I’ve probably seen teasel seed heads in the fall for decades when I’m out walking. But last week was the first time I noticed the tiny seeds actually sprouting on the spiky plant even though I’ve walked along this meadow in all seasons for many years. Details, details. Beginner’s mind.
I had a dream about my dad last night. In the dream he was visiting us and he sat down at the piano and banged out a wonderful something classical, which was very unlike my dad since he was more of a boogie woogie dude at the ivories. As I was listening to him, it dawned on me that my mother would love to see him and I jumped up to get my laptop so I could Zoom her in. And then the dream dissipated and I woke up. My lovely dad, Byron Palmer, passed four years ago. This is the second time I’ve dreamed of him in a dream that involved Zoom. In the first dream, he and I were on Zoom and I was explaining to him that I couldn’t go visit mom in Canada because of the pandemic and he was telling me it was OK and that he understood. In that dream, Zoom had this ability to allow hugs and my dad and I had a lovely hug. We both knew it was a simulated experience of a hug, that it wasn’t real, and we were both impressed that technology had come so far. This picture is me dancing with my dad at my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. That man could dance. And he could sing. But among his most wonderful traits was a full-throated laugh that made everyone around him smile and then start laughing too.
I don’t know why I’ve taken a few years to get around to Lauren Kessler’s excellent book about tackling one of the toughest forms of dance at a time in life when most of us are preferring to sit longer in comfy chairs. But I’ve become enamored with dance myself in the last two years, albeit a much easier kind of dance in the form of Nia. And then last summer I got entirely sucked into an additional more aerobic dance class that kicks my ass but has me smiling the whole damn time. So now it seems I’m at dance class three or four times a week, and maybe that’s why “Raising the Barre” caught my attention.
It’s a fine book about taking risks, facing fears, learning to be in your body when you’re mostly a person who has lived in your head. Also it confirmed my horror of mirrors. But the reason I’m making note of it is for Kessler’s writing chops. I respect the voice in this book, but I realize I also respect the mind behind the voice when she describes a ballet instructor’s efforts to get his students to understand what he wants them to do. Here’s an excerpt:
“Imagine a string attached to the top of your head,” he says, pulling at this imaginary cord at the top of his own head. His voice is soft, and there’s a hint of singsong to it. “You are being pulled upward even as you plie down. It’s hard to describe,” he says, silent again for just a tick longer than you would expect from a teacher giving instructions. “It’s this thing about gravity,” he says, smiling to himself and swaying a bit. “You need to learn to feel it differently.” … As I struggle with the movement and watch him struggling for the right words, it occurs to me what’s happening. Antonio’s first language is not English. It’s not because he was born elsewhere (he is from Hawaii, which, last I heard, was part of the United States) and English is literally his second language. It’s because he’s a dancer and dance is his first language. His body speaks it fluently. It takes extra effort to translate the language of the body into words. The effort, the silence, is him feeling his wordless first language and then searching for words to express what his body knows.”
I don’t know whether this notion came to Kessler in a flash of insight or whether she struggled over this section of writing and gritted her way to this astonishingly fine description. Either way, it was the moment in the book when I realized I was in the hands not only of a good writer and but also a fine intellect.
Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now 