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Category: Movememt

Let’s Dance!

Let’s Dance!

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Sometimes the empty nest is so quiet it drives you out of the house and into … the dance studio. Tap dance, in this case. Maybe (in retrospect) because it is so loud. But mostly, I think, because it is so much fun.

“Smile,” the instructor says. “Don’t forget to smile.”

And so I do, even though I feel ridiculous wearing a little straw hat, attempting shuffle ball change and a complicated routine that others seem to be picking up much more quickly. Oh, and without tap shoes. (I’m waiting on those until I’m sure I want to stay with this.)

But it’s hard to feel ridiculous for long in a tap-dance studio. After all, everyone else is wearing a little straw hat.

So I loosened my shoulders and let the music flow through me.

That’s when the awkwardness went away and the dancing began.

(Photo: Tapdance.org.)

Bouncing in the Dark

Bouncing in the Dark

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Given the amount of daylight hours we enjoy, it seems ridiculous that I would run out of time and have to bounce on the trampoline after dark. But that’s exactly what’s happening. Long days and late dinners mean I’m jumping at 9:30 p.m.

Truth be told, I’m growing to like this hour. The night is alive with katydids and crickets and frog sounds. Bats swoop from tree to tree. The to-do list that formulates itself automatically when I can see what needs to be done is mercifully out of mind in the darkness.

Instead, my eyes are drawn to the house, to the lamp light glowing gold, to the kitchen window that winks and blinks as the refrigerator door is open and closed, to the people moving in and out of view.

No longer in it, I now can see it whole and entire — my sanctuary and my nemesis.

I know it’s late. I know I should go in. But I thumb through my playlists, find one more song — and keep bouncing.

Fort Lee Ballroom

Fort Lee Ballroom

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The dance is over but the dance floor remains. Carpet rolled up in the garage, floor clean and swept, new stereo receiver waiting for a willing iPod and the playlists I fiddled with for weeks.

Now when it rains and the trampoline is water-logged, this is where I’m hanging out. I have to be alone, of course, or at least with others involved enough in other projects that they won’t critique my style, which is eclectic to say the least. And at some point we may have to put at least one of the cars in the garage and move the table out.

But for now … we have a ballroom!

Saturday Night Fever

Saturday Night Fever

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On Saturday night we rolled up the carpet, cranked up the stereo and
lured some aging boomers (and even younger folk) out on the dance
floor.

Blaring from the new sound system were the Supremes, the Beatles and disco classics like “I Will Survive.” At one point there were probably 20 people jumping and jiving.

The ersatz dance floor is so nice I’m letting it stay a while, meaning that the couch and wing chairs are  crammed into half of the living room with extra stuff piled in the garage. The open floor is  begging for an encore of “YMCA.”

Saturday Night Fever? Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe this should happen every night of the week.

It occurred to me Saturday (as it has often recently), that
people would be much happier if only they could spend part of every day
dancing.

 (Photo: Theatrical Release Poster from Wikipedia.)

Boogie Wonderland

Boogie Wonderland

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Never underestimate the power of soundtrack. The tunes in the ear set the pace, set the mood and sometimes make the day.

Take today, for instance, a gray Tuesday. Ho-hum. But over the weekend I watched a French movie, “The Intouchables,” which featured some of my favorite old Earth Wind and Fire songs. I already had most of them, but after Saturday night I also have “Boogie Wonderland” on my iPod. So that’s what I listened to on the short walk from Judiciary Square to New Jersey Avenue.

Impossible to walk to this song. You bop. You bounce. And you try, very hard, not to dance.

But don’t take my word for it. Listen (and watch) for yourself.

(See what I mean. Even the trees are dancing.)

The Stair Way

The Stair Way

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A recent escalator accident on Metro has made taking the stairs a more popular option. The trick is finding stairs to take. Because D.C.’s Metro system is so deep underground,  escalators are the conveyance of choice — and they are a finicky bunch. They grumble, they growl, they take months, even years, to repair. And then, a few days ago, a piece of metal tore off the side of one, struck some morning commuters and sent several to the hospital.

I wasn’t anywhere near the mishap but I can imagine the crowding, the dim light, the bone weariness that most of us feel as we slog through our routines and then — without warning — a renegade escalator.

Contrast that with the spanking new stairway at Vienna. It is crisp, it is white, it glistens in the light. Walk up its broad expanse, ascend at your own speed and without the clatter of moving parts. It is the polished floor of a yoga studio, the silent hallway of an empty school at the end of summer. It is a Zen experience. Given a chance, I’ll take the stair way.

Photo: PlanitMetro.com

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Yankee Doodle Dandy

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It’s July 9. The firecrackers aren’t snapping and the flags aren’t flapping. What remains for me is the memory of James Cagney as George M. Cohan in “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” I can’t stop humming “It’s a Grand Old Flag,” “Over There” or “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy.” And I can’t forget the sight of that powerful little man going into one of his tap-dancing riffs. He is the essence of jaunty, of sticking out one’s chin and plunging into life. Was our country ever that innocent and optimistic? I replay the final scene of that movie, Cagney dancing down the steps of the White House after telling his life story to President Roosevelt, and I think yes, maybe it was.

Taking the Stairs

Taking the Stairs

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In my old job I started each day by climbing to the third floor of a hundred-year-old building on a staircase that looks somewhat like this one. Now I scamper down a single flight of inside stairs, better than most, I’ll admit, but definitely the hidden-away staircase of an elevator building. When stairs were the only game in town, they were broad and grand and open. You climbed them with a sense of purpose. Now it often takes me several minutes just to find the stairway, and once I do, well, I’m usually underwhelmed. I climbed one of these in a Maryland medical building Monday: dingy, dark, with an aroma that reminded me of the New York City Subway system in July. I know we can’t give up elevators–they’re with us to stay–this is just a small tribute to those grande dame staircases, and to the kind of living and walking and thinking they made possible.