Reconnecting

I have been singing the old transitional blues of late, and not much else. Even blip couldn't distract from or change my "woe is me" tune. Finally, Tuesday, I took some steps that made a difference. I called Lou Ann, despite the tears in my throat, and asked her to lunch. My timing was good on that day. I also took a book I had enjoyed to a cousin who was ready for my forgiveness. And I dropped in to State Farm Ins. and questioned the increase in my bill. Success! They lowered my premium one hundred dollars for low mileage use! 

As for lunch with Lou Ann, She was pretty fired up about a project she is working on, as well as dependably empathetic to her old teacher and friend. My spirits were more than ready to be raised by eating Pad Thai in such good company and talking possibilities. I have known Lou Ann since I was a young mother teaching dance in the Ocean Springs Community Center. Lou Ann was ten and new to the area: open as a flower to my enthusiasm for a freer, more nature oriented dance than the ballet I was curtailed by prior to pregnancy. We were both ripe for freedom of expression, and I couldn't have found a better dancing partner for trying out my evolving ideas. Daddy's murals were not a bad background, providing inspiration. And my audacity when it came to music had Lou Ann and the other little girls improvising to classics ranging from Beethoven to Debussy. I was determined to find my own dance, so we all became explorers in that spacious room. 

You might say Lou Ann and I grew up together. Whenever I was teaching in the area, Lou Ann and I would reconnect. Life happened: Lou Ann became a young mother herself. We went our divergent ways yet there was always the dance. Over the years some inevitable aging occurred, and the physical dance evolved into other means of dancing. But of all my students, Lou Ann and I have been able to reconnect and evolve our teacher/student relationship into a friendship. We still dance. 

And perhaps we are ready to explore the dance once more. Lunch on Tuesday led to a gentle dancing morning on Wednesday at my studio. First Music Dog was greeted of course. Lou Ann knows what is important. And then we stood opposite one another and breathed our way somewhat gingerly into the old Airth circle of exercises. Soon we had found the flow; it was as if we had never stopped. The years dropped away and our bodies gratefully relaxed into the rising/falling undulation that we know so well. A slightly precarious balance must be allowed for as well as creaking knees and a reduced flexibility in certain instances. Yet Airth is kind, and with us were the elders that had danced with us at other times when classes were open to all ages. Now we were the elders. Fifty years may have passed since Lou Ann and I first danced together, yet now we were both as open as flowers to exploring and discovering a new dance. We are both smiling.

Extra photo taken by Lou Ann of me...