here we are again

Here we are again. Students will return to school tomorrow. How will we all spend our last day of summer? I'm going dancing.

This morning I got up when I woke up, which will not happen for another nine months. The alarm clock will be returned to duty tonight. I checked the birdbaths and refilled all the birdfeeders with sunflower seed, suet, and nectar. I watered the fennel and the parsley, which are currently being reduced to sticks by swallowtail caterpillars. I repaired my motorcycle rain cover, which sprang a rip Friday. Yesterday I did a few indoor chores and some reading, and today will pass much the same way except for a couple of hours of Playford dancing early this afternoon.

One important thing I did this summer was to reconnect with the person who started it all. She is still as strong a force as ever, and seeing her inspired me with renewed energy. When I moved to Nashville in the mid 1970's, my boyfriend's aunt befriended me and took me under her wing. It was she who saw me in the library at Peabody college, registering for my first semester of freshman classes; she collared me and introduced me to the head of the music department, who was forming an early music dance group. "You need to do this," she said, and so I did. I have been dancing ever since-- Renaissance, Playford, contradance, international dance, and ballroom. Through Renaissance and Playford, I met my husband of 25 years, at a Playford dance weekend in Versailles, Kentucky.

Playford dance is the most relaxing by far of all the kinds of dancing I have done. The steps are easy, the exertion light, but the dances are anything but simple. The geometric patterns and flow from one sequence of steps to the next are continually stimulating. Some dances have an almost hypnotic or meditative effect on me. As with any meditation practice, engaging in mindfulness and movement are enormously important to shedding the effects of stress. Plus, dancing is just fun.