4.15.2005

History started with yesterday, it walks marches stumbles runs backwards, the dreams of the past. Foucault pendulum oscillation on a vertical plane drawing a line with its steady swing, measuring the earth's rotation, an imagined scythe on the end sweeping slicing through time as it is measured by the earth's rotation. It cuts both ways. Gravity and inertia, bodies in motion and at rest.

He said he saw a whale in the deep water behind the waves as he flew in the little airplane, and I wonder what does behind the waves mean to the whale. Or is theirs a world without prepositions?

The hail came hard straight down from the low-bellied clouds full of thunder, a torrent of ice, I watched it pound and bounce and scatter in arcs after hitting the thick waxy green magnolia leaves. It drooped the laden lilacs, nodding their frilly flower heads to the ground paying homage to the earth.

The hail fell like certainty. Like certainty of death and taxes. With a bounce, and then it melts.

Dance class last night was a hard work delight, a long set, much sweat. The ladies watched me and followed and then they forget to watch, and this is the best part, when we work on a move for long enough that they stop looking at me and start looking at their own reflections. Swinging their own lines, finding their own balance and motion. I let them enjoy their reveries, and also work them hard, a solid two hours of isolations and drills and stepwork and spins, hip-intensive, good posture necessary, do not succumb to gravity.

We always have a good time, much laughter, and many jokes about what looks pretty and what does not look pretty. It is about structure and shapes. I love seeing them meet and talk, and communicate and ask help from me and one another. This class, so many ladies, has a definite sense of community. It pleases me.

After class with my gothy girly Shell, my long-time duet partner who I met in my very first dance class years ago, walking out of the dance studio, her in her all black with black hair piled rough on her head and with bare belly, silver jewelry and noisy chiming coins draped around her hips, long black skirt, and she closed her long black coat around her but not before she stunned an elderly gentleman passer-by into gibbering muteness.

She with her high cheekbones and green eyes stood there in the dusk, on the phone with her young son, she a lovely wild faerie stepped out of an hallucination. He looked at she and then at the dance studio's dark glass door and said with wonder, "Wha? uh, what?"
I raised my eyebrows at him, and said, "We just finished dance class."
He nodded and stammered, but no embarrassment. He asked, "What kind of dancing would... ah... she do?"
So I smiled and said, "Middle Eastern dance."
"Oh," said he, some mixture of relief and curiosity.
"Isn't she pretty?" I asked.
He smiled and said, "Yes," and then we went our separate directions. I walked her to her car and collected hugs and then she was gone, Wonder Woman and a pair of feathery handcuffs swinging from her rear view mirror.

Swing on, you bodies in motion.