I mused privately that back then, my body still possessed all its original "factory parts," and I most definitely had not been in menopause.
We stayed out until 4 am
Once inside, we rushed onto the dance floor, where we laughed ourselves hoarse, bobbing along to the music. After several hours of music booming from the nightclub's enormous speakers, I felt myself starting to flag and swallowed the emergency ibuprofen I never leave home without. Resuming our dance marathon, we were having so much fun that soon, 2:30 a.m., 3 a.m., and then even 3:30 a.m. had passed without us realizing it.
It was 4 before we started walking towards home through the hushed Florentine streets. Jammed with tour groups by day, the piazza in front of the cathedral felt even larger without crowds of people. It was pure magic to have the entire landmark all to ourselves.
"Stop!" Alana said suddenly.
"I can't stop!" I whined. I didn't feel tired, exactly, but knew for certain if I sat down on the cement bench, I would never get up again.
But I had misunderstood. Alana balanced her phone against a brick and hit the "record" button.
With the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore framed behind us in her video, my daughter and I clasped hands, twisting ourselves in a joyful ring-around-the-rosy momentum forcing me to cling to her so I wouldn't lose my balance. As I collapsed into her arms, she pretended to let me fall for a moment before hugging me close, both of us laughing so hard our sides hurt.
We stayed there so long doing goofy pirouettes the birds began singing their morning songs. When we finally gave in, lacing arms to walk the last leg of our journey home, I knew that soon it would be daylight. The piazza would fill again with jostling crowds, and the tiles of Brunelleschi's Renaissance dome would burn bright orange in the sun.