I am dancing as fast as I can.

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Photo by Ahmad Odeh on Unsplash

Wayne Dyer said, “When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way.

I’m dancing as fast as I can.  The tempo may kill me. My feet lift and fall, lift and fall, heel, toe, do si do, step two three and twirl. 

I’m dancing as fast as I can, don’t ask me to juggle.  Now is not the time.  Dip, sway, do the hustle, all fifty-seven steps.  I can’t stop, the music still plays and plays and plays…like an organ grinder with a monkey I dance.

Perhaps I should seek coins from those watching.

I’m dancing as fast as I can, skirt belling and swirling and tangling between my legs.  I stumble now and again, but I’m dancing as fast as I can.

No time for chores, for downtime, for respite, I am dancing as fast as I can,  The cha cha, the foxtrot, a stately waltz all without a partner. Alone.

Nietzche said, “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

I can hear the music.  Can they?  Am I insane?

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The Orient Express in 2025

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I want to ride the Orient Express in 2025.  They are refurbishing seventeen original cars– lush and extravagant – with all the glamor of rail travel of old.  Formal dining, a club car, suites, a trip fit for royalty.  I want to clatter through Budapest and Venice, London and Paris.  I want to dress for dinner.  I want to fall asleep to the rhythm of the car swaying as it makes it way through the dark.  I want to wear an evening gown with a dramatic white silk stole and a beaded purse.

I imagine being pampered and shutting out the real world.  Going back in time to elegance and refinement.  Shhhhh…. I know the good old days weren’t so good… but there were some things that were.  Never mind they were only available for the wealthy and only will be again in 2025.  I can dream.

I would want to find vintage luggage for this trip.  A train case.  A hat box.  Yes, I would wear a hat and hosiery and gloves.  Eating cucumber sandwiches with a full English tea.

I would wear bright red lipstick and the hosiery would have seams up the back.  My powder compact would be gold and my hairbrush an ornate silver with boars’ bristles.

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Back in my day: a rant in which Connie wraps her shawl tightly around her shoulders and expounds on the good ol’ days

/ wvfurandroot / 5 Comments

Hoo Boy!  I’m getting old.  I’m losing hope for humanity in a number of respects, but one that just drives me up the wall and I can’t quite articulate why is the current refusal to dress up for anything.  Does that make me shallow?  Maybe. 

But in my day, we brought jeans to the forefront, but we didn’t wear them everywhere.  It just wasn’t done.  And there was a period of time when one was expected to iron their jeans so they had sharp creases down the front and back. 

Clubs and discos often, usually, had a dress code:  no jeans.  We didn’t wear jeans to church.  We certainly didn’t wear them to work.  My first demonstration was for the right to wear jeans to school.  Yes.  To school 

And when we did start wearing them to clubs and restaurants, we did so with heels, full makeup and the advent of the very expensive, very trendy Designer Jeans. 

And now?  Now, I can’t believe what people leave their houses wearing – me included.   

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Like Fannie Flagg wrote, Towanda!

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Towanda has two meanings ‘peaceful resting place’, ‘many waters’ or ‘rushing waters’. The latter water meaning is an Osage Indian word.  I use it as Fannie Flagg wrote it in Fried Green Tomatoes – as the battle cry of Idgie’s alter-ego, an Amazon woman.

This coming week has seven full days as do all weeks.  But this will be my first full normal week in a while.  I work all five days, I have yoga class, I have a friend’s housewarming open house, and I have some medical appointments to take my mother to. And writing group six of those mornings.  Blissful normalcy.

I am always ready for this week after the holidays.  In the weeks leading up to the festivities of yule, there are office parties, time off, usually a sick day, and a frenzy of work.  It’s stress added to an already stressful life, overwhelming.  The return to normalcy provokes a psychological ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I say normal week.  My normal and yours are probably different.  Yes, I still have no water.  Yes, I am still inordinately stressed, and yes, my to-do list is 9 miles long and growing but these are practically norms now.  I wrote earlier this week that I need routine in my life.  And, boy, do I ever this year. 

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