10.29.2004

Wednesday as dusk came settling pink and hazy I danced with my girl Belle. She was in her pajamas with her dark burgundy hair in pigtails, draped against her big silver hoop earrings. We are both mimics, and have been dancing together for years now, which means we know what to expect from the other dancer. I can watch her out of the corner of my eye and anticipate her next move, a delightful communication, a physical connection. Our bodies respond to the music in the same motions, and although we are shaped differently, the shapes of our bodies are very complimentary. We trade off following and leading without being self-conscious about it. She's a doll.

Our oven has crapped out, so while Belle & I danced, S made smoked pizza in the outside grill that turned out to be the best pizza ever, and we ate quickly while visiting with Belle. She had things to do and so did S & I, so we parted ways as the night pulled her dark curtain across the earth.

The moon hung liquid and yellow like a candle light amidst the tall trees when we left the house. As we drove East towards the river we could see the shadows shifting on the bright yellow moon's face, and disregarding the clock or our classes we needed to attend, I pulled the car over in a pot-holed vacant gravel lot off the pot-holed empty spur of a street. We sat quiet like children, fogged up the windows, then sat on the front bumper listening to the rush of cars on the freeway and the sounds from nearby industry, and watched as the shadow of the earth moved across the face of the moon.

The moon hung suspended between telephone wires, between streetlights, above the spires of fir trees, and the shadow crept from the lower left edge, an upside-down Cheshire cat's grin. A balmy wind luffed our hair, and then time felt tangible, so we drove on our way with the moon riding backwards to our left.

Dance class was small; there were only a few of us but we shook it to make it rain. I blew dramatic kisses at the badass hip-hop girlies sweating to their super-duper-loud music in the next studio room as I closed their door, and was rewarded with big grins and laughter as they kick-punched their aerobic slams across the floor in coordinated trios. We bellydancers could still hear the driving beat of their music, but not the shouting and yelling and calls from their dance drill instructor.

In class we're practicing two choreographies, both very involved and difficult, with lots of precision motion locks and undulations. It takes a great deal of concentration and muscle control and strength and flexibility and balance, and above all, practice. Working those abdomens and thighs and calves and feet, oh yes.

After class I collected my dear one from under a romantic streetlight on campus, we paused for a dark alley kiss, and we drove to JJ's place for an unexpected little party. JJ and Glenna had already partaken of red red wine, and finished the bottle, so JJ opened the Maker's Mark to serve us scotch. We sat talking about handsome bicycle mechanics and JJ's pending trip to Canada and about life and happiness in her little brightly lit home. While S and Glenna talked politics in the living room, JJ and I ended up on her bedroom floor.

She has been learning to knit, and bought some alpaca wool, which the snooty salesclerk at the hoity-toity yarn store informed her she would have to roll into a ball. JJ didn't want to ask the snooty salesclerk how to do that. I worked on trying to untangle the snarls and knots for about an hour while we sat on the floor talking about truth and beauty and music and relationships, sipping our glasses of whisky not whiskey. We sang along with the music and joked and laughed.

JJ also talked S into trying the sound-light machine, which is this psychiatrist tool that changes the wave patterns of brain function. He donned the headphones and the dark glasses which, when activated, flicker with lights. We three girlies sat in JJ's bedroom, instantly transported to age seven, when the most acceptable place to sit at a friend's house is on the floor. We tried to be quiet but it was fun to sing all together the songs we all know, and talk about laughables.

When he was done with the sound-light session, S said he was no longer tired or tipsy, and JJ said she wanted to experiment on him again later, after she attends the conference in Canada. We had many hugs, and JJ sang her sweet soulful songs, and we had some more hugs and JJ lit all the candles on the mantle and burned her thumb, and we had more hugs and JJ sang while she and I held onto eachother under the last shadow of the eclipse, which felt like heaven holding her while she raised her incredible voice to the stars with her eyes closed, and then we four had one big hug, and headed for home in the middle of the night.

And all the trouble went away
And it wasn't just a dream
All the trouble went away
And it wasn't just a dream

In the middle of the night
We try and try with all our might
To light a little light down here
In the middle of the night
We dream of a million kites
Flying high above the sadness and the fear


Little sister just remember
As you wander through the blue
The little kite that you sent flying
On a sunny afternoon
Made of something light as nothing
Made of joy that matters too
How the little dreams we dream
Are all we can really do

In the middle of the night
The world turns with all its might
A little diamond colored blue
In the middle of the night
We keep sending little kites
Until a little light gets through
Patti Griffin