Category Archives: Observations

Clogging Day Two: Triples and Buck Joeys

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Day Two.  Well, you know day two of any conference; some of the bloom is off the rose and it’s not the rose’s fault. You’re tired, you’re at your conversational limit, the comfort zone is still a whole day away, the gals next door turn on the TV at 6:00 am, so you’ve got to dig deep. You’ve sweated through several shirts, but tell yourself, ‘This is a workshop; I’m supposed to look like my son’s rugby bag.’

Also, aside from the immense awe I have for the dancers in the advanced class I attended today, the clacking which invigorates the dancer, begins to try the sleep-deprived brain.  Let me clarify: I observed the advanced class. My participation was to video the teacher’s choreography and one of the professional students, at her request.  The quote of the day came from that class:

“Isn’t there a triple before the Buck Joey?”

“Yes,” said instructor Andy Howard, “yes, there is!” They all nod. Not only does that change EVerything, it seemed to sum up this whole fun experience for me.

Which leads me to the sheer delight of following the caller as he says things like “SaMANtha, Mountain Goat, Turkey, Scotty, Charleston, the aforementioned Buck Joey, and the matchless I’m Gonna Get Cha!” And all those steps can go left, right, and backwards, so you’re either ‘back home’ or facing the back wall or sitting beside Clogging Mom who is like any other Sports Mom – convinced scouts are everywhere and it is her responsibility, nay, her joy, to direct their attention to her starlet.

I got a kick out of the cloggers who came from Wisconsin or Michigan because they were wearing jackets with hoods. It is 90 degrees in Fontana Village, but I guess where they’re from they put on jackets in August and take them off in July. So September is clearly a jacket month no matter where you are.

An evening bluegrass concert capped the day allowing freestylers to take the floor and follow their heart. A three year old girl with two white-blond french braids jigged like one who understood the art form at a cellular level, like Grandma must have at the Sugaring-Off Dance in the Big Woods.  And then a husband and wife danced so entrancingly, so perfectly fit together, so gently looping their arms over shoulders and around waists, like figure skaters only warm and accessible. Like maybe we could all do that.

So, yes, there is triple before the Buck Joey. Bank on it.

   

Floods And Scars

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How hard it is to watch others suffer.  Of the many recent images, one stays with me. A man – elderly, sparse hair – is being helped through Harvey’s brown flood to a waiting flatboat. Bad enough at that. But he is shirtless. And his chest has the long, livid, vertical scar of recent open heart surgery.

And I think, Wow, Lord. This man? This scarred, scared man?

I keep my theology straight and remember where floods and scars originated – two people in a garden rejecting the greatest offered Love, Love that kept offering through His own scarred back and hands and feet. He knows scars. He loves rejectors.

But why are the most vulnerable ones, the poor, the already scarred, taken through the water while I sip my coffee in the broad daylight?

A whisper: ‘I am doing something.’

In them. In me. My guilt is wasted time. He is doing something, and He will strengthen those in the water to cling to Him and those on dry land to send out rescue boats of every shape and size.  The other comforts are still true, too:  Good will come out of this, good we cannot see. We need waking up. We are on our knees and not drunk on pleasure. This will bring healing; it is the saline flush of a filthy wound.  My close friends Charlie and Leslie, in the water right now, proclaim this truth with tears and praise songs.

Lord, Lord! Keep us soft.