Tag Archives: dance

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BIRGing in Memories

Let’s see, I am thinking of famous people, not just that I’ve seen (from a distance) but that I know or knew:

Frankie Manning, one of Whitey’s Lindyhoppers who danced lindyhop at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s. He came to teach at the Savoy Swings Again dance weekends in West Virginia in the 1980s. He came to Port Townsend, too, for the dance camps here. I got to dance with him years ago and took classes and watched demonstrations. Hooray for him!

Bernice Reagon Johnson PhD, both for being an historian at the Smithsonian and for being the leader of Sweet Honey in the Rock for 40 years, and it’s still going! Ok, I don’t know her, but she is from my Washington, DC stomping grounds and I love that group.

Darryl Davis, for being an African American man who made appointments with KKK Grand Dragons to talk to them to try to understand. And some have quit! And he’s a fabulous Baltimore blues man and he and his band played at our wedding in 1989. He ran the Centrum Blues Fest for years too.

Ted talk here and music website here: https://www.daryldavis.com/.

Musicians and activists and dancers, that seems to be who I want to BIRG about!

And the photograph is from our wedding.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: BIRGing.

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Sophisticated

We have the best deer. Really.

I took the photograph Tuesday night, from the garden behind the Bishop Hotel. “So what?” you say, “She’s just lying there.”

Let’s pan out.

She is on the hill up to the right. She is listening to the jazz, Johnathan Doyle and friends, first time this year playing outside on Tuesday night. She has at least one fawn, too. I spotted it in the garden on the other side of the band. Mom deer came behind the band, stopped and considered whether the jazz was up to her standards or not, and then she went to the hill. The fawn stayed hidden, back to the left of the dancers.

Mom deer stayed close to keep an eye on everyone and she listened to the jazz.

We really do have the most sophisticated deer.

Maybe next she’ll dance or try the saxophone.

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Stone heart

My mind is done and unsurprised. My heart a stubborn rock.
My heart does not give up: loves where it loves. It doesn’t care
about reality or whether it is derided or mocked.
My mind moves on and kicks my heart, wondering where
this tenacity stems from. My heart is done with tears.
It agrees to new friends and joys in dance.
When my mind says forget, my heart jumps and steers
my body into a warrior fighting stance.
My mind is cynical and laughs and derides my heart.
I let them fight back and forth every day.
I cannot reach an end unless I start
to honor my feelings, the heart must hold sway.
My mind moves on, ignoring what you do.
Yet my stubborn heart remains a friend, strong and true.

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Memory trip

The Swinging by the Sound dance weekend was a memory trip for me.

I met my future husband dancing, back in 1986. We met contra dancing, but he was already learning Lindy Hop. We took a class together and met people that I am still in touch with. We went to dances at the Spanish Ballroom, in Cabin John, Maryland, with 400+ people. We had an hour of teaching and three hours of dancing, in the old park which did not allow alcohol. The Ballroom was not heated in the winter and would be in the upper 90s in the summer. I remember winter dances with the band needing space heaters. The dancers did not need heat: we were generating it.

I took this photograph at a Swinging by the Sound class. People choose Lead or Follow and the instructors have the Leads rotate every few dances. I am happy seeing so many people learning both, because it makes you a much better dancer.

We loved our bands too, and Daryl Davis and his band played at our wedding.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: trip.

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Daily Evil: Cranky

I am a Creaky Cranky Crone with Crepitus this morning. I volunteered at the Swinging on the Sound dance weekend. I was not going to dance, because of my right shoulder. But, well, my feet were fine, so I did the basic. Then in the last class, there were more “follows” than “leads”. I thought, well, my left arm works. I jumped in, explaining that I couldn’t use the right arm. Switching from “follow” to “lead”, I have to reverse the foot work. The instructor did not know about my arm and scolded the class for some people not dancing in the closed position. That was me. Oh, well.

So I am not VERY cranky. I am really delighted that I got to dance and practiced the basic step for collegiate shag.

The woman in the picture is not a Creaky Cranky Crone. It is my grandmother Katherine White Burling, drawn from a photograph by my mother Helen Burling Ottaway. This is an 18 by 24 drawn with I think conte crayon. Apologies for the reflection, I am photographing through glass.

And here is a photograph from one of the collegiate shag classes, on Saturday. People of all genders danced both lead and follow. One person did the contest as an amateur follower and an advanced lead. Good for them!

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Nano-influencer

I am thinking about what to say about what I do when I meet new people.

I am getting rather tired of saying I’m a family doc, but I am only working a little because I had my fourth pneumonia, on oxygen for a year and a half, blah, blah, blah. Too much information. I also am tired of the reaction to “doctor”. People are weird about jobs, they categorize and are often hierarchical.

So, how do I describe myself?

Disabled divorcee, not employed? Um, still TMI.

Writer? I have one friend who introduces himself as a “junk mail writer”. He won’t tell them that his clients are the Smithsonian and the Kennedy Center and so forth unless they ask more questions. Some people just dismiss him instantly.

Blogger? No, I don’t think so.

I looked up an article on “influencers”. It is ostensibly written for companies looking to place products on blogs or whatever platform and it breaks the influencers down into groups. With 1000 followers, I am categorized as a “nano-influencer”. That cracked me up. I think it would be fun to see what reaction I get to that instead of to Family Practice doctor.

I just repaid my license for two more years. I still am very interested in working with Long Covid people, but I do not want to run my own business again. So, I am considering approaches. And do I really want to risk another pneumonia? Well, being alive is a risk, after all. And it always ends the same way.

Blessings from your nano-influencer!

_____________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: influencer.

I took the photograph at the start of the Swinging by the Sound dance weekend.

Here is a fabulous video of a Shag Dance warm up and then couple dancing. Wow!