| 2/9/2010 6:02:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Dancing the ritual of life
Jeannie Gregory
Editor
He stood in his altered tuxedo and waited for one of the loves of his life. It had been a journey of nine years. A ritual, if you will, of development, of growth and of understanding how important male/female relationships are.
It was the evening of the annual Daddy/Daughter Dance and Marty Ulanski was ready to take his daughter, Emily, to the special event. He is the father of three: his sons Mike and Christopher, and Emily, his youngest. The time from his first experience at the dance until this night has been a learning experience he will always cherish.
"The Daddy/Daughter Dance came to my attention through an announcement in this weekly paper," Ulanski said. "At the prompting of Emily's mother, (Nancy) I began to consider attending the event, a bit reluctantly at first, but the idea settled in after a few days and I decided to buy tickets. As a father of two older boys, this little girl was a whole different animal altogether and I knew enough to know I was ill-prepared to spend a lifetime being 'daddy' to someone who will always be my little girl, and the event seemed like something she might like."
That first dance was a rather daunting task for Ulanski. He felt awkward, he didn't know what exactly to do, but he did know one thing: That he loved his daughter. He strapped her in the car seat that first year and started the journey.
"Ironically what I remember most vividly from that first year was the terrified look all the daddies shared about actually having to 'dance.' We were all just plain clueless on how this whole ritual was supposed to work so we just mumbled to ourselves and made no eye contact when we first arrived."
"The really neat thing about girls three- to eight-years-old is that they don't dance as much as they just jump around," he continued. "You add some punch and sugar cookies to that mix and the jumping gets quite animated. Eventually all us daddies just followed our daughters' leads and we seemed to all settle into this jumping rhythm and going with the flow and living in the moment. It was really refreshing to see the terrified daddy faces soften into a 'jump around like nobody is watching' attitude and the gripping fear just seemed to melt away for all of us. Some of us even made eye contact and talked to each other after a little while."
"These tiny little girls are actually very good at leading these big, burly men in how this dancing ritual is supposed to be played out which always amazes me to watch," he said. "A teachable moment for Daddies of little girls everywhere is that if you just show up and pay attention, they will show you what you need to know."
As the years progressed, the event grew, as did Ulanski's understanding of what the dance is all about. The duo added more rituals prior to the dance. He takes her out the Saturday prior to the event and shops with her, helping Emily select a dress and shoes. And Ulanski has added other special touches to their evening.
"I even bought an old tuxedo that was four sizes too big and had it altered to fit so that I could play dress up with her for that one night each year," he said. "Unfortunately I am unable to take the jacket off because it was so huge that the pants now have just has one big pocket across the seat where it once had two pockets but it still serves the purpose that one special night a year. I have added a wrist corsage for Emily to the routine and now we go to have a full dinner after the dance instead of just dessert. So these little things have changed our routine in subtle ways but there were also other changes taking place over the past recent years in how I feel about the dance."
Those changes were all about Emily's maturing from a toddler into a young lady.
"Emily was growing, our relationship was changing and at thirteen now she has suddenly become a young woman," he said. "Now she begins reminding me that we are going to the dance and the fact that it is important since we have done this every year since she was a 'little' girl. The dancing changes too, where we once just jumped around, we now hold each other tight and dance slowly when the last song of the night 'Butterfly Kisses' is played and, like an annual ritual, she reminds me that no matter how old or big she gets, she will always be my little girl. And, of course, we always cry at that part. I do not know if the other dad's cry or not because of the universal man rule of 'don't make eye contact' when you are showing any emotion. I suspect they are all bawling like babies though - how can they not?"
And now another year of this special event for both daddies and daughters has come to an end. Ulanski gives a huge thanks, on behalf of all the fathers, to the Rockford Community Education program and the wonderful people who put on the dance. And he also is thankful for the part it has played in allowing him to be a key to Emily's development.
"As I reflect on this year's dance and how magical our times have been over these years, the single most important aspect about our Daddy/Daughter Dance ritual is that I have been giving Emily a glimpse of her future," Ulanski continued. "My most important job as her daddy is to show her how she needs to be treated by her future suitors whom are lurking just around the corner in her young life. Hopefully I will have displayed behavior in how I hold her when we dance, how we interact when we talk and how I make our date night special that will stay with her. My real goal is to teach her that our relationship is a lens through which she can view all of her future relationships with other men. I consider myself a success only if she is able to discern when she is not feeling cherished and honored the way her daddy made her feel. Furthermore my prayer is that she will never accept anything less."
What has Emily received from the dance?
"It is an awesome experience," she said. "He makes me feel special. He has taught me everything. I'm looking for someone just like him. Sometimes at the dance the dads go off and talk to the other dads, but he always stays with me. He stays right by my side. He ,treats me like a princess."
"And we thought it was just a dance with good punch and great sugar cookies," Ulanski said.
And an old tuxedo that shows just how much he really cares.
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