Dancer

   Degas used to make beautiful art of dancers. They are posed in such deceptively simple and graceful ways. Dancers on stage show themselves as confident in their choreography. The costumes, stage, and music are set.

   But, what about that sign dance as if no one were watching…
   A little girl stood under the fountain, a multi jet creation shooting water drops into the air thirty feet. She twirled in her brightly striped dress, doing a happy little jig with her feet. She didn’t care if others saw her, if others joined in or noticed. I loved her twirly freedom. I loved how she didn’t pause when people walked by or look sheepish and embarrassed. I loved the freedom of dancing as if no one were watching, and my own feet would have loved to be invited to twirl along with her.
   We each have a dance, an action in our life, that we can do with ease and freedom. But it really only reaches the ease of this moment when we forget to care if others find the dance what they are wanting or liking and just twirl to our own hearts music.
   If you find me at the fountain, twirling barefoot through the water, just come join me.

You’ve Got Mail

One of my favorite movies was on last night, “You’ve Got Mail,” with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. I love the movie, the word play and the characters. And those words that are in the title, “You’ve Got Mail.” Isn’t it such a nice thing to open up your e-mail and find a message waiting there for you from a friend? But I think it’s the character of Kathleen Kelly that I like most of all. I understand her musings on the bouquets of sharpened pencils, having a view of the world which is colored by her own perspective. Mostly I think it is that this character walks about, not oblivious that others may not see the world as she does, but at the end content to be herself and walk in her own shoes.

I love that, because I find that too often I worry about what others think. I try not to, but at times I vary somewhere between obliviousness towards others perceptions of me, simply not caring, and then caring a bit too much. Oh, not caring in a way to persuade me from my principles, but when you have a twinge of what others are thinking. It’s the ability to twirl, to read and soak in knowledge, to sing, to smell daisies, to read or write e-mails. When I am standing out on the driveway, warmed by the sun and under a clear night sky, I can twirl and sing, or just sit down and watch the dogs play. It is times like that, the moments when I am happily oblivious of what others may be thinking. I can’t say that I can always twirl, sing, and smell daisies (and bouquets of sharpened pencils), but I do like to as much as possible.