Dancing Queen

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Shortly after my 17th birthday, 12 days to be exact, on August 15th, 1976, Abba released Dancing Queen in Sweden.  A couple of days later it came to the United States.  Recorded a year earlier, they knew it would be a monster hit.  They held it until the release of their 4th studio album. 

Photo by No Revisions on Unsplash

Oh my.

It was my anthem and ushered me with a full head of steam into my Disco phase.

She was young and sweet, only 17, a Dancing Queen, oh yeah. . .

Now then.  I will not apologize for Disco.  I’ve always said I never confused the music I listened to with the music I danced to.  These are not just different genres, but different activities.  Most of my favorites are not danceable.  There are a few exceptions and sometimes it’s quite bizarre – like the interpretive dance I do to Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, but generally speaking separate.  Separate but equal.  Good dance music is as good as good listening music. 

Disco was a hoot and a holler.  Step, step, heel toe, pivot….  The theater of it!  The clothes!  The shoes!  The glitter eyeliner!  The steps.  The twirls.  The lifts. 

I loved it all.

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Love is. . .

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Love is fat little cheeks and baby giggles

Steaming chili on the first cold and rainy day of autumn

A fresh pot of coffee that I didn’t have to make.

Love is carrying the groceries in from the car.

And putting them away.

Forehead kisses.

Love is the thunder of little paws headed for the door when the puppies hear the key in the lock.               

Love is talking in the kitchen while dinner cooks.

Love is a care package when I’m sick and cranky.

Love is the creases in the folds of old letters stored in a shoebox

–the stories we need to remember.

Love does not alter, when alteration it finds.

Love is the first big snow of the season and a slow walk through the forest.

Hot cocoa with marshmallows, Godiva truffles, and cornbread slathered in butter.

Love is potato soup and rain on a tin roof.

Love gives without giving in.

Empathy Not surrender.

Hope not fate.

Love is a quilt.

Hand stitched, nine stitches to an inch,

Pieced from the old jeans of shared lives.

Clothes hanging on a line in the summer sun

Love is Queen Anne’s lace

In a cobalt blue drinking glass on the scarred wooden table.

Love is a verb, a noun, an adverb and an adjective.

Love is patient.

Love is kind.

The Williams River

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I woke up and felt a breeze on my face.  The strains of a mandolin and sunshine floated into the tent. 

My back hurt and I was cold, but I was happy.  At one with the universe.

We were celebrating Donnie’s life while she was still with us to enjoy her own wake.  Camping on the Williams River with the Bing Brothers – what we called a Bing Thing.  Always a good time. 

The rock falls on the Williams River.

This one was bittersweet.  It was the 4th of July weekend in the early ‘90s – I had 4 days off or something like that.  It was enough time to relax and get into the timeless groove of good music, good food, and good company in good surroundings.  The Williams River campsite in Pocahontas County was rustic and pristine.  It was cool – sometimes cold – a nice escape from the insufferable heat of the Ohio Valley.  These people had been camping there for years – loved it, honored it, took care of it.  There were a big bunch of us, yet it was still private and intimate.  A contradiction in many ways, but enjoyable in them all.

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