Maybe it’s the music that makes it and not the dancing in itself. There is something there, something that you can’t put your finger on but makes you smile, friends and strangers burling one another around, kilts and frocks, ordinary laughter. Foreign visitors call it folk dancing and lose something in translation: ceilidh dancing, ceilidh music, its as well received in a bar or a barn, village or metropolis – this is celtic spirit, the romantic courtship of Scotland and Scot. The first one to touch you, and the last to let go.

Maybe its nothing but a drink in your hand and a sense of old things that makes you clap and cheer each other on. Noone seems to mind if you’re out of time, and noone pays any heed to the band but still we feel bonded one to another, young friendships seem older for all the dances together, for all the chat, and then for auld lang syne.

Dougie in tartan again, Tam and Glen both chasing after Elaine (they’ll knock their heads together in a beat) and the Dutch. I think the best things are all-in, all together, Macdonalds and Campbells; the Scientist and the pub-philosopher, even if you’re not dancing you’re somehow holding hands. But you’ll have the one dance, or just a couple mind with more than one lass if you ask them, and even if you don’t feel like it you’ll love it and clap loudly all the same.

And if the Scots be cried tight or cliquey then there’s the Swedish Masquerade, one for the continentals, so’s to bring them all together and all poke fun at lairds. Go again comrade, lets see some of the pomp in every righteous rich man whose currency is common dignity. Aye Jimmy, and watch your kilt dinna jump higher than you do.

Make your own pace and speed, dance your own dance, crash and sway. You can get caught up in the familiar faces you didn’t think had fun inside clowning around, new people dancing with the folk you know. Theres little you can say against it, its like a babies smile, its like a developing love, always fey fast silly and warm. You reek and ache but all for a good night.

These three stay with me like an old prophets whisper of what heaven might be like: the unity that warms you, the romance of the woodwind, and the dancing. No paradise here, just a night that filters out the day and remembers what should stay.

I know I’m being silly, speaking of it like this, but I love watching as much as dancing. We change so much. Every generation reinvents itself. But some traditions hang on to whats important and take you back through history. Some don’t just blush and shyly try to show old principles in a new way, they just you by the wrist and pull you in. They clap your hand and burl you, smile or wink, they lift you up and put you down, they stay with you the whole walk home and leave you thinking differently.

I wonder that one day maybe we’ll make more than music, our mouths forming some new worship in tongues. We’ll do more than stamp and shout. The ecstacy won’t stop, and our common bond will be soaked in love not like. I know I’m wrong, and that heaven isn’t what I think right now. But somehow too, I know I’m right. I want to be there, but not watching. Dancing. Not even thinking. Just letting in love.