D is for Dance

D is for dance.

I was going to say D is for delicious, but I already mentioned chocolate..so here is the next best thing..

There are a great many sayings about dance that distill its essence into neat perspectives:

“Dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire”
~Robert Frost

“I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.”
~Mikhail Baryshnikov

“Dance like there’s nobody watching. Or filming. Never mind that creepy guy in the corner with the camcorder. Just keep dancing.”
~Jarod Kintz

“Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.”
~William Edgar Stafford

"Dancing faces you towards Heaven, whichever direction you turn.”

~Terri Guillemets

"Life is short and there will always be dirty dishes, so let's dance.”

~James Howe

“The truest expression of a people is in its dance and in its music. Bodies never lie.”

~Agnes de Mille

“Dancing is like dreaming with your feet!”

~Constanze

..and my favourite of the lot,

”There are shortcuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them.”

~Vicki Baum

Dance. It’s a beautiful way of looking at existence. Dance can be performed alone, but the mastery of dancing with a partner or a company of people truly demonstrates the cooperative skill of the dancers. This is an analogy for life that captures for me the beauty and satisfaction of learning to live in harmonious relationship with others.

Dancing together is not dependency. A successful dance partnership involves each dancer taking responsibility for own steps, own rhythm, and own stamina, while also being ever aware of these things in the other. It is truly a focus of each on the rhythm that keeps the dance in sync and beautiful. 

The dance can be debonaire, deliberate, delicate, daring, delirious..  performed solo or with others, as an expression of emotion, ideas, interpretation, beauty and skill.. with music or without.. impromptu or rehearsed, .. it’s the soul given voice to speak.

Dance gives off sparks.. of passion and of harmony. I want my life to be like that.

Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

Matthew Lehman, Fiona Evans and Daryl Brandwood perform 'Strings 32'

Sebastian Kloborg

C is for..

C is for ... just way too many things to mention. Crikey, how is a person supposed to write something around the letter C when there are so many words in the English language to choose from?! It’s ridiculous to even try! I could write up a storm on cats, crisis, computers, coconuts, caramels, children, cricket, crime, cucumbers, cars, Christmas, charities, crack, canaries, cartoons... wait...I’ve got it. C is for cyber, right?

That’s how we’re defining ourselves these days. Cyber banking, cyber books, cyber entertainment, cyber shopping, cyber relationships.. true or not? Ha, here I am cyber communicating with you at this very moment. Aint it great?

Of course I can’t write a blog about cyber-anything because it’s been done! Done to cyberdeath. I’ve read a whole ton of well-put-together articles about cyber everything and consider myself full bottle, so I’m not about to add to that gargantuan pile of opinion. Do I hear you cybersigh your relief?

Please don’t think I’m a cyberobjector. No way. That’d be like biting the platform that blogs me. But I’m all for real, in your face life wherever possible. There are some things that cyberspace just can’t help me with.

Because, let’s face it. In the end, C is for chocolate.

picture taken from the internet

B is for..

B is for BLOG.

I blog because..

                I have something to say?  I’d like some attention? I’m bored? I believe everyone is doing it nowadays so why not me? I’m hoping it will lead to fame and fortune? I’m aspiring to be a writer and this is good practise? I’m looking for friends? I need someplace to dump all this stuff in my head?

..could be... and those are reasons that will find a home somewhere. But in my case, it’s because I believe writing is an art just like painting and dancing, and art is better shared.

Any closet artists out there that create just for self ..aw c’mon...show meeee! Something happens to art once it is released into the public sphere. It gathers more unto itself as it is contemplated; it seems to live and grow under scrutiny, changing as it becomes a part of its environment. And like any life-form, it influences its world. I know...bold statements. But not so bold as to put my own words in that category!

I’ve been a blog reader and dabbler for a few years, never really committing myself properly to any consistency. (If my mum was reading this she’d nod and say uh huh, what’s new?...) However, I seem to have launched upon some kind of goal to at least do twenty six..

Blogging an artform?.. well, if I stick at it.. it might be.

Here’s to its becoming.

Joy to the world!

May the joy of the season make us all children at heart!

A is for....

A is for apple. And airplane and ant, something I’ll never forget because my beloved kindergarten teacher taught it to me. Who could not love, with the devotion of the cherubim, the sweet and patient young woman who had time only for her charges, and whose smile seemed to radiate candy store approval! 

Later I was to discover that A also headed up the collection of letters that denoted aardvark, algorithm and appendix. I cannot say why it is I still remember this, since it was learned under the loveless and unforgiving stare of a succession of science masters, all of whom seemed to possess the pinched features of birds of prey.

Thankfully, 'A' also ushered into my vocabulary affection, adoration and ardour. What pleasant lessons were these! Suddenly the acquisition of additional attributes became an attractive adventure, and I an assiduous and attentive A student! ... I must pause a moment here to admire my own amazing adjectival ability... alright,... I’m laughing now. I had you going there for a minute didn’t I? Were you thinking you’d landed smack in the middle of some kind of erudite literary blah blah? Sadly, no. Life carries its disappointments. Never mind, we were onto something there, I feel it down deep in my atoms...

Right now I guess I’m somewhere between almond truffle and Alka-Seltzer, or perhaps more accurately, halfway between alpha and omega. It’s not such a bad place to be. Rather than start to panic at the approach of age and the accompanying agents of doom which threaten arthritis, alzheimers, atrophy....arrrghhh!! .... no, rather than pack a thesaurus of assumptions into my expectations, let me pause once again. Perhaps to laugh at myself, or perhaps just to enjoy the achievement of reaching this moment with my wits intact.

A is for atmosphere. I create my own, with the thoughts that I breathe, and the actions I allow.