danceislove

All things considered, I have come a long way since the night I sprinted through Harvard station and met with pain and stiffness in my knee, followed by retreat and disappointment in my life.

When Kendall first entered the Tavern that night, I let his eyes move in search of me just a beat longer than I would have anyone else, enough time to think to myself, he is looking for me.

I waved him over, accepted his hug, the brown All Balboa Weekend hoodie with white trim, American Apparel brand; he wears it nearly all the time.

“I started a tab,” I informed him.

“Hot.”  Slowly, he shifted his center of gravity to lean on the bar.

The lovely blue-jeaned bar gal came over and he ordered a specific beer.  Then somebody called his name.

“Hey hey, kid.”  He turned to shake the hand of some preppy longhair, undoubtedly a friend from Andover.  “This is Liz, my dance partner.”  The prep raised his eyebrows at Kendall.  Both of us updated the friend (whose name I promptly forgot) on Kendall’s swing dance prowess and expanding fame.  Then the guy went to rejoin his girlfriend, and I took another swallow of my syrupy cocktail.

Kendall and I chatted while watching the Celtics maintain a 30-point lead over the Raptors and I attempted a veiled slinkiness.  Bar stools are good for that.  Of course, anything veiled is lost on most men, especially men under 30.

Peter arrived just as Kendall began the story of how he met Cara:  the North End bar, the witty conversation, the men who asked him what he’d said to command the attention of no fewer than four girls at a time.  As he spoke, he grinned, darted his gray-green eyes about, swayed subtly and gracefully with laughter and appreciation at his own desirability.  As I watched him fairly dance on the stool, I noted something tense at the center of his carefully built aura, something that tinged his story with insecurity and arrogance.  On top of that, I realized, after a few minutes of listening - while by contrast, Peter focused only on the game over our heads - that Kendall’s story was boring me.

Thus the mirage I’d construed around Kendall - no doubt with his help - melted; inspiration born from infatuation drained away, leaving dopamine swirling uselessly in my brain.

The light and life ignited thirteen months before at Seaport Hotel, over a Bellini and Mediterranean plate, with students we undoubtedly hoped would become our fans, was now concluded.  He was still sexy in that All Bal jacket, but when he took leave of me and Peter to go to a house party, I knew everything was finally over.

I was stumped.  I didn’t want to go home, but in the absence of anything more appealing to do, and with my buzz completely dead, that is in fact where Peter and I went.

You are not who you say you are.  I’m going to tell you who you are.  You are a Jew, you are a daughter, you are a classical concert pianist, your purpose in life is to make your family proud.  There will be no rock music played on the piano, no reading Judy Blume, no vegetarianism, no emotions other than laughter.  You have different ideas?  We laugh at you.  Stop reading stupid novels.
________________________________________________
Last night a friend of mine suggested that I leave the beginning of my book as it is, rather than rewrite it a third time.  He thought I should look for an editor or publisher to tell me what to fix, what to add, so the book will be more likely to sell.

Because I thought he would understand, I explained that I already knew what to fix, and that the product should be authentic.  It is my art.

“Writing isn’t art,” my friend said.

Nevertheless I’ll keep him, because he wanted me to educate him.  He insisted.  Then he said, “Well, maybe you don’t have to get so worked up about it.”

“How do I not get worked up about it?”

“Just - don’t.”

“I tried.  You kept asking me to explain it.  I can’t explain it without getting worked up.”

“I don’t like making you feel bad.”

“You’re not,” I said, pointing to my tears.  “This is there.  It’s always there.  You’re just seeing it.”

“OK.  I can handle that.”

“Yes, I think you can.”  I exhaled, picked up my wineglass, sat back.  “Anyway, we’re on this beautiful terazza, and the weather is perfect.”  I looked up and out at the greenery spilling down the man-made slope behind him, leading from Plaza Isabella II.

Of course, as I was growing up, people wanted to protect me.  I was lucky that way.  They wanted me to be successful, to not have to work too hard.  They wanted me not to let anyone take advantage of me.

These days, many of the people around me are similar.  Maybe you could just hand it in, Liz, and let the editors help you.  How many pages do you have?  Oh, you are almost done!  When are you going to be done?

Few care about the process of art; or for that matter, of anything.  That’s because process doesn’t make money.

For me, the process is the point:  the thrill of love, the wisdom brought by pain, the realizations that avalanche over me, the inspiration that fires me off like a shot toward writing, choreography, music, or my stove where I will prepare my next dinner party.

Now, for the first time, no one is telling me, Liz, you forgot to do this or that, it’s more important.  Liz, you forgot to take care of me.  Why aren’t I a priority in your life anymore?  Why don’t you teach dance classes and create a lindy hop scene?  How are you going to make money?

Now, I don’t have to slaughter myself every day for the privilege of fulfilling someone else’s expectations.  To most people, I explain myself thus:  I know I’m weird.  I’m ridiculous.  I don’t make any sense.

I don’t make any sense because when an agency offers me work on the edge of Madrid, I turn it down, because I would rather keep the time to do my art, take siestas, train dancers for free, and go on eating rice and wearing the same black dress and living in a tiny room.  It’s only when I hate myself and hate life that I need money in order to feel better.

Yet I believe that my true manifestation as an artist will bring money.  No one can tell my story but me, and I know it’s a story that others need.  People need escape from their own lives.  Escape, motivation, inspiration.

When someone steps onto the metro, everyone looks up, hoping for an unexpected distraction from the drudgery they feel.

The beautiful thing is I have the opportunity for infinite patience.  While those around me rush me to finish my book, fret that I will work too hard or take too long, or make something that won’t sell, I relax, knowing that I can work as hard as I want, finding deeper and deeper layers of truth to myself, to relationships, to human existence.

Why?  Who cares about that stuff?

I don’t care who cares about that and who doesn’t.  Maybe it’s taken half a lifetime but I finally know that unless I am fully engaged in a quest for truth, for beauty, for inspiration and its results, I hate my life - I am DEAD.  Expressing the truth in me - no matter how hard or painful, or joyful - is just what I want to be doing.

There is only one person who ever asked me, “So who are you, really?” and waited for the answer, waited and witnessed my stumblings and perambulations and crises, over months, and yes, loved me, and let me always be the expert on my own identity.  No wonder I fell for him, again.

Now that I have reached a milestone (described in the paragraphs above), it remains to be seen whether he can understand who I am really, or whether he really wants to.  Already, though, he has done more for me than any other human being.  Because of his belief in me I think I can explain myself much better to people like my friend on the terazza last night, kind people who will stick around to travel the quest for truth with me awhile.

“The thing is,” I continued, last night over our pink wine and extravagantly cheese-laden pizza, “business fascinates me.”

“Oh, come on!” said my friend.  “You don’t have to say that.”

“I know.  I don’t lie unprompted.  If you ask a question and I don’t want to answer you, I’ll lie, but that’s different.  Anyway we’ve already established I don’t have to lie to you.”

“I don’t care about business.”

“Oh.  Really?”

“It’s just what I do, but I’d rather be doing anything else.  It works for now.”

“I have a student who is going to - no, she’s in Paris right now.  Tomorrow she’s giving a presentation, in English, at an international meeting.  Today we went over her presentation.  It was pretty rad.”  For example, I found out that her company spends major cash on VIP events for CEOs and CIOs of potential clients, but they have no data on the return on the investment.  I realize such analyses are full of variables and hard to quantify, but I found myself saying to her, “I wonder if someone could poll the major clients that the company has now, find out whether the events were a factor in accepting the bid.  Also, it’s clear that the company just has faith in these events! They have kept them up for years, even in the absence of hard numbers.

I had almost finished this entry and was scribbling furiously outside the Anton Martin metro, leaning my notebook on the metal railing, when I heard a voice:  “Perdona, escritora” (Excuse me, writer).

To my right was a sweet old lady, making her way to the mailbox at my right elbow.  I moved aside to let her pass.  She said a few more things in Spanish, her voice sparkling and laughing.

I smiled and we both crossed the street, where I sat on a sun-drenched bench and finished this.

Well kids, I guess that’s it for today.  I have class in a little while and have to re-caffeinate.  I hope you have a good day, even if you are just doing what works for now, or if you are like me and have gotten to the point - good or bad - where doing that means the same as being dead.  Like most artists, I suppose, I am cursed.  I can’t do what works for now.  I’m physically unable.  I admire those of you who are successful, who have made money, who can retire, who can raise children, drive cars, travel anywhere you want.  You are better than me. You’ve been able to sublimate parts of yourself that I haven’t.  Or maybe, you haven’t needed to sublimate anything at all.  Maybe you have made your money while being true to yourself, or even BY being true to yourself, the way I will.  I don’t know.

If I’m lucky, you’ll tell me how it is for you.

“Hot date with Cara tonight?”  I texted, and continued tearing through the house.  Just before I got in the shower I received his reply:  “no plans yet.  game’s on at 7:30.  u?”

He’d taken my bait.  Of course, this is one reason I like Kendall.  He enjoys interaction.  Many people eschew it.  Stella, for example.

I flew in my rehearsed comment:  “I’m going to EMS to buy boots and a sweater, then to Casablanca to drink my dinner.  Anyone can join.”

“where’s casablanca?” appeared immediately.

At that moment another message popped up, this one from Peter:  “Is it OK if I get a beer with the coaches?”

“Sure” was my response - no punctuation.  I switched to the screen with Kendall’s conversation and keyed, “Brattle St.  Next to EMS.  Below Cafe Algiers.  It might be fun to watch the game in a bar.”

“it would,” he agreed.

I showered, shaving everything, thinking crazy thoughts.  I put on a black knit turtleneck dress from American Apparel, thigh-high gray socks, fringy crimson shawl, big hoop earrings.

“i still have to eat something and shower.  call me when u are done shopping,” was Kendall’s last text to me before I finally left the house.  I was out!  Thank god!

On Friday December 7th I got up early to drive in with Peter and teach a new client in Weston.  While waiting for the train back I took out my iPhone and keyed an email to Kendall briefly expounding on the concept of the anti-hero in the book Lolita and the film Thank You For Smoking. He had run out of steam reading the former and I wanted him to finish it.  The fact that his thoughts on novels and movies ran only marginally deeper than Peter’s (as a tangential illustration, Peter enjoyed The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, loved the horrible movie Waitress [with Keri Russell and Cheryl Hines], and he’d probably eat up anything by Nicholas Sparks) did not deter me from hoping the younger man would join me in intellectual discussion.

My hope was not currently founded on much.  Recently, even our musical debates produced only short bursts of energy.  Some of the CDs I’d carefully made for him had not inspired a half-conscious listen, much less spontaneous comment.  That warm September day I returned his car after dropping him off at his manicure and unloading equipment at my house, I left CD entitled “Folky” in plain sight on his passenger seat.  It made no impact.

Perhaps he had simply not liked that mix as much as the others I’d made for him.  Not so long ago, he witnessed my arrival at an important musical realization.  I was describing to him an interview with Dave Grohl I’d heard on the radio.

“I think you’d like the interview.  I’ll try to find a link to it,” I’d said to Kendall.  “Grohl’s a pretty smart guy.  It was especially interesting for me to hear him describe his experiences writing songs for Foo Fighters.  He said that it was hard to follow Kurt Cobain’s act because, apparently, Cobain’s stuff was so beautiful and simple at the same time.”

Kendall didn’t say anything right away and I mulled over the comments I made.  Suddenly I spoke again.  “Hey, who do you think is better?  Nirvana or Foo Fighters?”

Now Kendall did not hesitate.  “Foo Fighters.”

“That’s what I think, too,” I mused, realizing it for the first time.  “Maybe it’s blasphemy to say that since Cobain’s dead.

However, Kendall did not respond to the email about anti-heros that I sent him on December 7th.  Instead, as I was winding down for a nap at 3pm, I got a call from Cassandra: she could go to American Apparel and look at T-shirts.  I suggested 5:00.

Inevitable winter darkness closed in around the studio as I pushed through reps of yoga and pilates poses, then dumbbell rows and leg lifts.  Sex in the City episodes played on my laptop.  My heart rate had not been elevated in over a week, and my mood was suffering.

Lying on my purple yoga mat, legs splayed and stretched up the wall, I called Cassandra.  My phone actually worked in this corner of the condo.

When she answered I was thinking of how I’d doll myself up to go shopping, commandeer several dressing room mirrors to admire my still-slender figure in new AA-wear.

“Oh, I realized that I’m going to dinner with my boyfriend,” Cassandra was saying, “and I need time to get ready.”

I flopped my legs to one side and stood up.  Blackness pressed the windows.  It was 4:56, another two and a half hours at least before Peter would be home.

For once I lacked any desire to work.  Nevertheless I went to the big computer and tamped the space bar.  The Gmail window emerged, showing a small orange-topped box in the lower right corner.  Kendall had tried to initiate a chat, just before leaving work at 4:22: “Did you reserve any more times at the Dance Complex?”

I called the venue, then texted Kendall the new times, adding, “Call me when u get a chance,” though there was no need.  Anyway, he was doubtless at the gym, currently.

Something had to be done with this Friday night.  I put on Will Dailey, did the dishes, and attacked my closet.  It was time to get rid of all these stupid clothes, buy decent boots and a sweater, especially since with my knee bones bruised I couldn’t work myself warm.

I’m a chemical, yeah it’s natural

A good time is the gift that keeps on giving.  My mind played back the show at the Paradise, Kendall turning to me, singing the lyrics early, exaggerating Will’s inflection.

I filled three Whole Foods paper bags with cast-offs, cleaned the bathroom, and sang along with Will.  The opening piano octaves of “Bipolar Baby” brought rapturous surprise to my soul, despite having heard them now hundreds of times.  Every fifteen minutes, I checked my phone.

Kendall texted at 6:24:  “i had a chance and called u.  those times look good to me.”

I keyed, “Sorry, I thought I’d found a spot in my house where I actually had reception.  I guess not.”

Five minutes later he responded, “that’s why i’ll never get at&t.”

As I fought with myself over whether and how to keep this conversation going, a switch tripped.  It’s the one that, up until now, I’ve held back against its spring, sometimes with all of my weight; other, longer periods, seemingly without effort.  It’s the one that keeps my blood in my body, prevents the exchange of my entire life for a momentary rush, tethers me to security and tolerable self-image, holds off public suffering - my own and that of others.  Dread, desperation and darkness fed a small flame of mischief: perhaps I would bleed, but it was too late to worry about that.

The T-shirt discussion seemed close to either resolution or impasse.  I was advocating for using a small New York City screen printer that Peter and I had visited while in Manhattan over Thanksgiving.  Cassandra was for some reason trying to convince us to buys cheaper, less well-fitting tees, telling me I could cut them down and sew them however I wanted, as if that appealed to me in the least.

“So,” said Kendall, looking up at me - I had already stood up to put on my coat - 
“we’d get the shirts to Kayla, and she’d ship them back to us?” He was referring to his New York girlfriend.

“Yeah, it does sound like a lot of hassle,” I said.  “I don’t know.  It was just an idea.”

“Lynn.  You keep saying that.  And now you’re putting your backpack on.”  He was regarding me with a neutrality that possessed more power than anything I could imagine.

I froze.

“It’s OK,” Peter said, mumbled, half-asleep, from the couch near the door.

“You can stay for another minute,” kendall continued.  “I mean, I was just asking what Kayla was going to do with the shirts.”

I frequently equate a mere question with criticism or censure.  Now, not only had Kendall helped me to understand this, he was being patient in the process.  I felt gloomily undeserving.

As we finished the discussion - Cassandra getting one more word in about sewing my shirt - I said my goodbyes.  Kendall held out his fist.  I knocked it with mine, looked at him and said, “Thank you.”  I couldn’t elaborate in the presence of Cassandra and Peter.

Kendall held my gaze for a moment.  But to be sure he understood, I emailed him when I got home.

This time, Benedict Smith joined us three stalwart BIX organizers.  I like Benedict, too: he’s irreverent, kind, mellow, and with a knack for expressing himself poetically.  “That would be nice as ice,” his email read, in response to the proposed meeting time.  “The master’s device.”

Our meeting ensued.  Cassandra didn’t seem to like anyone’s ideas.

“For the postcard flier, I was thinking we could do something like this,” I said, opening my notebook and writing the text where I thought it should go.  “I’m not a designer, obviously, so what do I know.  It’s just an idea.”  In truth I was quite attached to it, but willing to let it go wholesale if it meant less fighting with Cassandra or a smoother interaction with Kendall.

He reached for my notebook, but I quickly tore the sheet out and handed that to him.

“Now I can’t see it,” he accused, casting about for a surface against which he could hold the thin paper and keep light from shining through it.

I got up to return the bag of ice.  I can’t risk letting him see my book.  I’m saving it for when he moves on.  Then I will carve it up and present it to him.  The effect will be similar to my having committed suicide, without the losing my life part.

“I like this,” he said, offering me the sheet of paper as I returned to my seat beside Cassandra.

“I look at it and see a dead spot,” Cassandra pouted, indicating the blank rectangle of space taking up the left side of the design.”

“I see what you mean,” I admitted.

“We can put the logo in there,” Kendall suggested, “the little BIX man.”

“Perfect!”  I cried.

“Can you do it up?” Kendall asked Cassandra, after Benedict had given his OK.

“Sure,” she snapped, dropping her eyes and shrugging.

“Hey, what would you guys think of having alcohol at Blues Cafe?  I might be able to arrange that,” I said.

“That would be awesome,” Kendall said, unsurprisingly.

“Yeah, except I don’t want to babysit all those drunk people,” said Cassandra.

“So don’t babysit them,” Kendall returned.
“Well, whatever.  It’s just an idea.  I’m looking into whether I can get insurance,” I said.  Avoiding everyone’s eyes, I whipped out a pack of gum and plucked a piece from it, unthinkingly.

“Lynn, can I have a piece?  Lynn.”

Not only had I forgotten my manners, I didn’t hear Kendall the first time he asked.

My phone trilled once: first inversion of a major triad.  I picked it up and clicked in.  “I’m getting on the Pike now.  Will you be done in 20min?” Peter had texted.

“I dunno,” I keyed back, and resumed taking minutes on my laptop.

When he arrived I really did want to go home, but he came in “for a minute,” at Kendall’s request.

One week and a half before Will’s show at the Paradise, during hip hop class at the housing project, my right knee began inexplicably to hurt.  I was supposed to practice with Kendall that night and considered dosing up on naproxen, but something told me to cancel the session, as well as the one we had scheduled the day before Thanksgiving.  As Peter and I drove down to New York to see my family, I forgot about the pain, especially after Kendall texted me for no reason other than to quote Will Dailey lyrics.  Maybe he loves me, I thought.  I settled back in the passenger seat, and tuned out Peter’s XM comedy.  After an extended Manhattan stroll the next day made my knee worse, I resolved to get it looked at when we returned to Boston.

The orthopedist deduced the presence of a bone bruise, since nothing had shown up on the X-ray, and bone bruises don’t become symptomatic until after a few days. “It may take three weeks to heal, or three months.  You shouldn’t be dancing,” he counseled.  I sat on the examining table and sobbed and sobbed.  Doctors could be so insensitive.

“No more drinking and dancing for me,” I told Kendall.

Two weeks later, there was a Boston Independence Exchange organizers’ meeting at his place.  I arrived early to work on our showcase piece.  I’d been the one to choose the song, Benny Goodman’s “Henderson Stomp,” which Kendall had approved with the emailed comment, “I just listened to it five times in a row.  It’s awesome.”

My response read, “It has everything: melody, rhythm, it rips, and it’s only two minutes seventeen seconds long.”

Our initial choreography session had had us in stitches; I even saw fit to lie down on the floor and slap it.

When Cassandra arrived for the meeting, I swooped in to take her hot mocha.  The plastic to-go cup, leaking phthalates, made me nervous.  Anyway, she needed her hands since Kendall had just commented, “Make sure you rock your shoes,” to which she was responding, “Oh my god, just give me a second!  Holy crap!”

In the kitchen I searched for a clean mug and finally just washed one.  Cassandra refused it, apparently preferring to trade reduced toxicity for heat.

“Kendall, you got some ice in here?”  I opened the freezer.

He walked over, withdrew a bulging Whole Foods bag, regarded me, and dropped it on the floor.

I crouched to retrieve it, squeezing with my hands.

“You probably need to drop it again,” he determined.

“Nah.  It’s mushy enough.”  I plunked onto one of the couches and began arranging pillows.

“Are you elevating?”

“’Wa-a-a-iting for the elevator,’” I belted.

Kendall immediately double-clicked on his laptop, which released the opening piano arpeggios of Hot Hot Heat’s “Elevator.”

“I haven’t completely figured it out yet,” he said.

“What! It’s totally straightforward.”

“Yeah, except for the beginning, the implied-third part.”

“Oh.”

The song played and we sang.  He pretended to strum.  We ignored Cassandra and her plastic mocha.

The last time we had a BIX meeting, it was just the three of us, and she had lingered, using my laptop to look at T-shirts and possible T-shirt printing websites, asking Kendall for a ruler so she could measure her torso, and the whole time Kendall played guitar while I tried to sing lyrics when not answering Cassandra’s fussy questions.

The thing is, I like Cassandra.  She’s smart, interesting, and always spoiling for a fight, like my sister.

“I liked their first song,” I said, after we had established the mediocrity of the original opener.  “Did you like the five-of-six chord going to four?”

“But really it’s a seven-of-four.”

“Huh? What? A seven chord is diminished.  That chord was major.  Hey! I know exactly what that progression was: a deceptive cadence.  It’s five-of-six going to six-of-six. Ha!”

A girl walked by, sporting a glittery scarf with elaborate pompoms.

“She’s wearing a stuffed animal,” said Jerry, leaning across me.  He’s a big white guy, with a red buzz cut.

Kendall laughed while I turned my head back and forth between them, smiling.

“Do you enjoy my friends?” Kendall asked.

I admitted that I did.

Kendall settled back again and leaned his shoulder against mine.  I studied the grime on the small circular table in front of us.

Ron arrived.  I leapt up to hug him and Kendall slowly maneuvered himself upright.

“Sorry I missed your birthday party,” said Ron.

“Hey, it’s all good.  It’s great to see you.  Is Bianca coming?”

“Yeah.  She’s looking for parking.”

The second opener was worse than the first.  Kendall sat up so that Jerry and I could see him make faces, roll his eyes, and shout things like, “I will never have this 45 minutes of my life back!”

At one point he leaned in and hollered, “So the five going to six is a deceptive cadence?”

“Yes,” I said.

“So the five-of-five going to four is - like five going to six, oh, I dig.”

“‘Cause four is also six-of-six.”

“And what’s a plagal cadence?” he shouted in my ear.

“Four, one,” I shouted back.  “When the choirs sing, ‘A-men!’”

The next break made me agitated, but I didn’t feel like having a drink. Ron got Kendall a beer and the two of them chatted while I exchanged small talk with Jerry.  Then Kendall announced he was going to get closer to the stage.  “I’ll go too,” I exclaimed.

Presently Kendall left me to track down a few more of his friends, among them Will Dailey’s girlfriend.  Across the gathering crowd I watched her squeal and throw her arms around Kendall.  I knew it was Will’s girlfriend because she was by far the most gorgeous woman in sight, except perhaps for Bianca.

Kendall returned and I said, “Not much eye candy around.”

“Guys or girls?”

“Either.”

“Oh well.  I don’t mind being the best looking person in the room.”

“Not with Will here.”

“He’s not here yet.”

“And Bianca.”

“Oh well.  I don’t mind being the third-best-looking person in the room.”

Why should Kendall have any need to validate my appearance? I am a married woman.  Furthermore, I cannot compete with him for his attention.  Further than that, I started it.

Will Dailey took the stage and my sadness lifted.  There he stood, inches from us, his feet at the level of my collarbone.  Ron and Bianca came through the crowd. Kendall put his hand on her head and hugged her, and rocked with her to the music.  The four of us were a little community, forged by genius outside of ourselves, over our heads.

Chills coursed through my body when Will began the the one-four progression riff of “Undone,” off his recent album.  He riffed a little while, allowing suspense to build, then switched to the five chord:
I’m a chemical, yeah it’s natural
No need to be alarmed
I’m reactable
I’m a troubled soul
I smile to keep you fooled, you know….

Near the end of the song, he repeated the line, “Tonight, I don’t need no one,” until the audience joined in.  The instruments dropped out and there we all were, waving our arms in unison, together, singing, “Tonight I don’t need no one…” until Will sang, “Tonight, I don’t need anyone. Let me be undone.  Oh, let me be undone!”  With that the band leapt in, joined by horn players on stage expressly for that song.  A triumphant oscillation ensued between the one chord and the four dominant seventh.  The horns blared harmoniously.  Over all of it, Will parlayed his emotional, amiable screams: no words, just emphasis.

Later in August
I walk out of my building and a wall of party hits me, coming down the cobblestones.  In this particular instant, a lovely lady with long brown curly hair advances toward Calle de Toledo, on the arm of her benevolent boyfriend as she talks with her lookalike gal friend.  No sooner does the trio pass me by - I am headed in the opposite direction, Calle de Cava Baja, epicenter of the fiesta - than little rainy pebbles of sadness within me suddenly evaporate and my mood lifts like mist off a lake.

The music pounds, synchronized speakers from neighboring bars dumping merengue.  Trumpets chatter.  Vocals holler.  A woman in pigtails off to the side of the road swirls her short skirt.  She knows all the words.  The crowd surges around her.

Generally it takes a minute flat for me to walk to Willow’s.  I’ve timed it.  Tonight it might take five.  It’s 10pm on Thursday night of La Fiesta de la Virgen Paloma and lines for the outdoor bars merge with streams of revelers.  Groups of men and women groove to the music in the narrow street.  I feel a little helpless and stuck, like when I enter the Sol metro through the fenced-off walkways slammed with tourists negotiating the construction area.

Still, when I arrive at Willow’s I know I have to call Robert.  “I don’t want to go up to his place anymore,” I explain to her.  “We were going to sing sad songs, which would be nice any other time but I’m done being sad for today.”

Robert finally picks up.  “Oh good, you answered!” I exclaim.

“I couldn’t find my phone.  Did you call many times?” he asks.

“No, no, this is the first.  I am at Willow’s now and, well, the festival is in full swing and it’s making me happy.  Is there any way you would consider -”

“Oh, I thought the parties were just Friday and Saturday night.  You want me to come there? Sure.  Anything you want.”

Robert lives in the north of the city, not very near us. Yet he is willing to quickly eat his dinner (10pm is dinnertime) and come down on the bus. After I hang up I say, unnecessarily, to Willow, “Robert is wonderful.”

“So,” she says, “why are you upset?”

“I’m not upset.  Sad.”  Willow understands me better than almost anyone else, even though we have known each other barely two months, so I don’t mind correcting her.  “Sometimes both occur together, but not in this case.”  I lean back in her computer chair, unfocus my eyes toward the squat round glass table halfway between us.  “Starts with a ‘A’ and ends in ‘lexander.’”

“Oh?” She gets up and goes into the bathroom for something.

“I’m still in love with him.”

Willow comes back.  She scans her bookshelves, pulls out a volume, turns to me.  “Here.” She hands me a medium-large paperback bearing the calligraphied title, 100 Love Sonnets of Pablo Neruda.  “This might make you feel the way you want to feel.”

I’m inclined to think she’s wrong.  How could odes to a poet’s mistresses ameliorate a broken heart?  I take the book, because I trust her implicitly.

“I need it back,” she cautions.

“Of course.”

“It’s a pretty good book, despite the disaster of a cover.”

Thinking she is referring to the condition of the book, I flip through it briefly and answer, “It’s fine.”

“Obviously you don’t feel the same way about pink that I do,” she giggles.

I check out the front again: a background the color of pink candy hearts superimposed by a grid of small red dots.

“Oh, I see.  It looks kind of diseased,” I concur.

I look up as Gipsy Kings music blares through the open window. Baila baila baila! Baila baila baila me! “I’m not sure I can stand another night of this on endless repeat,” Willow says with a wry laugh.  Then she looks up and about her beautiful studio apartment, anchored by marble floor, draped with cushions and scarves, and cries, “There’s a DJ right outside my window! Playing the same music till 3:30 in the morning!” She gives over to more laughter.

“I’m surprised that people in Spain like this music,” I remark.

“Oh, it’s great music.  I’m really glad the DJ downstairs is not playing horrible disco.”

“I mean - generally the music that the rest of the world associates with a particular culture or subculture, is music that the culture in question tends to hate.  In the States, when people think of Spain, they think of flamenco, and Gipsy Kings are very popular there.  Also, most people in the States think that swing dancers all love the song ‘In The Mood.’”

“Oh, OK, I gotcha,” Willow says.  “But no, this is really good music.”

“I’m glad it’s appreciated here.  The Portuguese bakery across the street from where I used to live played these guys a lot.”

“In Boston?”

“Yes, in Boston.  Somerville.”

Pero yo siempre cantare, the Kings continue to declare, in the street.

“Maybe you should sleep at Robert’s tonight.  He has a lot of extra space, right?” I suggest.

“Yeah, a 3-bedroom flat and he’s the only one there!”

“Maybe I’ll go with you.  I have to come back and do some things in the morning, though.”

“We can take the bus; it’s about an hour to Sol.”

“An hour, really?”

“I love it.  I can take a book, read, relax.”

When Robert arrives we hit the bar downstairs from her house for our first drink.  She knows the bartender, naturally; he gave her two bottles of wine just before her last brunch party when she realized she didn’t have anything to drink in the house.  Stores are all closed Sunday; no way to get anything, much less alcohol.  Also, this is the same bar where we celebrated, with a few other friends, my first lindy hop performance in Spain last Saturday.

“Did you know that the Gipsy Kings are from France?” says Robert, who is French.  “I mean, their heritage is Spanish, but they grew up in France.”

Robert is one of the best people I have ever met.  He always has a smile for me, for Willow.  He would probably do anything for either of us, wholeheartedly, cheerfully.  An accomplished guitar player, he’ll play and sing, whatever Willow or I want him to, far into the morning hours.  He’s funny and adorable and great company.  In November we will lose him to Edinburgh, because the Scottish physicists are next in line to receive the benefit of his expertise.

Willow perches on a bar stool, adjusting the thin black strings of a crocheted, bell-sleeve top she’s put on over a bright red camisole.  You’d think a redhead wouldn’t necessarily look great in red.  Not so Willow.  She’s completed her ensemble with short cut-offs and wedge shoes.  She looks lovely. OK, hot.

We’re not long for the bar downstairs from her house.  Robert drinks his first beer - what they call here a caña, probably only 200 ml or so - and rolls a cigarette while I ice my Coca Cola Light (if you say Diet Coke here, people look at you as though you are speaking a foreign language).  Then we all go out and wander.  The streets are chock-a-block; we thread among shifting walls of people.  Robert has the guts to light his cigarette very close to the back of some guy’s pink button down.  Just as we make it to the other side of Calle San Bruno - my street (alleyway) - the kind of thumping disco that Willow hates envelopes our collective existence.  She wails in frustration.

A few steps onward I catch the vocals as well as the bass: it’s “Like a Prayer” and I can’t help myself; I start singing and shimmying as we walk.  Over to our right, a pair of girls can be seen way above the crowd, dancing on top of one of the outdoor aluminum bars.  Each is wearing a fedora, strapless top and short skirt.  I make a mental note to dress a little more sexy tomorrow night.  Who wears a long black skirt to a bacchanalian street party?

The next two bars are playing merengue, but Willow doesn’t want a drink here because it’s more expensive than anywhere else on the street, so we keep on.

We wander the cobblestones, through the hollering drinking dancing masses.  I lose my bearings quickly after we begin walking up and down different streets.  Willow has lived here for years so she knows everything and I don’t have to worry.  She doesn’t like to talk about where she is from so I won’t say anything about that here.

As we turn onto a street that leads uphill I almost can’t believe my eyes.  From a distance, at the top of the hill, I perceive what look like countless long narrow balloons, the type used to make balloon animals, waving back and forth as if part of a Chinese dragon costume.  My friends indulge me in following the spectacle and are patient with my efforts to get a photo on my blackberry, but alas, it is moving away from us, and the crowd is far too thick to get a better view.

Our trek down this road has not been for naught: about five horns, including a tuba, plus a small drum set, launch into fast New Orleans jazz.  The crowd is screaming and cheering.  I can’t help Charlestoning.  Robert and Willow get drinks and talk as I bop around on the beer-wet street.

Then, when the crowd begins to clap along with the music, I stop and cringe.  “I can’t believe they clap that way here!  Aargh!” I moan.

Willow and Robert regard me with amused patience.

“On one and three,” I explain.  You’re supposed to clap on two and four.  It’s driving me nuts.”

“That’s your way,” Willow says. “In Spain, they clap like this.”

“No, no.  It doesn’t have to do with where you are.  It has to do with the type of music.  It’s fine to clap on one and three for marches and country music. But when you hear jazz, it doesn’t matter where you are.  It’s two and four.  The other way is just wrong!”

“Anytime you say that something is just wrong,” she grins, “it’s going to mean frustration for you.”

“I know,” I sigh.  “I don’t think I’m doing too badly.  I can accept and adjust to everything about life in this foreign country EXCEPT clapping on one and three.”

Robert and Willow then begin a spirited discussion on the complicated clapping rhythms used by guitaristas and flamenco dancers. They demonstrate a couple of them. I’m intrigued.  It helps me take my mind off the horrendous clapping going on up the street.

They finish their drinks and we move on.  “Let’s go toward Tirso,” Willow suggests, referring to the Tirso de Molina metro stop.  Where we live is roughly equidistant between two metro line stops - a 1-2 minute walk to each.

We settle in a bar on a quiet street, ordering drinks inside before realizing the they won’t let us bring them out because they’ve poured them in glass.

“Can’t we just put them in plastic?” I ask.

“I won’t drink wine out of plastic,” Willow says.

“Right,” I agree.  Robert has bought me a Coca Cola Light with Johnnie Walker, which would be fine in plastic, but I’m also fine to stay in the bar.  We three clink, looking each other in the eyes, and then sit across from the bar on some tall stools.  It’s a small place and there are no tables.

“Oh, but there’s this girl outside and she looks fantastic. Really hot,” Willow says.  “She’s wearing this top that has practically no back, and a striped skirt.  And she has this fantastic body.  Robert, you should go see.”

“Oh, no no.  I’m already with two beautiful women,” he says.

“I want to go see!”  I put my drink on the counter and head out with my blackberry.  They laugh as I depart.

Willow is right.  The girl in question is amazing.  Unlike the show-offy types on top of the bar on Calle de Cava Baja, this lady is purely enjoying herself, whooping it up, dancing with two guy friends. She is happy. I walk up the street a bit and try surreptitiously to take a photo.  As I head back to the bar, one of the guy friends says something to me in rapid Spanish.

I look up at him, dismayed.  “Lo siento,” I explain.  “Soy Americana.  Mi español es mal.”

“Oh!” The guy stands up straight and brightens.  His blond hair sticks out in different directions.  He’s kind of adorable.  “We were just laughing that you got a picture of us looking really stupid!”

“Not at all.”

“Yes, here we are, making idiots of ourselves!  So, you are American - where are you from?”

I have the usual conversation I have with people I meet here: are you on holiday, what are you doing, how long will you stay, etc.  He’s very nice and I have an inkling to stay a few minutes longer with him and his two friends, but a kind of fatigue overtakes me and I decide to return directly to Willow and Robert, so I can sit down and drink my drink.

As I approach the narrow door to the bar, though, two men are struggling to drag a soda  fountain machine inside, attached by many tubes to a dense steel container, about the height of a keg but narrower.  A woman standing outside directs them.  Then she puts two more heavy containers on top of the stoop, still blocking my way.  “Coger uno para passa la niña,” she hollers at the men.  I’m sure I’ve recorded the Spanish incorrectly. They obey her, after which I rush inside and sit back down next to Willow.

“Coger uno para passa la niña!” I shout.  “I understood it, and I can say it again!”

“What?” Willow says, as I am making no sense.

“I can understand Spanish!  I can say it again in Spanish!”

“Apparently you can also spit Spanish,” she says, wiping her face.

“Oh. Sorry.”

Robert says, “You know in South America, coger means ‘to fuck.’  Here you say ‘coger un tren,’ and the South Americans think we are talking about fucking a train.  I mean, they know what we are saying, but they still think it’s funny.”

“Because it is,” I aver.

Soon we are talking about the common mistakes made by people new to Spanish: how much of a difference a vowel can make, as in pollo (chicken) and polla (penis).

“But wait a minute,” Robert says.  “Polla ends in an a, which means it’s a feminine noun!  How can that be?”

“Oh, no, it can’t be.  It’s probably like problema, which is masculine,” I suggest.

“Problema is feminine,” Willow asserts.  “Una problema.”

“Mm, I think it’s un problema,” I respond.  Now, Willow is fluent in Spanish, whereas my Spanish still officially sucks.  Someone trustworthy (I forget who) told me about “un problema” recently, so I am confident in my position.

“Si,” says Robert.  “Un problema.”

Willow gets up to go ask the bartender.  I look at Robert and point to him and to myself, and squint my eyes and nod, as if to say, we are right!

Willow has begun chatting with the bartender, so Robert and I approach and sit at the bar too.  Manuel is from Venezuela, a smiling man with kind eyes.  He confirms un problema.  He also, with a shrug, informs us that polla is indeed feminine.

“My mind is blown,” I announce.

The four of us chat a while longer.  I mostly listen, because things are taking place in Spanish.  It’s a very pleasant time and we close down the bar.

Willow and Robert walk me home.  It’s 3:30.  I’m drunk and exhausted.  I don’t really have any words to express how fortunate I am, how grateful, to be exactly here with exactly there people having exactly these experiences.  No words, that is, except for those above.

Ten hours later, on the metro, the sadness hits again.  I pull out Willow’s Pablo Neruda book.  Each poem is in Spanish, followed immediately by the English translation.  I read a few lines in Spanish, then skip over to English, back to Spanish, over to English one more time.  I close the book.  I am thrilled and in tears.  Neruda’s poetry is often described as sensual/ sexual, but those are not the feelings.  I have a surfeit of emotion, and one of my most fulfilling experiences is to somehow let that all open up.  It’s why I write.  The lines I have just read make me feel the way I do when I listen to my favorite music in any moment.  No words without music have ever done that to me before.  The book is still closed, because I don’t know if I can tolerate more joy right now.

“The Lord is my shepherd.  I shall not want.”  Here want is used in the old sense of lack.

How can I be whole?  God ways I am whole.  How do I move whole, speak and act whole, the universe captured and channeled through my body and fingers, when I forget things, take too many steps, play wrong notes, lose my voice, become impatient or - the worst - petulant?

It’s the day after my birthday gathering and the house is a wreck, even though the party was held in Beverly.  I stand in front of Peter’s dresser mirror, impatient and rosy in my red felt had and glasses.  Peter has let his head fall on my shoulder.  I make a quarter turn and hug him; he is still standing, just barely.

“Staying up that late really kicks my ass,” he complained a moment ago, while getting out of bed.  I made no response.

The wonderful friend who had hosted us during the Beantown weekend had prevailed upon her mother for the right to use her house as my party location.  At the last moment, said mom had withdrawn permission to use the fireplaces, and since the house is unheated, some of us drank and danced to excess.

I had engineered a cabaret phase to the party, an excuse for me to plunk halting chords and melodies on the parlor piano while Kendall strummed smoothly his guitar, and both of us sang Will Dailey and Mappari tunes.  We threw in Mr. Jones, which became a sing-along.

Later, batting my eyelashes, I excused the DJ, to play what had become Violet’s and my song:  “Daisy Dukes.”  She had unexpectedly called me “Daisy” one day after our massage/ lesson trade at the condo, thus charming me completely.  The song launched such a frenzy of dancing, even among the “non-swing” friends folks had brought, that I maintained the iPod cable, cuing up music by Old Dirty Bastard, Black Box, Rob Bas, Jay-Z, and other anthems that made people shout with joy, “I forgot about this song!”  Of course, I hadn’t.

A large percentage of us sustained a jam circle for a good 45 minutes, many of us soloing: Hunter performing break-dance moves, me pulling out my second-rate gymnastics and green solo Charleston.  Kendall alternated between dancing with me and his New York City girlfriend.

During the last phase of the party, remaining guests leaning against kitchen counters or seated around the last of the dinner, sweets, dessert wine, Kendall smacked my left butt cheek and called me “champ.”

He is reprehensible at times, taking any chance to misbehave: slippery and smart.  All I can do is lower my eyes and ignore him.  I long to put him in his place.  H enjoys my company because I can keep up with his lead, but there is more: he molds me, controls me, chooses all manifestations of our interactions.  When he complains he hasn’t gotten a cookie at Blues Cafe I wordlessly present him with one from the plate that I had been saving for the band.  “Atta baby,” he gloats.

When we start singing the Bravery’s “Believe” in the kitchen and he demands, “Do you have that song? Rock that shit,” I run to find it on my iPod.

I am no match for him.  Kendall is my muse.  It took the most powerful, egotistic person I know to validate art as a pursuit.  If he can do it, if it is good enough for him….