Thursday, April 20, 2017

F prompt - Dancing

So today's prompt comes from that website again,  and it's very different to the previous one.  I am not a dancer, unless between the 5th and 7th pints of the evening, as I have very little natural rhythm and flow.  I have hardly any grace.  In spite of that I can Maypole and I can Country Dance, probably because someone calls and tells me what to do.  I also teach my classes to Maypole and to Country Dance, because if I don't, no-one will.  Those are the things I count as passing on the knowledge of what it is to be us.

Anyway.  It's short, but I didn't want to force it.  Sunrise and the Vessel however, is now up to just over 7,000 words and going strongly.  I'm slightly stuck in first person, but I have a plan...  I also took T-Boy to an Art gallery yesterday, and one of the women there asked me if I was an artist, and I said no, I don't paint or sculpt and she looked and me and said "Ah, you're a writer."  And I thought, "Yes, damn it, yes I am!" (I didn't say that.  I said "I try." with that self deprecating smile that we English are so good at.)

Dancing: Who’s dancing and why are they tapping those toes?

Slowly, slowly, we move together, your arms around me, your head over my head but your chin just brushing my hair.  The kitchen tiles are smooth beneath my bare feet and I close my eyes and lean into your chest, smelling washing powder and deodorant and you, all in one fulfilling breath.  I can hear your heart beating, and the low vibration of you humming with the music.  If I were to really listen, I'd hear how out of tune you were, and I wouldn't care.  It is this moment that I cherish, this moment in your arms where my world is almost perfect.

Our lives are like a long complicated dance.  We circle each other, trading glances and smiles and laughter whilst we do the things that have to be done.  Others join us, and leave us, and rejoin the dance, in it for a short while, or for a long while, but they are not our dance partner, just someone who is with our music as we are with theirs, our tunes interweaving for a day or an evening.  Some people are the rhythm of our dance, their music always in the background of our lives, holding us steady whilst we explore the counter-tempo, knowing that we can return to their beat if we want to, for a little while.  Still others enhance our music as we add a depth of harmony to theirs.  Small people giggle their way through the dance, their tune contrapuntal but essential to ours, until the day their dance becomes theirs, and we become the steady beat in their background.

All these things I think, whilst I am safe in your arms, immersed in you, held by you.