Do you know what you're getting into? Glenlivet asks. Do you know anything about these people?
We are practicing for our performing debut, a one-tanda demo with David Hodgson, Goth and Dancing Woo-Woo Master.
The performance is tonight, at an event called Leaping Man: Portals to Other Worlds. Lots of artsy types doing the gallery poetry music dance thing. So self-conscious that attending it is, in itself, performance art.
Andy Warhol would have called this an art happening.
Why is it called Leaping Man?
Leap Day + Burning Man = Leaping Man
Burning Man is when people from all over the world go to the desert for Labor Day weekend and have art and sex and drugs and horrible, techno pounding music night and day for three days.
And… wear Very Cool Costumes.
I love costumes!
My costumes for tango are Minimalist: plain pants, plain shirts, close-fitting but not tight. No skin, no plunging neckline, no see-through, no splits, ….
Once I wore a pair of something that showed my ankles and lower calves. A fuss was raised.
I am the librarian of tango. Shy. Quiet. Nondescript. Bourgeois.
Except …
Do you think a writer survives in New York, albeit upstate, without rubbing a few avant-garde shoulders?
Without developing a sense of avant-garde style?
And a little derring-do?
I am the librarian of tango. Everyone knows this.
You know what you see.
Tonight, Glenlivet will see something new.
Heh-heh.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Five Little PIeces
1.
What would you like to dance to today? Grisha always asks.
You pick, I always say.
2.
One day, something changes.
May I bring some music I like to our next lesson? I ask.
“Yes, sure. I can dance to anything,” Grisha says. “Challenge me.”
I bring In Loving Memory, a simple Celtic song.
California Dreaming by The Duo-Tones
Elvis’s Blue Christmas, Eartha Kitt’s Santa Baby
Fibre de Verre, which I like because it is in French, which, as everyone knows, is the language of music. Also, it is tres chic.
Grisha is tres chic, too. He fiddles with his computer and suddenly we are dancing to City of New Orleans—in French!
In the ongoing quest to spring a surprise, I scour my music collection. There is an ancient cassette tape labeled Folk Christmas, which Michigan recorded from the radio, and a Native American opera, also from the radio, also from Michigan. Alfred Apaka. Tret Fure. Greg Brown. Bonnie Raitt. Judy Collins. Charlotte Church. Frank Sinatra.
There is Raising Sand, a present from Keith featuring an old rocker he likes. Mussorgksy, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, all pirated, all labeled in Keith’s hand, which is really something when you consider he can’t stand those guys. Pink Floyd, Keith’s old favorite, is notably absent.
When I tell Keith about the game, he makes a CD with both the Van Morrison and Greg Brown versions of Moondance, plus Traffic’s Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys. For good measure he tacks on “our” song, which is not a romantic footnote but a reminder of the worldview that has always defined us, first separately, then as a couple, and still.
I go to the library, paw through the CD collection, find:
--Yo-Yo Ma playing Vivaldi on a Stradivarius cello made in 1712
--Nina Simone
--Spike Jones (sure, why not?)
--Swan Lake
--Janis Joplin
--Girl Groups Scrapbook, a compilation from the ’50s and ’60s, mostly African-American. (Motown is my town!)
--Japan for Sale, a compilation of J. Pop, rock, punk and hip-hop by Japanese artists
What’s that you say, Grisha, “Challenge me”?
Game on, boy-o.
What would you like to dance to today? Grisha always asks.
You pick, I always say.
2.
One day, something changes.
May I bring some music I like to our next lesson? I ask.
“Yes, sure. I can dance to anything,” Grisha says. “Challenge me.”
I bring In Loving Memory, a simple Celtic song.
California Dreaming by The Duo-Tones
Elvis’s Blue Christmas, Eartha Kitt’s Santa Baby
Fibre de Verre, which I like because it is in French, which, as everyone knows, is the language of music. Also, it is tres chic.
Grisha is tres chic, too. He fiddles with his computer and suddenly we are dancing to City of New Orleans—in French!
In the ongoing quest to spring a surprise, I scour my music collection. There is an ancient cassette tape labeled Folk Christmas, which Michigan recorded from the radio, and a Native American opera, also from the radio, also from Michigan. Alfred Apaka. Tret Fure. Greg Brown. Bonnie Raitt. Judy Collins. Charlotte Church. Frank Sinatra.
There is Raising Sand, a present from Keith featuring an old rocker he likes. Mussorgksy, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, all pirated, all labeled in Keith’s hand, which is really something when you consider he can’t stand those guys. Pink Floyd, Keith’s old favorite, is notably absent.
When I tell Keith about the game, he makes a CD with both the Van Morrison and Greg Brown versions of Moondance, plus Traffic’s Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys. For good measure he tacks on “our” song, which is not a romantic footnote but a reminder of the worldview that has always defined us, first separately, then as a couple, and still.
I go to the library, paw through the CD collection, find:
--Yo-Yo Ma playing Vivaldi on a Stradivarius cello made in 1712
--Nina Simone
--Spike Jones (sure, why not?)
--Swan Lake
--Janis Joplin
--Girl Groups Scrapbook, a compilation from the ’50s and ’60s, mostly African-American. (Motown is my town!)
--Japan for Sale, a compilation of J. Pop, rock, punk and hip-hop by Japanese artists
What’s that you say, Grisha, “Challenge me”?
Game on, boy-o.
* * *
I am kidding around, but also am learning. I can’t say what I’m learning, but I’m getting a feel for what makes some music be for listening, some for dancing.
3.
You should make a video, Grisha says.
He means that he should make a video of us dancing during our lesson. He has said this before. My answer is No.
Anna is doing it, he says. I shrug.
Sooner or later, I say.
4.
My father used to love Janis Joplin. He liked her mastery and freedom, and how she veered and lurched between them.
Not me. Her harsh voice frightened me. It sounded like knives in her throat.
My father used to love Paul Robeson. He loved the old Negro spirituals, mournful and low, and the songs that rose from the tradition. In the 1930s Robeson recorded Old Black Joe, and if you twitch at the racist overtones you don’t know anything about the lyrics, or Paul Robeson, or the 1930s, or the centuries-long, pre-MLK history of African-American resistance.
When you investigate, you will see: Old Black Joe is not a racist song; it is a crepuscular one.
My dad sang the song like Robeson, slow and deep. As a workingman with socialist leanings, he and Robeson occupied a scrap of common ground. By station and temperament, my father found common ground with Old Black Joe. At night in the dark, lying along the edge of somebody’s bed, my father would sing Old Black Joe to put his little girls to sleep. In the dark he would make the rounds of three bedrooms tucked under the eaves. His voice was dark and smooth, and you could drift on it like a river into your dreams.
Before he was blacklisted, Robeson appeared in the Gershwin musical, Porgy and Bess. The smash hit song from that show was a mother’s song, Summertime. It is not unlike Old Black Joe, though the source of the twilight is different.
Both songs have this in common: Hope. Twilight is not without light.
My father never sang Summertime. I did. I sang it high and sweet, my voice rippling over the notes like a river sparkling in sunshine. Little One Heart sang the song as she heard it, her mammy promising all is well forever.
5.
Your father is going in for more biopsies, my mother says in an offhand way that tells me she’s scared to death. We are starting to catch on.
4.
The second song on the greatest hits CD starts with a long instrumental. It’s slow and gentle, like a river in sunshine. It lulls you. And then Janis cries: Summertime…
Her cry starts soft. Then the knives come out.
Clouds like children tattered and starving snatch at the sun in a torment of wind. The river hurls and shouts: A man can’t catch a break! The song tears at her throat, tears free.
3.
Better sooner than later, I think.
2.
All kidding aside.
1.
Janis Joplin’s Summertime.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Ghosts of Cabeceo Past, Part 2
What color was her coat? the policeman asked. The girl with the knife, what color was her coat?
It had a lot of colors, I said. Black and white with sometimes red or blue or green, too.
Plaid, my mother said.
Not plaid, I said. Not lines. Spots. But not spots like circles. Square spots.
Checks, my mother said.
I shook my head. Kind of like really little, like circle-squares. Really little ones, black and white, and then the colors sometimes.
Herringbone? The policeman asked. He showed me a swatch. Does that look right?
I shook my head stubbornly. We had been at this for a while. I knew exactly what the girl’s coat looked like. But to save my life I could not describe it.
Something was on the tip of my tongue. Later, I saw that Two-of-Six had the same kind of coat. But right at that moment, my mother impatient and the policeman insistent, all eyes on me and me failing the test, all I could see was the knife.
I wanted to pass the test. I was trying to describe the coat right. But I wished really hard in my heart they wouldn’t make me do it. Because then they would go find her. And she would know who had tattled.
Plaid, my mother repeated in the tone that said, Are you going to quit messing around or do I need to whack you?
Plaid, the policeman wrote.
I said nothing. I was ashamed to be stupid. I was ashamed to deceive them, by my silence to lie. But I was a little bit happy, too.
I felt a tiny lick of power, like the shy, rough tongue of a cat.
* * *
My school district was a checkerboard of neighborhoods.
At the center, Ferndale was blue collar, rich in children and immigrants.
A few blocks to the north, Pleasant Ridge was wealthy and WASP and self-contained.
A few blocks to the south, sandwiched between my neighborhood and Detroit, Royal Oak Township was Black and the streets were not paved.
This posed a problem for the school district officials.
Imagine a clock.
At the number one, the middle school.
At three, my elementary school.
Royal Oak Township was 7.
My house was 8.
Roughly.
Draw a line from my house to my elementary school. Now draw a line from Royal Oak Township to the middle school. Do it so the lines don’t intersect.
See?
Racial violence was a way of life in Detroit. To keep the little kids safe, school openings were timed so that the elementary school kids were safely stowed away before the middle school kids took to the streets.
It was a good system.
Unless someone messed up.
* * *
My father was always gone to work early. Some days my mother had to catch her bus before we girls left for school. No big deal. We knew the drill and we were good kids. The older sisters watched out for the younger ones, or we looked out for ourselves. Easy.
One day in the fourth grade, somewhere along the way to school, I remembered that I had forgotten my homework. Or possibly the survey forms.
My sisters or my friends and I were taking a survey: Who is your favorite rock star? We had made forms for all the kids in our class, and we were going to hand them out that day.
The survey idea was brilliant! But looking back, I very much hope that I went back for my homework and not those silly forms. Can you imagine, one of your life’s defining moments arising from “Who’s your favorite rock star?”
I can imagine that. It would fit my life exactly. As a matter of fact, that may be the sweet moment in this story. Little One Heart was one clueless child. I love her for that.
Don’t go back, my sisters warned, you’ll be late for school.
I would hurry. I would run. Dash in the back door, up the stairs, grab the stuff, down the stairs, out the back door and down the block. I would not be able to catch up to my sisters, but I would get to school right on time, or maybe just after.
I ran.
The back door was locked.
Somehow appeared Mike, a boy in my class. He was short and thin. I was tall and heavy. He jimmied a basement window, slipped in, ran up the stairs, unlocked the door.
I raced up the stairs, grabbed my stuff, raced down the stairs, out the back door.
We had no way to lock it behind us.
Mike went inside, locked the door, crawled out the basement window.
Now we were late-late. We had never been this late before. It was nice. Quiet. For once, the streets were deserted. Why rush? We sauntered along, chatting.
Please refer to your drawing of the clock. See Mike and I, sauntering across the face of the clock, from 8 to 3. See the middle schoolers, sauntering from 7 to 1. Our paths intersected at the end of my block.
No one had told Mike and I about the grand scheme of keeping the little kids safe. No one had told us there was even such a thing as violence. We hadn’t even learned about war yet. Not even on TV.
The only violence I had known was my mother’s shout and slap. Occasional kicks from Five-of-Six. Pea-shooters. Spitballs.
I was such a softie I couldn’t play sports. I couldn’t do violence to a kickball; the crack of bat against ball made me cringe.
When the girls walked closely behind us, that was just like my sisters. We walked in bunches like that. The girls were laughing and talking. Mike and I were, too.
Then they got louder, then they got quiet.
When you’re a little kid playing with big kids, quiet bears checking out.
Subtly. Quickly.
I half turned, held up my survey forms, said brightly, Who’s your favorite rock star? and looked the biggest girl right in the eye with my happy Little One Heart sunny smile.
!
!
!
It wasn't the knife that threw me back on my heels. It was the malice in her eyes. It ate me alive. I could not move nor look away.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, the knife on its way to Mike’s back. It was going to go in just above the line of his pants, to the right of his spine.
I remember the spot exactly. I remember her eyes. She was aiming for a major organ. Did she know what she was doing? I refuse to believe a middle schooler is capable of intending murder; I believe she meant to harm, not to murder. But I also remember her eyes.
I grabbed Mike, dragged him to the closest house, where Roxanne lived. Pounded on the door. Shouted. The girls ran away, jeering, before the door opened and we discovered why Roxanne talked funny: At her house, they spoke only Russian.
* * *
The next thing I remember is the ordeal of trying to describe the girl’s coat.
If I knew then what I knew now, I could have said it in a word: tweed.
It had a lot of colors, I said. Black and white with sometimes red or blue or green, too.
Plaid, my mother said.
Not plaid, I said. Not lines. Spots. But not spots like circles. Square spots.
Checks, my mother said.
I shook my head. Kind of like really little, like circle-squares. Really little ones, black and white, and then the colors sometimes.
Herringbone? The policeman asked. He showed me a swatch. Does that look right?
I shook my head stubbornly. We had been at this for a while. I knew exactly what the girl’s coat looked like. But to save my life I could not describe it.
Something was on the tip of my tongue. Later, I saw that Two-of-Six had the same kind of coat. But right at that moment, my mother impatient and the policeman insistent, all eyes on me and me failing the test, all I could see was the knife.
I wanted to pass the test. I was trying to describe the coat right. But I wished really hard in my heart they wouldn’t make me do it. Because then they would go find her. And she would know who had tattled.
Plaid, my mother repeated in the tone that said, Are you going to quit messing around or do I need to whack you?
Plaid, the policeman wrote.
I said nothing. I was ashamed to be stupid. I was ashamed to deceive them, by my silence to lie. But I was a little bit happy, too.
I felt a tiny lick of power, like the shy, rough tongue of a cat.
* * *
My school district was a checkerboard of neighborhoods.
At the center, Ferndale was blue collar, rich in children and immigrants.
A few blocks to the north, Pleasant Ridge was wealthy and WASP and self-contained.
A few blocks to the south, sandwiched between my neighborhood and Detroit, Royal Oak Township was Black and the streets were not paved.
This posed a problem for the school district officials.
Imagine a clock.
At the number one, the middle school.
At three, my elementary school.
Royal Oak Township was 7.
My house was 8.
Roughly.
Draw a line from my house to my elementary school. Now draw a line from Royal Oak Township to the middle school. Do it so the lines don’t intersect.
See?
Racial violence was a way of life in Detroit. To keep the little kids safe, school openings were timed so that the elementary school kids were safely stowed away before the middle school kids took to the streets.
It was a good system.
Unless someone messed up.
* * *
My father was always gone to work early. Some days my mother had to catch her bus before we girls left for school. No big deal. We knew the drill and we were good kids. The older sisters watched out for the younger ones, or we looked out for ourselves. Easy.
One day in the fourth grade, somewhere along the way to school, I remembered that I had forgotten my homework. Or possibly the survey forms.
My sisters or my friends and I were taking a survey: Who is your favorite rock star? We had made forms for all the kids in our class, and we were going to hand them out that day.
The survey idea was brilliant! But looking back, I very much hope that I went back for my homework and not those silly forms. Can you imagine, one of your life’s defining moments arising from “Who’s your favorite rock star?”
I can imagine that. It would fit my life exactly. As a matter of fact, that may be the sweet moment in this story. Little One Heart was one clueless child. I love her for that.
Don’t go back, my sisters warned, you’ll be late for school.
I would hurry. I would run. Dash in the back door, up the stairs, grab the stuff, down the stairs, out the back door and down the block. I would not be able to catch up to my sisters, but I would get to school right on time, or maybe just after.
I ran.
The back door was locked.
Somehow appeared Mike, a boy in my class. He was short and thin. I was tall and heavy. He jimmied a basement window, slipped in, ran up the stairs, unlocked the door.
I raced up the stairs, grabbed my stuff, raced down the stairs, out the back door.
We had no way to lock it behind us.
Mike went inside, locked the door, crawled out the basement window.
Now we were late-late. We had never been this late before. It was nice. Quiet. For once, the streets were deserted. Why rush? We sauntered along, chatting.
Please refer to your drawing of the clock. See Mike and I, sauntering across the face of the clock, from 8 to 3. See the middle schoolers, sauntering from 7 to 1. Our paths intersected at the end of my block.
No one had told Mike and I about the grand scheme of keeping the little kids safe. No one had told us there was even such a thing as violence. We hadn’t even learned about war yet. Not even on TV.
The only violence I had known was my mother’s shout and slap. Occasional kicks from Five-of-Six. Pea-shooters. Spitballs.
I was such a softie I couldn’t play sports. I couldn’t do violence to a kickball; the crack of bat against ball made me cringe.
When the girls walked closely behind us, that was just like my sisters. We walked in bunches like that. The girls were laughing and talking. Mike and I were, too.
Then they got louder, then they got quiet.
When you’re a little kid playing with big kids, quiet bears checking out.
Subtly. Quickly.
I half turned, held up my survey forms, said brightly, Who’s your favorite rock star? and looked the biggest girl right in the eye with my happy Little One Heart sunny smile.
!
!
!
It wasn't the knife that threw me back on my heels. It was the malice in her eyes. It ate me alive. I could not move nor look away.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, the knife on its way to Mike’s back. It was going to go in just above the line of his pants, to the right of his spine.
I remember the spot exactly. I remember her eyes. She was aiming for a major organ. Did she know what she was doing? I refuse to believe a middle schooler is capable of intending murder; I believe she meant to harm, not to murder. But I also remember her eyes.
I grabbed Mike, dragged him to the closest house, where Roxanne lived. Pounded on the door. Shouted. The girls ran away, jeering, before the door opened and we discovered why Roxanne talked funny: At her house, they spoke only Russian.
* * *
The next thing I remember is the ordeal of trying to describe the girl’s coat.
If I knew then what I knew now, I could have said it in a word: tweed.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Marlee Matlin on Dancing with the Stars
Marlee Matlin, the actress who won an Oscar for Children of a Lesser God (and later had a really cool role on the TV show West Wing) is going to be a competitor in Dancing with the Stars.
She's deaf.
They might go high-tech, hook her up to some kind of machine that will make her feel the beat in her bones. Or maybe ballroom is all about choreography and counting, and as long as you start off right, you can't go wrong.
I hope not.
Glenlivet says when he leads, he is telling a story. I hope Marlee Matlin's lead not only tells her a story but sings her a song. If that is possible, if he can give her the music and she can be so attuned as to hear it through him, then whatever she dances, it will be tango.
She's deaf.
They might go high-tech, hook her up to some kind of machine that will make her feel the beat in her bones. Or maybe ballroom is all about choreography and counting, and as long as you start off right, you can't go wrong.
I hope not.
Glenlivet says when he leads, he is telling a story. I hope Marlee Matlin's lead not only tells her a story but sings her a song. If that is possible, if he can give her the music and she can be so attuned as to hear it through him, then whatever she dances, it will be tango.
Monday, February 18, 2008
The Music of Shantaram, A Novel
Teachers will tell you that poets are primarily concerned with compression and meter, image and line.
Musicians the same, though they use different jargon. What are poetry or music but incantation? What is an image but an evocation? What is a line but a measure?
A poet, even if he is writing a novel, can’t help but write music. Sometimes you hear it in the grace notes, as with a woman stooping
to brush the black psalm of her hair
one-TWO-three, one-TWO-three, one-TWO
You think that the choice and arrangement of words is a happy accident? It is meant to appear so.
Here’s some more:
Then there were the people: Assamese, Jats, and Punjabis; people from Rajasthan, Bengal and Tamil Nadu; from Pushkar, Cochin and Konarka; warrior caste, Brahmin, and untouchable; Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Parsee, Jain, Animist; fair skin and dark, green eyes and golden brown and black;
This is free verse, which means that it doesn’t conform to a regular meter but, through repetition and variations, creates a harmonious effect.
(Hint: Don’t confuse the “and” in the rhythm section with the “and” in the lyrics. In the rhythm section, “and” means a short, unaccented count. “Beat” is a freestanding count, carrying more weight than “and” but less than a full note. A "Rest" is a silence that can carry a little weight or a lot. Also, beware that sometimes musical phrases cross over more than one word.)
Then there were the people:
ONE-and-TWO-and-THREE-and REST (the colon makes the rest)
Assamese, Jats, and Punjabis
one-and-TWO, ONE-and-two, ONE-two
people from
ONE-and-two
Rajasthan, Bengal and Tamil Nadu;
ONE-and-two, ONE-and-two ONE-and-TWO-and;
from Pushkar, Cochin and Konarka
and-ONE-two, ONE-two-and ONE-two-three
warrior caste, Brahmin, and untouchable
ONE-aand-TWO, ONE-two and-one-TWO-and-three
Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Parsee, Jain, Animist
ONE-two, ONE-two, ONE-two, ONE-two, ONE-two, beat, ONE-two-three
Fair skin and dark, green eyes and golden brown and black
ONE-two-three-FOUR, ONE-two-three, ONE-and-two-three-FOUR
(Look how it slows down at the end, with the “and” in the lyric carrying the weight of a full beat. Very cool!)
The author of Shantaram, A Novel (ONE-two-three, REST and-ONE-two) has an affinity for two- and three-beat combinations with the accent on the first beat. Why?
Want to ask him?
His name is Gregory David Roberts.
Count it out.
Musicians the same, though they use different jargon. What are poetry or music but incantation? What is an image but an evocation? What is a line but a measure?
A poet, even if he is writing a novel, can’t help but write music. Sometimes you hear it in the grace notes, as with a woman stooping
to brush the black psalm of her hair
one-TWO-three, one-TWO-three, one-TWO
You think that the choice and arrangement of words is a happy accident? It is meant to appear so.
Here’s some more:
Then there were the people: Assamese, Jats, and Punjabis; people from Rajasthan, Bengal and Tamil Nadu; from Pushkar, Cochin and Konarka; warrior caste, Brahmin, and untouchable; Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Parsee, Jain, Animist; fair skin and dark, green eyes and golden brown and black;
This is free verse, which means that it doesn’t conform to a regular meter but, through repetition and variations, creates a harmonious effect.
(Hint: Don’t confuse the “and” in the rhythm section with the “and” in the lyrics. In the rhythm section, “and” means a short, unaccented count. “Beat” is a freestanding count, carrying more weight than “and” but less than a full note. A "Rest" is a silence that can carry a little weight or a lot. Also, beware that sometimes musical phrases cross over more than one word.)
Then there were the people:
ONE-and-TWO-and-THREE-and REST (the colon makes the rest)
Assamese, Jats, and Punjabis
one-and-TWO, ONE-and-two, ONE-two
people from
ONE-and-two
Rajasthan, Bengal and Tamil Nadu;
ONE-and-two, ONE-and-two ONE-and-TWO-and;
from Pushkar, Cochin and Konarka
and-ONE-two, ONE-two-and ONE-two-three
warrior caste, Brahmin, and untouchable
ONE-aand-TWO, ONE-two and-one-TWO-and-three
Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Parsee, Jain, Animist
ONE-two, ONE-two, ONE-two, ONE-two, ONE-two, beat, ONE-two-three
Fair skin and dark, green eyes and golden brown and black
ONE-two-three-FOUR, ONE-two-three, ONE-and-two-three-FOUR
(Look how it slows down at the end, with the “and” in the lyric carrying the weight of a full beat. Very cool!)
The author of Shantaram, A Novel (ONE-two-three, REST and-ONE-two) has an affinity for two- and three-beat combinations with the accent on the first beat. Why?
Want to ask him?
His name is Gregory David Roberts.
Count it out.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Barefoot Tango, Part 2
I am an investigative reporter by training. When I get on to something, I am like a dog with a bone.
"Of course I can," Kathleen snorts. She is an irascible woman whom I don't dare call old. "Everyone can feel their feet!"
"What do they feel like?" I ask.
Kathleen juts out her chin, her eyes focused inward.
"About a seven-and-a-half," she says.
"Of course I can," Kathleen snorts. She is an irascible woman whom I don't dare call old. "Everyone can feel their feet!"
"What do they feel like?" I ask.
Kathleen juts out her chin, her eyes focused inward.
"About a seven-and-a-half," she says.
Barefoot Tango, Part 1
Can you feel your feet? asks Peter Ralston in Zen Body Being: An Enlightened Approach to Physical Skill, Grace and Power.
I have been pondering the question for nearly a year.
The answer is: No.
I ask an editor I work with.
“I can feel my shoes on my feet,” he says.
I have been pondering the question for nearly a year.
The answer is: No.
I ask an editor I work with.
“I can feel my shoes on my feet,” he says.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
MilongaCat and Dove Chocolates: One of These Things Is Just Like the Other
Just in time for Valentine's Day, from Dove Chocolates, comes this message for MilongaCat ("the only cat who loves you back"):
"Chocolate always loves you back."
(For UK friends, Dove Chocolates are bite-size chocolates wrapped in foil, with messages printed on the inside of the wrappers. Bob, Tango Colorado's Friendly Guy, hands the candies out to the women at milongas and practicas as if they were ... well ... candy!)
Read MilongaCat here.
(MilongaCat, what is your midwinter tango scene like? I am thinking about New Year's in London... )
"Chocolate always loves you back."
(For UK friends, Dove Chocolates are bite-size chocolates wrapped in foil, with messages printed on the inside of the wrappers. Bob, Tango Colorado's Friendly Guy, hands the candies out to the women at milongas and practicas as if they were ... well ... candy!)
Read MilongaCat here.
(MilongaCat, what is your midwinter tango scene like? I am thinking about New Year's in London... )
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Why Tango Is Hard to Learn
Tango is a hard dance to learn. We all marvel at and complain about that. But can we explain it?
Thanks to milonguero/a/s on electrodes, we can!
The neural basis of human dance
Research Imaging Center, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, USA.
Human dance was investigated with positron emission tomography [PET scans] to identify its systems-level organization. Three core aspects of dance were examined: entrainment, meter and patterned movement.
Amateur dancers performed small-scale, cyclically repeated tango steps on an inclined surface to the beat of tango music, without visual guidance.
Entrainment of dance steps to music, compared to self-pacing of movement, was supported by anterior cerebellar vermis. Movement to a regular, metric rhythm, compared to movement to an irregular rhythm, implicated the right putamen in the voluntary control of metric motion.
Spatial navigation of leg movement during dance, when controlling for muscle contraction, activated the medial superior parietal lobule, reflecting proprioceptive and somatosensory contributions to spatial cognition in dance.
Finally, additional cortical, subcortical and cerebellar regions were active at the systems level.
Consistent with recent work on simpler, rhythmic, motor-sensory behaviors, these data reveal the interacting network of brain areas active during spatially patterned, bipedal, rhythmic movements that are integrated in dance.
One Heart's Fully Reliable Medical Summary: Ah. It's your proprioceptive and somatosensory contributions to spatial cognition.
All clear now?
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Live Long and Tango! Breaking Medical News
Effects of tango on functional mobility in Parkinson's disease
University of Washington, School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Recent research shows that people with Parkinson's Disease who dance tango do better on the Timed Up and Go test.
The researchers focused on people with Parkinson's Disease because these people present the same types of balance and gait problems experienced by the frail elderly.
(The researchers also discovered that tango improves balance. Clearly, I was not in that study.)
You could go online to read the full report. But why? It is full of big words and long sentences. Let me summarize the main idea of this report for you.
One Heart Dancing's Fully Reliable Medical Summary: If you intend to live long, dance on!
More on medical TANGO:
Reduced expression of TANGO in colon and hepatocellular carcinomas
Institute of Pathology, University of Regensburg, Germany
Recently, we identified TANGO as a tumor suppressor in malignant melanoma. ... Our studies present for the first time ... functional relevant loss of TANGO expression may contribute to general tumor development and progression.
Again with the big words!
One Heart's Fully Reliable Medical Summary: If you sunbathe and eat junk, TANGO!
Cardiac pain while dancing the tango
Citation only available, but I am writing the authors for a copy of the full report.
Judging from the fully informative title, here is
One Heart's Fully Reliable Medical Summary: To dance tango, the dance of the heart, you must experience the ache of the heart. But if you are having a heart attack, please go to the hospital.
Motor imagery of walking following training in locomotor attention. The effect of "the tango lesson"
Center for Cognitive Science and Department of Psychology, University of Turin
The hypothesis of this study is that focusing attention on walking motor schemes could modify sensorimotor activation of the brain....
In our training, subjects were asked to perform basic tango steps, which require specific ways of walking; each tango lesson ended with motor imagery training of the performed steps. ...
The results show that training determines an expansion of active bilateral motor areas during locomotor imagery. This finding, together with a reduction of visuospatial activation in the posterior right brain, suggests a decreased role of visual imagery processes in the post-training period in favor of motor-kinesthetic ones.
Yet again, One Heart summarizes the medical jargon for you!
One Heart's Fully Reliable Medical Summary: Once you've seen a new step, you need to do it ... and keep doing it, to get it right.
Practica starts in 3 hours. Let's motor-kinesthetize!
Thanks to Brian Dunn for the heads-up on the research regarding people with Parkinson's Disease. Read a summary of the report.
University of Washington, School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Recent research shows that people with Parkinson's Disease who dance tango do better on the Timed Up and Go test.
The researchers focused on people with Parkinson's Disease because these people present the same types of balance and gait problems experienced by the frail elderly.
(The researchers also discovered that tango improves balance. Clearly, I was not in that study.)
You could go online to read the full report. But why? It is full of big words and long sentences. Let me summarize the main idea of this report for you.
One Heart Dancing's Fully Reliable Medical Summary: If you intend to live long, dance on!
* * *
More on medical TANGO:
Reduced expression of TANGO in colon and hepatocellular carcinomas
Institute of Pathology, University of Regensburg, Germany
Recently, we identified TANGO as a tumor suppressor in malignant melanoma. ... Our studies present for the first time ... functional relevant loss of TANGO expression may contribute to general tumor development and progression.
Again with the big words!
One Heart's Fully Reliable Medical Summary: If you sunbathe and eat junk, TANGO!
* * *
Cardiac pain while dancing the tango
Citation only available, but I am writing the authors for a copy of the full report.
Judging from the fully informative title, here is
One Heart's Fully Reliable Medical Summary: To dance tango, the dance of the heart, you must experience the ache of the heart. But if you are having a heart attack, please go to the hospital.
* * *
Motor imagery of walking following training in locomotor attention. The effect of "the tango lesson"
Center for Cognitive Science and Department of Psychology, University of Turin
The hypothesis of this study is that focusing attention on walking motor schemes could modify sensorimotor activation of the brain....
In our training, subjects were asked to perform basic tango steps, which require specific ways of walking; each tango lesson ended with motor imagery training of the performed steps. ...
The results show that training determines an expansion of active bilateral motor areas during locomotor imagery. This finding, together with a reduction of visuospatial activation in the posterior right brain, suggests a decreased role of visual imagery processes in the post-training period in favor of motor-kinesthetic ones.
Yet again, One Heart summarizes the medical jargon for you!
One Heart's Fully Reliable Medical Summary: Once you've seen a new step, you need to do it ... and keep doing it, to get it right.
Practica starts in 3 hours. Let's motor-kinesthetize!
* * *
Thanks to Brian Dunn for the heads-up on the research regarding people with Parkinson's Disease. Read a summary of the report.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Ghosts of Cabeceo Past, Part 1
A memory, impressions and fragments, a wrinkled watercolor that once hung on the refrigerator door:
Little girl, walking home at dusk with her sisters. Lagging as usual.
At stop sign, man in car. Sisters gather round briefly, run off.
Friendly eyes beckon.
Little girl, curious, goes over to see.
Shows little girl something unusual but not interesting. Little girl shrugs (sisters shouting Slowpoke, hurry up!), runs to catch up with her sisters.
Years later, up close and personal with a man for the first time, thinks to herself: Gosh, that looks familiar.
Much later still … Eureka!
How’s this for shit happens? Per vert ventures out to scare the girlies, it’s just his luck to hit on the one too spacey to get it.
Little girl, walking home at dusk with her sisters. Lagging as usual.
At stop sign, man in car. Sisters gather round briefly, run off.
Friendly eyes beckon.
Little girl, curious, goes over to see.
Shows little girl something unusual but not interesting. Little girl shrugs (sisters shouting Slowpoke, hurry up!), runs to catch up with her sisters.
Years later, up close and personal with a man for the first time, thinks to herself: Gosh, that looks familiar.
Much later still … Eureka!
How’s this for shit happens? Per vert ventures out to scare the girlies, it’s just his luck to hit on the one too spacey to get it.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Up with People Meets Pulpo
Five-of-Six slaps on a morphine patch. We have a nice chat on the way to the show. She drinks Pepsi, eats candy, smokes cigarettes. By the time the show starts, she is twitching all over.
Brandon from Texas comes over to our box to say hello. He's in the show. Until last December he was a basketball player. Then he was injured, so he joined Up with People.
Come again?
In the off season, he dances for Disney.
The curtain rises, the dancing begins. They're dancing in couples, something energetic, nothing special.
Hey, wait, what was that?
A boy and a girl kick up their heels. They intertwine legs, her ankle behind his knee, he likewise to her. Legs straight, a bridge between them, posture perfect and right on the beat, they hop on one foot in a circle, until he stands where she was and vice-versa.
El Pulpo, eat your heart out.
There's a young woman from Tucson who sings like a Hispanic Aretha.
Like all of the rest, she's squeaky clean. Very up. Very Disney. And still she sings like Aretha.
When she finishes her song, there's silence before the applause, the pause that tells you how good she is.
Into the silence, Five-of-Six speaks. Loudly.
Dang! she says.
I am a sap. I had tears in my eyes. A couple of times. Stood and clapped and sang along with the crowd: Up, up with people ... !
And here's the birthday surprise: All of the door is donated to Habitat for Humanity, my favorite charity!
How's that for a gift that turns on itself, and then turns again?
That's how Five-of-Six does it.
* * *
Brandon from Texas comes over to our box to say hello. He's in the show. Until last December he was a basketball player. Then he was injured, so he joined Up with People.
Come again?
In the off season, he dances for Disney.
* * *
The curtain rises, the dancing begins. They're dancing in couples, something energetic, nothing special.
Hey, wait, what was that?
A boy and a girl kick up their heels. They intertwine legs, her ankle behind his knee, he likewise to her. Legs straight, a bridge between them, posture perfect and right on the beat, they hop on one foot in a circle, until he stands where she was and vice-versa.
El Pulpo, eat your heart out.
* * *
There's a young woman from Tucson who sings like a Hispanic Aretha.
Like all of the rest, she's squeaky clean. Very up. Very Disney. And still she sings like Aretha.
When she finishes her song, there's silence before the applause, the pause that tells you how good she is.
Into the silence, Five-of-Six speaks. Loudly.
Dang! she says.
* * *
I am a sap. I had tears in my eyes. A couple of times. Stood and clapped and sang along with the crowd: Up, up with people ... !
* * *
And here's the birthday surprise: All of the door is donated to Habitat for Humanity, my favorite charity!
How's that for a gift that turns on itself, and then turns again?
That's how Five-of-Six does it.
A Birthday Gift from Five-of-Six
When I was a kid, I listened to my older sisters sing, and I learned their songs. Here are three I remember best:
There Are So Many Worlds to Explore
When You Think You’re Looking Wide, Look Wider Still
… and the one you all know, come on, sing along!
Up, up with people!
You meet ’em wherever you go!
Up, up with people!
There the best sort of folks we know!
If more people were for people
All people everywhere
There’d be a lot less people to worry about
And a lot more people to care
There’d be a lot less people to worry about
And a lot more people to care!
Alone in the basement I belted it out, the star of my own Broadway show.
(Yes I was a freak … and you had your air guitar. So there.)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word became Song.
If you tell yourself something often enough, it will become you.
Words become action become character.
There is something shameful about admitting a large portion of your moral code rises from children’s songs.
And yet…
Right this minute I’m enjoying a vision of Buddha and Jesus and Muhammad and Abraham and Gaia and what the heck, even the Big Old White-Haired Guy, singing and dancing with canes and straw hats, a chorus line of white-robed beings behind them.
Tonight I am going to my birthday present: the Up with People show.
At the family birthday party last week, Sibling Five-of-Six showed me the floor plan of a theater with all of the wheelchair spaces highlighted in purple. She can lock in, and I can sit in the companion seat beside her.
“I’ll take you for your birthday,” she said. “Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always wanted to see them.”
For my birthday, she'll take me to a show she wants to see. This is how Five-of-Six does it: takes the simplest, most straightforward thing and twists it around on itself. I believe she has never drawn a straight line in her life; I believe she is not capable of it. If you asked her what is the shortest distance between two points, she would draw a Mobius strip. If you said, "Come on, do it right," she would strain to understand. Determined to please you, she would draw a double helix.
Thus ...
If you knew Five-of-Six—running away from home at 13 and again at 14 and finally for good at 15, living by her wits on the streets of three major and a couple of minor cities, then dried up and cleaned up and one of the world’s weirdest and most successful mothers—it would come as no surprise to you that she is an Up with People fan.
At the core of it all, Five-of-Six believes in nothing so much as the universal goodness of the human heart.
Yeah, yeah, me too.
But I’ve pretty much outgrown the whole upbeat song-and-dance thing. All that pep! All those exclamation points! It’s nice for the kids, but I’m a woman now. Give me tango.
So when Five-of-Six pleads, “Do you want to go with me?” in the high-pitched, baby-girl voice she uses when she is afraid that her big sisters will tell her she’s stupid (which we do much too often), my first thought is: There’s tango that night.
Then my thoughts come in a tumble:
There aren’t many Saturday night milongas … and her voice is really high … and I feel guilty that I don’t spend enough time with her … but Saturday night milongas have a special character, both fancy and friendly … and she really wants her big sister to like her … and the shy-gene almost never kicks in at the milongas on Saturday nights … and none of her big sisters shows her we love her enough … and she’s mostly locked in her house with that damn wheelchair …
I can see you can see where this is going.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from tango it’s to let time unfold. There will be other Saturday night milongas.
Five-of-Six is shouting over the cacophony of all the family voices. “Guess what? One Heart wants to go!”
Over dinner, she says it again. She enthuses at length. People exchange glances, but no one is taking this moment from her.
From the foot of the table, Two-of-Six sings: Up, up with people…
We all know the song by heart. We’ve been carrying the lyrics around since the Up with People troupe visited our elementary school.
It’s easier to up-with people who are halfway around the world than it is your little sister.
But I am committed now, and I am not going halfway. The least I can do is show my respect. For the past week I have been telling myself
When you think you're looking wide
Look wider still
There are many so worlds to explore
All you have to do is to open the door
And let your spirit soar.
There’s the world of yourself when you’re all alone ...
And there’s the world of others, too.
All Creation from the start
Becomes a wonderland
To all who learn to lend a heart
Before they lend a hand
And when you've looked the world around,
Then look once more
Meet the Other on its own ground
Find yourself there
Up with People is what it is. Peppy and sweet and unspoiled. Why not take it on for a night? Why not leave our cynica(du)l(t) selves with the babysitter and treat the kid in ourselves to a night on the town?
Five-of-Six wants to. She wants to dwell in that pre-adolescent state of mind for a few hours. If I go as a grown-up, it will rob Five-of-Six of the moment.
OK. I am going. Fully there. I will do it for Five-of-Six.
For my birthday.
Not a bad gift.
Actually, quite nice.
Probably the most meaningful gift I’ve had in a while.
Or will have.
This is how Five-of-Six does it.
Damn, she’s good.
Five-of-Six has called. She hurts so much she's not sure she can go.
I think I’ll be better, she says. When it hurts this bad, it either gets much worse or it just goes away. I think it will go away. I'll call you later and let you know.
She’s changed the will-call tickets to my name, just in case.
Hear it: Up With People
(it's the icon at the bottom right corner)
Look Wider Still
When you think you're looking wide
Look wider still
Behold the world that lies beyond
Your window sill
All creation from the start
Becomes a wonderland
For all who learn to lend a heart
Before they lend a hand
And when you've looked the world around
Then look once more
And find the friendships to be found
Beyond your door
You will walk the earth with pride
And never look you fill
When you look
And look wide
And look wider still
There Are So Many Worlds to Explore
There are so many worlds to explore
There are so many worlds to explore
All you have to do is to open the door
And let your spirit soar.
There's the world of yourself when you're all alone
There's the world of yourself when you're just at home
There's the world of friends so true
And there's the world of others too
But the world that is best is the out-of-doors
Because you never know just what's in store
There's beauty, rest and solitude
That fills your heart full of gratitude
For the thigns that make this world so nice
The birds and the trees are just a spice
Of what people sacrificed
To make this world a paradise
There are so many worlds to explore
There are so many worlds to explore
All you have to do is to open the door
And let your spirit soar.
There Are So Many Worlds to Explore
When You Think You’re Looking Wide, Look Wider Still
… and the one you all know, come on, sing along!
Up, up with people!
You meet ’em wherever you go!
Up, up with people!
There the best sort of folks we know!
If more people were for people
All people everywhere
There’d be a lot less people to worry about
And a lot more people to care
There’d be a lot less people to worry about
And a lot more people to care!
Alone in the basement I belted it out, the star of my own Broadway show.
(Yes I was a freak … and you had your air guitar. So there.)
* * *
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word became Song.
If you tell yourself something often enough, it will become you.
Words become action become character.
There is something shameful about admitting a large portion of your moral code rises from children’s songs.
And yet…
Right this minute I’m enjoying a vision of Buddha and Jesus and Muhammad and Abraham and Gaia and what the heck, even the Big Old White-Haired Guy, singing and dancing with canes and straw hats, a chorus line of white-robed beings behind them.
* * *
Tonight I am going to my birthday present: the Up with People show.
At the family birthday party last week, Sibling Five-of-Six showed me the floor plan of a theater with all of the wheelchair spaces highlighted in purple. She can lock in, and I can sit in the companion seat beside her.
“I’ll take you for your birthday,” she said. “Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always wanted to see them.”
For my birthday, she'll take me to a show she wants to see. This is how Five-of-Six does it: takes the simplest, most straightforward thing and twists it around on itself. I believe she has never drawn a straight line in her life; I believe she is not capable of it. If you asked her what is the shortest distance between two points, she would draw a Mobius strip. If you said, "Come on, do it right," she would strain to understand. Determined to please you, she would draw a double helix.
Thus ...
If you knew Five-of-Six—running away from home at 13 and again at 14 and finally for good at 15, living by her wits on the streets of three major and a couple of minor cities, then dried up and cleaned up and one of the world’s weirdest and most successful mothers—it would come as no surprise to you that she is an Up with People fan.
At the core of it all, Five-of-Six believes in nothing so much as the universal goodness of the human heart.
Yeah, yeah, me too.
But I’ve pretty much outgrown the whole upbeat song-and-dance thing. All that pep! All those exclamation points! It’s nice for the kids, but I’m a woman now. Give me tango.
So when Five-of-Six pleads, “Do you want to go with me?” in the high-pitched, baby-girl voice she uses when she is afraid that her big sisters will tell her she’s stupid (which we do much too often), my first thought is: There’s tango that night.
Then my thoughts come in a tumble:
There aren’t many Saturday night milongas … and her voice is really high … and I feel guilty that I don’t spend enough time with her … but Saturday night milongas have a special character, both fancy and friendly … and she really wants her big sister to like her … and the shy-gene almost never kicks in at the milongas on Saturday nights … and none of her big sisters shows her we love her enough … and she’s mostly locked in her house with that damn wheelchair …
I can see you can see where this is going.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from tango it’s to let time unfold. There will be other Saturday night milongas.
Five-of-Six is shouting over the cacophony of all the family voices. “Guess what? One Heart wants to go!”
Over dinner, she says it again. She enthuses at length. People exchange glances, but no one is taking this moment from her.
From the foot of the table, Two-of-Six sings: Up, up with people…
We all know the song by heart. We’ve been carrying the lyrics around since the Up with People troupe visited our elementary school.
It’s easier to up-with people who are halfway around the world than it is your little sister.
But I am committed now, and I am not going halfway. The least I can do is show my respect. For the past week I have been telling myself
When you think you're looking wide
Look wider still
There are many so worlds to explore
All you have to do is to open the door
And let your spirit soar.
There’s the world of yourself when you’re all alone ...
And there’s the world of others, too.
All Creation from the start
Becomes a wonderland
To all who learn to lend a heart
Before they lend a hand
And when you've looked the world around,
Then look once more
Meet the Other on its own ground
Find yourself there
Up with People is what it is. Peppy and sweet and unspoiled. Why not take it on for a night? Why not leave our cynica(du)l(t) selves with the babysitter and treat the kid in ourselves to a night on the town?
Five-of-Six wants to. She wants to dwell in that pre-adolescent state of mind for a few hours. If I go as a grown-up, it will rob Five-of-Six of the moment.
OK. I am going. Fully there. I will do it for Five-of-Six.
For my birthday.
Not a bad gift.
Actually, quite nice.
Probably the most meaningful gift I’ve had in a while.
Or will have.
This is how Five-of-Six does it.
Damn, she’s good.
* * *
Five-of-Six has called. She hurts so much she's not sure she can go.
I think I’ll be better, she says. When it hurts this bad, it either gets much worse or it just goes away. I think it will go away. I'll call you later and let you know.
She’s changed the will-call tickets to my name, just in case.
* * *
Hear it: Up With People
(it's the icon at the bottom right corner)
Look Wider Still
When you think you're looking wide
Look wider still
Behold the world that lies beyond
Your window sill
All creation from the start
Becomes a wonderland
For all who learn to lend a heart
Before they lend a hand
And when you've looked the world around
Then look once more
And find the friendships to be found
Beyond your door
You will walk the earth with pride
And never look you fill
When you look
And look wide
And look wider still
There Are So Many Worlds to Explore
There are so many worlds to explore
There are so many worlds to explore
All you have to do is to open the door
And let your spirit soar.
There's the world of yourself when you're all alone
There's the world of yourself when you're just at home
There's the world of friends so true
And there's the world of others too
But the world that is best is the out-of-doors
Because you never know just what's in store
There's beauty, rest and solitude
That fills your heart full of gratitude
For the thigns that make this world so nice
The birds and the trees are just a spice
Of what people sacrificed
To make this world a paradise
There are so many worlds to explore
There are so many worlds to explore
All you have to do is to open the door
And let your spirit soar.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Why I Love My Job: Rat Cuisine
Did I mention I love my job? I spend all my time coming up with ideas. My favorite idea so far is a news column called "Interesting and Unusual."
If I had my way, every newspaper in the world would forget about reporting on murder and finance and presidential elections and stick to the interesting stuff. Like this:
Save the Strychnine, Savor a Rat
Writing is a lot like a science experiment. You start with what you know. Think about ramifications, implications, causes, weird connections. Make a hypothesis. Investigate. Report.
That's what I love about this article. Here's a writer who started with a story that's been in the news for 2 years and asked the next logical question: If a country's major food supply gives way, what happens? The story is funny and gruesome and humane.
When you manage creative types, it is very important to stay out of their way. So normally I avoid the temptation to muck around in a writer's work.
In this case I made an exception. I contributed the link at the end of the story.
If I had my way, every newspaper in the world would forget about reporting on murder and finance and presidential elections and stick to the interesting stuff. Like this:
Save the Strychnine, Savor a Rat
Writing is a lot like a science experiment. You start with what you know. Think about ramifications, implications, causes, weird connections. Make a hypothesis. Investigate. Report.
That's what I love about this article. Here's a writer who started with a story that's been in the news for 2 years and asked the next logical question: If a country's major food supply gives way, what happens? The story is funny and gruesome and humane.
When you manage creative types, it is very important to stay out of their way. So normally I avoid the temptation to muck around in a writer's work.
In this case I made an exception. I contributed the link at the end of the story.
Monday, February 4, 2008
The Gift of the Wish
Yesterday as I was washing my face, an eyelash fell onto my cheek.
Last time this happened, Grisha stopped teaching. One Heart! On your face! he said in that tone that warns: A spider is crawling on you!
I responded appropriately. Frenzied head shaking and swiping and eek!ing.
No, no! Grisha said. He plucked something off my cheek, dropped it in my palm.
Eyelash.
Huh.
Hardly seems worth the fuss. Maybe he has an eyelash phobia?
Make a wish, he said, then blow it away.
Ah.
I have a standard wish for birthdays and shooting stars and dandelion seeds and now, for eyelashes. It’s a cliché, but what is a wish anyway? I may as well put my vote out there.
World peace. Poof!
Back to work.
I am not the most strong-willed person I know. My mother is, or maybe Sibling Five-of-Six is. Shortly after Five-of-Six woke up from routine back surgery, the doctors delivered the bad news: You will never walk again.
Mother and Five-of-Six looked at each other.
Grimly, I imagine. When they look grim, you’d best stay out of their way.
Because the surgery caused the paralysis, the hospital threw in a few weeks of free occupational therapy. They taught Five-of-Six to use a catheter, a wheelchair.
My mother registered Five-of-Six at Mademoiselle, a budget health club. No swimming pool, no hot tub, no personal trainers, no hot towels. Just space for aerobics classes and a motley collection of machines and free weights.
Against her own best judgment (such is the strength of Five-of-Six’s will), the hospital’s physical therapist agreed to visit the health club and run through a few exercises that would get my sister up and walking. The therapist did not mince words in telling Five-of-Six what she thought of this scheme. Five-of-Six, who had survived alone on the streets of three major cities, did not mince words, either.
The catheter didn’t last a month. Walking took a bit longer.
I come from a line of strong-willed women. I am the wimp. I don’t fight. I give way--to a fault.
So I never thought of myself as strong-willed until I edited The Everything Parent’s Guide to the Strong-Willed Child.
It was like reading my horoscope. I do this! I thought. That is just like me!
But wait a minute. Aren’t we all strong-willed children? Isn’t that our national character?
Who doesn’t want what they want? Who accepts substitutes? For example:
If you got into the middle of a good book, would you not stick with it? Would you not close your ears when called to the table for dinner, refusing to lift your eyes from the page even as you climbed the stairs to your room, where you have been sent for the night? Would you not settle in, smugly satisfied, knowing that no one will interrupt you until bedtime, when you will switch to using the flashlight under the covers until you finally reach the last lovely period?
If long division made no sense to you, would you not stick to your principles, refusing to accept that an educated guess is the best way to start solving a problem? Would you not insist to your math-whiz of a father that this is a sloppy system, even as you fail all your tests? Even now, now that you have at last provisionally resigned yourself to this sloppy system, even now would you not argue that there has to be a better way to figure out how many 14s go into 87 than saying, How about 5? No? Well then, how about 4? 3? And even now, right this minute as you contemplate this problem, would you not adamantly refuse to use the calculator because--admit it, in your heart of hearts you know it as well as I do--there must be a beeline through this thicket?
If your soul-twin died, would you not say to your God, That’s it, take me now? Wouldn’t you insist? And if the Bastard refused, wouldn’t you say, “I’ll show you!” and turn your back on the so-called gift of corporeal life? Wouldn’t your soul fold its arms and stand its ground on the tiniest of corporeal footprints, tapping its toe, sullenly muttering “Fine, I’ll wait,” and then do it, wait, and wait for as long as it takes?
If after 18 months of tango lessons and practice you suddenly discovered you are afraid of your shoes, would you not call Nina straightaway?
I never knew how strong-headed I am because I do not oppose opposition. I give way. Which is not to say I give up.
I do work-arounds. Obstruct me here, I carve a new channel there. Constrict me, and I push harder. Tell me I must do things your way and I’ll acquiesce—for now.
When I was a kid, I sang a song: Can’t go over it, Can’t go under it, Guess I’ll have to go through it.
In lifesaving I learned: When a drowning person climbs onto your shoulders, locks his legs around your neck in panic to keep his head above water, do not resist. Sink.
As often as not, I bear the brunt of my own strong will. I put constraints on myself, or I accept others’ constraints. Sometimes I do this because it is the right thing to do. Because I find self-discipline and –denial satisfying. Because when I am feeling dominated or invisible, self-control demonstrates my autonomous power. Because when you have nearly unlimited success in getting what you want, it is wise to narrow the scope of what you will pursue by defining what you will not. Because when the world is too wide, it is helpful to curl up in a box of your own making.
Self-direction is a game I like to win, even if my only opponent is me.
I am soft and pig-headed. I want what I want. I give way, but I play to win.
Who would take me on? Who would presume to try to deny me the thing that I want?
Right now I am denying myself.
Something bad has happened. I am trying to make it stop, but it is a battle of wills.
What if, when something bad happens, you don’t really want it to stop?
I want what I want and, usually, I get it.
Right now what I want is a thing I should not.
I am battling my own strong will.
Last week as I was washing my face, an eyelash fell onto my cheek.
I wished for the right thing, but my heart was not in it.
Even as I blew the eyelash away, I regretted the cheat. Regretted that I could not fully wish for the right thing and equally regretted that I squandered the chance to make the wish rightly.
Yesterday, another eyelash fell.
A second chance. Gift or demand?
For a long time I stood, the eyelash balanced on the tip of my finger. I breathed. I reasoned with myself, kind but firm. I marshaled every trick in the cosmic-love book. I imagined the absolute best thing that could happen.
It worked!
I made the wish. No crossed fingers. No strings attached. No holding back.
I breathed in, the Breath of Life, held wish and breath together in a moment of sincerest intention, then blew, the Breath of Love.
Why do we make wishes? Why do we bother to puff on dandelion seeds and birthday candles and eyelashes?
Are we merely strong-willed children, enlisting magic to get what we want?
What if the act of making a wish was not the means but the end?
What if the act of making a wish was about experiencing the moment of sincerest intention?
Poof! I blew the eyelash away. But I will hold to this moment.
In times to come when I find myself wanting this thing I should not, I will reenter the moment of wishing. I will stand in the place of sincerest intention, and it will sustain me.
Last time this happened, Grisha stopped teaching. One Heart! On your face! he said in that tone that warns: A spider is crawling on you!
I responded appropriately. Frenzied head shaking and swiping and eek!ing.
No, no! Grisha said. He plucked something off my cheek, dropped it in my palm.
Eyelash.
Huh.
Hardly seems worth the fuss. Maybe he has an eyelash phobia?
Make a wish, he said, then blow it away.
Ah.
I have a standard wish for birthdays and shooting stars and dandelion seeds and now, for eyelashes. It’s a cliché, but what is a wish anyway? I may as well put my vote out there.
World peace. Poof!
Back to work.
* * *
I am not the most strong-willed person I know. My mother is, or maybe Sibling Five-of-Six is. Shortly after Five-of-Six woke up from routine back surgery, the doctors delivered the bad news: You will never walk again.
Mother and Five-of-Six looked at each other.
Grimly, I imagine. When they look grim, you’d best stay out of their way.
Because the surgery caused the paralysis, the hospital threw in a few weeks of free occupational therapy. They taught Five-of-Six to use a catheter, a wheelchair.
My mother registered Five-of-Six at Mademoiselle, a budget health club. No swimming pool, no hot tub, no personal trainers, no hot towels. Just space for aerobics classes and a motley collection of machines and free weights.
Against her own best judgment (such is the strength of Five-of-Six’s will), the hospital’s physical therapist agreed to visit the health club and run through a few exercises that would get my sister up and walking. The therapist did not mince words in telling Five-of-Six what she thought of this scheme. Five-of-Six, who had survived alone on the streets of three major cities, did not mince words, either.
The catheter didn’t last a month. Walking took a bit longer.
* * *
I come from a line of strong-willed women. I am the wimp. I don’t fight. I give way--to a fault.
So I never thought of myself as strong-willed until I edited The Everything Parent’s Guide to the Strong-Willed Child.
It was like reading my horoscope. I do this! I thought. That is just like me!
But wait a minute. Aren’t we all strong-willed children? Isn’t that our national character?
Who doesn’t want what they want? Who accepts substitutes? For example:
If you got into the middle of a good book, would you not stick with it? Would you not close your ears when called to the table for dinner, refusing to lift your eyes from the page even as you climbed the stairs to your room, where you have been sent for the night? Would you not settle in, smugly satisfied, knowing that no one will interrupt you until bedtime, when you will switch to using the flashlight under the covers until you finally reach the last lovely period?
If long division made no sense to you, would you not stick to your principles, refusing to accept that an educated guess is the best way to start solving a problem? Would you not insist to your math-whiz of a father that this is a sloppy system, even as you fail all your tests? Even now, now that you have at last provisionally resigned yourself to this sloppy system, even now would you not argue that there has to be a better way to figure out how many 14s go into 87 than saying, How about 5? No? Well then, how about 4? 3? And even now, right this minute as you contemplate this problem, would you not adamantly refuse to use the calculator because--admit it, in your heart of hearts you know it as well as I do--there must be a beeline through this thicket?
If your soul-twin died, would you not say to your God, That’s it, take me now? Wouldn’t you insist? And if the Bastard refused, wouldn’t you say, “I’ll show you!” and turn your back on the so-called gift of corporeal life? Wouldn’t your soul fold its arms and stand its ground on the tiniest of corporeal footprints, tapping its toe, sullenly muttering “Fine, I’ll wait,” and then do it, wait, and wait for as long as it takes?
If after 18 months of tango lessons and practice you suddenly discovered you are afraid of your shoes, would you not call Nina straightaway?
* * *
I never knew how strong-headed I am because I do not oppose opposition. I give way. Which is not to say I give up.
I do work-arounds. Obstruct me here, I carve a new channel there. Constrict me, and I push harder. Tell me I must do things your way and I’ll acquiesce—for now.
When I was a kid, I sang a song: Can’t go over it, Can’t go under it, Guess I’ll have to go through it.
In lifesaving I learned: When a drowning person climbs onto your shoulders, locks his legs around your neck in panic to keep his head above water, do not resist. Sink.
As often as not, I bear the brunt of my own strong will. I put constraints on myself, or I accept others’ constraints. Sometimes I do this because it is the right thing to do. Because I find self-discipline and –denial satisfying. Because when I am feeling dominated or invisible, self-control demonstrates my autonomous power. Because when you have nearly unlimited success in getting what you want, it is wise to narrow the scope of what you will pursue by defining what you will not. Because when the world is too wide, it is helpful to curl up in a box of your own making.
Self-direction is a game I like to win, even if my only opponent is me.
I am soft and pig-headed. I want what I want. I give way, but I play to win.
Who would take me on? Who would presume to try to deny me the thing that I want?
Right now I am denying myself.
* * *
Something bad has happened. I am trying to make it stop, but it is a battle of wills.
What if, when something bad happens, you don’t really want it to stop?
I want what I want and, usually, I get it.
Right now what I want is a thing I should not.
I am battling my own strong will.
* * *
Last week as I was washing my face, an eyelash fell onto my cheek.
I wished for the right thing, but my heart was not in it.
Even as I blew the eyelash away, I regretted the cheat. Regretted that I could not fully wish for the right thing and equally regretted that I squandered the chance to make the wish rightly.
* * *
Yesterday, another eyelash fell.
A second chance. Gift or demand?
For a long time I stood, the eyelash balanced on the tip of my finger. I breathed. I reasoned with myself, kind but firm. I marshaled every trick in the cosmic-love book. I imagined the absolute best thing that could happen.
It worked!
I made the wish. No crossed fingers. No strings attached. No holding back.
I breathed in, the Breath of Life, held wish and breath together in a moment of sincerest intention, then blew, the Breath of Love.
* * *
Why do we make wishes? Why do we bother to puff on dandelion seeds and birthday candles and eyelashes?
Are we merely strong-willed children, enlisting magic to get what we want?
What if the act of making a wish was not the means but the end?
What if the act of making a wish was about experiencing the moment of sincerest intention?
Poof! I blew the eyelash away. But I will hold to this moment.
In times to come when I find myself wanting this thing I should not, I will reenter the moment of wishing. I will stand in the place of sincerest intention, and it will sustain me.
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