the weekend: 3 movements

Dancing Queen

Alan wore a bright red shirt, like me, and said "Don't worry. You can tell everything you need to know about your partner by looking them in the eyes and I've been doing this long enough to know you'll do just fine." He was old, real old, but his grip was firm and sure and boy could he ever spin a girl! When the fiddler stopped, he bowed a little with that old style courtly/country swagger that skipped my whole generation and said "That was lovely. Thank you." He walked away and left me standing there, dizzy and half in love at the end of the first dance.

The long rows of contra dancers ran the length of the whole hall and my friends dotted the crowd --- lowering the average participant age a great deal and significantly upping the style quotient. Throughout the evening I counted 28 sweat bands, 67 pairs of special dancing shoes, and one man, hair cut to look very much like an elf, with a baby strapped to his chest. A quarter of the men were shorter than me, easily, and my fourth partner David (after Will who seemed to be catatonic and set me back a good deal in progress) most likely spends his weekends traveling the Eastern seaboard, going from Renaissance Fair to Renaissance Fair. He was about 6''7 and before he even approached me, I'd pidgeonholed him as a computer programs IT systems analyst "I can really mess with your mainframe" snort snort sort of guy. What the heck, though, right? So, the music starts and I stop thinking about the tye-dyed bandana around his head and simply hang on for dear life. He almost swung me through the stained glass windows two stories up. It was glorious.


Pineapple Queen

While we're painting Mrs. Ford's kitchen, MA asks me me about humor of the absurd and I falter. I'm tired and my brain is still spinning from last night and anyways--I'm trying to concentrate because my mom always points out what an unskilled (putting it nicely) painter I am. My Christmas in April shirt is already covered with freckles of latex. So I don't have a good example for him but the work and conversation continue just the same and the laughter is plentiful and warm.

The house smells like urine and something dead. C and I whisper about this in the kitchen and I make some comment about it being the smell of decaying hope. (These are exactly the sorts of half glib /half poetic statements that fall out of my mouth so easily and make me wish I had a better filter. Balled up papers and plastic bags stuffed into holes in the floor and me and my frivolous self saying ridiculous things). We lean in closer to get a better look, through the grease and grime, at the wallpaper and see that the psychedelic squiggles are really stick figure girls wearing crowns and holding fruit. "I'm so happy to be the lovely, lovely pineapple queen" one girl is saying while the girl with pig tails and a tiara says "Don't you love summer and watermelon. I am the queen." I'm not kidding. So much royalty on four slanted walls.

So the afternoon goes on and we paint and paint and wipe and sweep and talk and laugh and hum a bit, too. I get to know these people a little better. My respect for their knowledge and commitment grows, my affection and thankfulness surge. The fresh white trim makes the rooms seem hopeful. "This is fun" we say to each other.

When it's time for MA and J to take the painter's tape off the wall J says "You know that thing we feared would happen...well, it's come to pass" and we see that the pineapple and watermelon queens are coming off with the tape. I start laughing. And then: suddenly, I have to leave the room because I feel a streak of hysteria coming on, a giant sadness welling up even in moment of joy.

See, the thing is that there are situations (the world of Monty Python) that are funny because of their absurdity--the sheer unlikelihood of their occurrence, the ironic possibilities that form in our detached intellects. And then there is the real world where you find yourself in an absurd situation: painting over decay and pulling pineapple queens off the walls, while floating in a deep deep pool of joy, basking in the incredible love and provision in your own life. Do you laugh or cry in these moments?

Queen of the Warm Smile
for Celeste

Your renewed commitment to
appearing approachable is
quite admirable, I'd say,
knowing as you do, first hand,
the ways that people (boys, mostly, if
we're being frank) take and take
before leaving you to wear
your strapless dress all alone.

If you smile warmly at a stranger
on the bus, and if his shirt
is free from holes-- if his style
gets him through the door at Wonderland--
I hope he notices the way you start to
sing along with the chorus the very first time
you hear a song, how radiant your smile
is in the growing summer light.