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Category: Movememt

Commuters’ Choreography

Commuters’ Choreography

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With all this energy and all these people, the question is why there are not more collisions. I’m not talking about people and automobiles, but about people and people. By what strange grace do pedestrians keep from running into each other?

I went to Grand Central Station to try and learn the answer. I observed commuters rushing to their trains, entering from 42nd Street or from the Met Life building, heading in scores of directions at once, never colliding. 

There’s an almost balletic precision to the movements, many narrow misses, but somehow people get where they’re going without rehearsing any of the bobs and weaves required to do it.

It’s worthy of Balanchine: the commuters’ choreography.

Seven Degrees

Seven Degrees

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If there are seven degrees of separation, then are there not seven degrees of isolation? I’m thinking about the world as we know it: working remotely, separated from friends, too cold for outside get-togethers … and now further set apart by rain, snow, sleet and an anticipated ice storm.

I suppose it’s easier in one sense. We now have multiple reasons for staying at home. But that doesn’t warm the heart when the heart is accustomed to the stimulation and richness of a life fully lived.

What is called for, I suppose, is seven degrees of patience: hoping, praying, reading, writing, baking, cleaning — and of course, dancing. You can’t forget about that last one. It’s the most important of all. 

A Dog, a Pig and the Music

A Dog, a Pig and the Music

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It’s barely discernible but significant to me that at 5 p.m. there’s now enough light to play with Copper in the backyard. He enjoys it when I bounce on the trampoline, and one of the best ways I can think of to wind down the day is to close the computer, run outside and urge him to come with me so that I can watch him trot down the slight rise in the yard: his sturdy little legs, his mouth open with joy — or perhaps because he wants to bite me. 

Last evening I bounced to the last movement of the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony, which I came to love after seeing the movie “Babe.” (The final theme of the symphony is the tune that rallies the little pig.) 

How lovely it is to bounce to that grand sound, looking up at the house, the windows dark in the room where I was just writing, so different from moving through the air, the glorious release of it all. And yet knowing that the experience of bouncing will come most alive for me when I try to get it down on the page. And that involves (you guessed it) … heading right back into that dark room.

(Photo: Universal Studios/Photofest and the Hollywood Reporter)

 

Imagining 2021

Imagining 2021

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The new year arrived wearing top hat and tails. It landed with a swoop and a glide and an elegant dip. It was Fred Astaire tap-dancing on the ceiling, Gene Kelley singing in the rain and Judy Garland dreaming of somewhere over the rainbow. 

Plans were canceled, isolation strictly enforced, but the American musical was not shut down, or at least not the American musical as imagined by Metro Goldwyn Mayer in the 1974 classic “That’s Entertainment.” Hosted by a slew of stars (Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minelli and Jimmy Stewart), there were clips of everyone from Esther Williams to the Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. 
It was a surprisingly apt way to see out an old year and bring in a new one. No, it wasn’t realistic. The world depicted was mostly on a sound stage or a backlot. But it was vivid proof of human imagination.  And imagination is looking pretty good these days.
Brahms to the Rescue

Brahms to the Rescue

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Brahms came to the rescue yesterday. He didn’t ride in on a white horse, but he was there with his complex melodies and lyricism, with his passion and playfulness.

He was there in the morning when I walked, he was there in the evening when I bounced on the trampoline. And he stayed with me as I sautéed squash and onions and mixed it with farfalle pasta, as I broiled and plated the chicken, as I remembered I had fresh basil to season it all.

What a utilitarian composer! Brahms is not just for bedtime or funerals or academic processions. If you give him a chance, he will stay with you all day long.

(Photo courtesy New York Public Library Digital Collection)

Toppled and Crushed

Toppled and Crushed

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I knew it was a dumb title … Kingdom of the Wind. Well, that kingdom just took down not only the Sword of Damocles, but the 110-foot-tall split-trunk oak that had snagged it. And with an awe-inspiring precision, the huge tree fell right on top of my trampoline.

Smashed it, split it right down the middle.

I’m grateful no one was hurt, that Copper wasn’t in the yard … and of course that I wasn’t bouncing at the time (not that I would have been in 60-mile-an-hour gusts).

But the trampoline meant so much to me, as did the tree — and now they’re both gone.

Soon there will be chainsaws, re-fencing, carting the trampoline away. There will be estimates, expenditures, recalculations.

But there won’t be that portal to the sky.

Supermoon Bounce

Supermoon Bounce

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I missed the lunar eclipse, which began here just as the sun was rising. But I did catch the bright rays of the almost-supermoon as it shone through the trees last night in the backyard.

It was bitter cold and blustery, wind chill in the teens, but I needed to move. So I bundled up and bounced on the trampoline for a few minutes.

I made it through two Gabrieli fanfares and a bit of Respighi before the cold and the sound of snapping branches drove me inside. But those few minutes with the supermoon were highly memorable. It was nature “without her diadem.” Powerful, able to wound or kill, but beautiful just the same.

I was cheating, of course, because warmth and comfort were only a few steps away. But I was feeling the power of the universe — which always provides perspective — just the same.

High Midsummer

High Midsummer

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On a sultry evening I take in the world from my perch on the trampoline. Butterflies flit through the coneflowers and hummingbirds dive-bomb the nectar feeder. A long goldfinch perches near the birdbath. It is high midsummer. 

I think about how pleasant the world is when I’m in motion. Not unlike the kaleidoscope of the carousel, those old memories of going round and round and up and down. Circular and spherical. Altitude and plentitude.
A fullness, in other words. Not easily defined, but felt in the blood and the bones. 
Evening View

Evening View

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Now that we’re in Daylight Savings Time, I can bounce on the trampoline in the daylight, not the darkness. It’s more inhibiting, true. With tree cover still nonexistent this time of year, I have to keep my trampoline dancing moves to a minimum lest neighbors think I’m crazier than they already think I am.

But what daytime bouncing lacks in concealment it makes up for in scenery.

As Copper ran around the yard squeaking his new yellow day-glow ball, I was treated to clear skies, a slow drain of color and finally … this view.

What a way to leave the day!

On Top of Tap

On Top of Tap

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For months I’ve felt lost at tap class. The steps have been complicated and I’ve been slow to learn them. “The thing is,” I’ve admitted to my teacher, Candy, “I tend to think of a foot as a foot — not a toe, ball and heel.”

“Oh, that’s not good for tap,” Candy said.

For some reason though, I was on last night. I did back-ups and push-backs and even mastered a bit of the not-so-aptly named Happy Warmup.

I can explain my sudden improvement. This was the last class for several weeks. Our annual break is coming up. My feet obviously knew this. They were putting on a show, the final volley of fireworks, throwing it all up in the air before taking a well-earned rest.