My darling, up in the aerie much sooner than I expected this evening. I thought that the dance & choreography program at the local international arts center was this afternoon at five. Talk about all dressed up and nowhere to go. I went, only to find a half-dozen cars in their lot - visitors with their dogs going for a walk in the extensive bucolic grounds perhaps - because the visitors center was locked. Which took me aback. I'm rarely wrong about dates, I'm not infallible but. I glanced at the announcement flier affixed to the plate glass - it's taking place next Saturday. So I returned home, still puzzled how I got the date wrong. And realized I received a second email from them about the event. I'd deleted the original one upon receipt of the second, which mentioned in large caps "correction - with apologies." I recall scratching my head at the time over that - what correction? how were the two emails different? Now I'm thinking they may have changed the date.

Ah well, no matter, it was a lovely drive from my house to over there, and as Ms. Winfrey also memorably quoted the other day, there are no coincidences, only divine order, and so I possibly saved a bobolink, or at the very least encouraged it to avoid becoming roadkill. If it was a bobolink. What was that? I haven't looked it up yet. Really cute though, a baby, I think. Truly clueless. I stopped the car in the middle of the deserted road to avoid hitting it - it was quite large, for a young bird, maybe 12-15 inches tall, just hanging out in the center of the asphalt, not all that visible. And now that - ahem - I don't speed, yeah, I noticed it, but some of these rubes in their bigass pickups zooming along - that bird would have been ---- bobolink bologna.

So to drive the point home to the bird how truly obnoxious human beings can be I, wielding digital camera, chased the creature into the undergrowth at the side of the road, giving it an object lesson in paparazzi.

***
So, my dearest, before noon I drove all over creation seemingly, down interminable Route 82 to this tiny hamlet with a single traffic light, to attend a workshop on finding my inner dance. I'm always astounded how enormous this county seems to be - looks like nothing on the map of course, but boy, those winding roads - at times breathtakingly scenic, with glimpses of mountains, and dells, and panoramic vistas across miles - mindboggingly beautiful. (And you were with me, on my mind, every second of the way.) I had considered stopping to run a quick errand on my way down and am glad I didn't because as it was I was two minutes late, and growing anxious. Where the hell is Ancram anyway? Which side of the Taconic? Which of course I had crossed miles back, driving east of it (or was it southeast? who knows?) before I formed that thought. Yes I had glanced at a map before leaving the house, but had I sufficiently noted the de facto International Date Line bifurcating the Columbia County planisphere? Nyet. Eventually I put my flashers on and pulled to the side of ravishingly scenic deserted highway, donned readers, consulted the map. (D uses the car for his work so as I opened the map a rain of fine sawdust fell all over me - all over my brand new black skirt. No harm done - it easily shook off, such is the texture of the spandex-percentaged skirt.) Oh. I was on the right route - almost there. I got back on the road - and soon after was the single traffic light, and hard upon a quick left up the steep incline of an obscure county road, my Ultimate Destination.

Darling, I had fun finding my inner dance. Go with your body, go with your feelings, encouraged the lithe instructor, a gracious and charming European woman who spoke in accented English. You know, darling, I can be loose in so many ways (& on the loose, in private) - but I do have an essential carapace of reserve, and when someone tells me to relax - I tend to freeze up. Every feeling is okay? I seriously wanted to ask her - but didn't, because I didn't wish to come off as a smart aleck, and plus I wanted to go with the flow - well what about anxiety? Is it okay to go with my anxiety? Of course not! That's probably the one inadmissible emotion - well, it does stem, I suppose, from the side of the brain (the thinking "head" side) that we're trying to get past, encounter the other side, through moving our bodies.

Making a long story short, dearest, because this post is turning into an endless knit scarf, or a Route 82, I eventually loosened up...

You know, I have been noticing that it takes me a bit of time - a half hour or so - to get into a flow ... with dance... with writing... with other respects relating to my "inner dance"...

... and I found myself constructing little narratives as I moved my body and circled in concert with others around the small wood-floored room, screened windows open to the green gladed day outside, ceiling fans whirring...

I danced with you, I even held out my arms as if we were waltzing...

And later, when I got home, I lay down for a nap but found myself too restless to sleep, so I put the half-hour before I had to dress up & go to good use, in the spare room where I've taken to sleeping again, my nice new "good" outfit laid carefully on a chair, underwear too, lying under the ceiling fan, screened windows wide open, batteries charged, and my having discovered (or rediscovered) enough about myself that I just sink into the rhythms and the perceptions, my skin against the sheets, the breeze of the fan, and then the tinglings came - it's not so much a "spot" as reaching a certain frequency - and blessedly, I will never curse big huge gas-guzzling power mowers ever again because just as things were getting really good my neighbor mounted his tractor mower WHICH IS SO INCREDIBLY LOUD A MUCH LOUDER BUZZ than my little buzzing implement (which in a silent house actually seems INCREDIBLY LOUD - but not when a TRACTOR MOWER is going outside)

anyway, when it really really and I mean really works for me
I like to let it out and make noise
and with the neighbor's INSANELY HIGH-DECIBELED MOTOR GOING RIGHT OUTSIDE THE WINDOWS where I lay
I let it all out
and nobody, nobody, nobody
except maybe you
heard a thing