Dear Dionne, 1:55

The sun roasted my bed this morning, reminding me to wake, + as I sat on my windowsill dangling my toenails outside so they could dry with the last drops of water dripping from my hair into my mug of tea, + onto this page washing my penmanship into some sort of gasoline puddle haze, I heard + then saw a parade start up from my very street. Well, I thought it was a parade, but it was just a funeral march, a wake, for Ol’ Grandma Ticians from across the street.

I hear tell from my landlady that Grandma Ticians was an auctioneer here in town for over 70 years and rattled off antique wardrobes, trunks and running-boards until her body just gave out a few months ago. She had a speech impediment that made her say "yeah" before she’d say anything. "Yeah, what time is it?", "Yeah, Can we go now?", "Yeah, I don’t miss my husband." She was also a member of the school board, trying to get the kids to read more, standing up for banned books, and during the school board meetings when she’d have to answer to the parents complaints about some books being unfit to read, she’d say, "Yeah, so? Yeah, so is the newspaper. Yeah, so is the label for Everclear. Yeah, so is life." Suffice is to say that "Yeah, so" has been a part of the local patter for some time down here.

I bought a white binder today and finally made a portfolio for my photographs, then read a little of my book on roses that I got from the library and found out that a rose is only perfect for an hour. Well, this is my hour. Not as good as the hour this morning, and the day before yesterday morning and on back since the day I moved in here, when I’d be sitting on the back stoop watching the clouds, when one of the slats in the fence would slide and there’d be a finger and an arm barking "Hey, what are you doing?" Then the little boy next door would stand stock still and then run. And then his sister would slide the exact same slat and purr "Whatcha doin’?" as she stepped through the rickety ends of whatever keeps our yards apart. And she’d show me the ladybugs on her fingertips and I’d show her where babies come from.

"The stork comes for my stomach," she’d proclaim, and I laughed thinking about J. Dove’s little humpitydump camel walk he trots through graveyards among the dead children, saying good morning to all the tombstones, taking puffs off his harmonica and serenading the flame tree in the middle of the park. "Park," he’d say. "A dead people’s park." Then he’d walk sideways up a tree, kick off some branches, blow clouds through his hands, and lean to the left, tilting the earth back on course, of course.

I had to make him promise not to take his golf clubs there. He only had a putter and a wood, and I don’t really think the dead would mind black white green red pink brown yellow orange and blue golf balls whacking them awake before the paper boy’s even up: It’s more his aim I was worried about. I mean, what with the governor’s house and the police chief’s daughter living just down the road.

So, Dionne, are you dancing still? I thought about you for weeks after I saw this ballet in Paris May. I couldn’t believe how much it took me back. I practically woke up in a pirouette on my pillow for two straight weeks.

I thought a lot about those years as kids when we danced, and the nights we’d all get dressed up and to go Seattle when the ballet came through. Those nights, getting ready to watch the shows, how old were we? I was 7 or 8 so you must have been 3 or 4. Do you even remember it? Sitting there amazed at what the human body could do, and Mom and Dad even more amazed at how much we could wreck the bed dancing on top of it when we got home. And when Zeda would baby-sit she’d throw us on the bed as we pretended like we were l-e-a-p-i-n-g across the stage.

It must have been hell for Otto growing up with four ladies dancing, and all the guys at school asking him if we did table dances. Still, how many other brothers would come to rehearsal just to watch, and when he watched you knew that he was pulling for you. Doesn’t surprise me that he got into life drawing a few years ago: He saw all of our forms' pubertize before his eyes. How A Line Becomes A Curve 101.

And guess who’s been thinking about treading out that old hardwood again? After all that walking in Europe, and all the biking I’ve been doing here, I’m in the best shape I’ve been in since I first moved to Seattle, when I’d ride my bike around Capitol Hill every day.

Do you remember the time I saw our old dancing teacher on Broadway and brought it up over Thanksgiving dinner and no one would talk about it? Just the sound of a lot of stuffing being digested as I realized that it was me who so diligently won the awards and it also was me who so gracelessly forgot all about dancing when I realized how bourgeois it was. Or, at least, that’s what I told myself.

Well, anyway, I found a dancehall not too far away where I can go for an hour in the mornings before their classes start, and an hour at night, after their classes are over, just before they close. The guy who runs the place keeps trying to get me to take a class and meet some of the others...but, it’s been so long. God knows what I’ve forgotten. Last night I went there to workout, starting with a little aerobics, then letting my body do what it wanted to do, and I kept thinking of Viva. I remember that time in dancing class just before Mrs. Arrodondo had us try improv.. We wee little ballerettes about to try improv and she chose me to lead the way and I never knew why. Maybe she knew I’d give it a fighting chance. The three of you kept laughing as Viva squeezed my hand so tightly, so I told her I’d be her partner and after the first few moves, let her lead the way even though she thought I was leading.

Yes, I had the moves, the strength, the lightness; hell, I had the want, and I could see in Viva’s eyes how she burned to do it, too. And all I asked of you three was to help her. You three I wanted to make fun of, taking your talent for granted, which is a sin.

You three had talent, but I had a gift, a gift that frightened me b/c I knew how much work and sacrifice it would be to become as fine as I could be. And I knew that if it was easy for you to mock Viva, then I would be next. Years later I always prayed for you three to be able to appreciate how well you could dance. Maybe you did, or do, or will someday. I threw it away. A foolish move, I admit, out of cowardice, but I have found other talents. No other gift as my legs had, but....

I wish I could explain how it felt, when I danced. To do something so naturally and now know what it means to try. But, I suppose it’s like having a lover you want so much that you become them, part of them, immediately, and before you know who they are, and as you get to understand them, and even after you’ve forgotten how much they mean to you, when you look into their eyes trying to listen to their words and the only thought racing through your mind is "God, I love you."

And you swim with that, further away from yourself, out into the gorge that cuts its way past the fingernails you swallowed, the lipstick you smeared on your face, the orchid you chucked after the ball, the road trip in June to the meadow outside Calhoun, playing tag with the stars in the desert, behind a bar with a guy who smells like tar and reminds you of your father, with a pick-up truck, as you go driving past the featherbeds and tents and panties hung over the campfire to dry.

And the weeks before Christmas taking a cab after shopping and the aroma of oysters and clam sauce and the light of the lamp on his face and his cardigan as the after dinner coffee you stir the milk in looks like the universe and you look up into his face as he talks about some science fiction book he’s reading where the only way you can go back in time is by shooting forward into the future to find the one you remember and going down and back together to untie the knots of the nooses of whenever and whatever.

And the coffee makes you think "I wonder what he looks like nude, making love to me until I tell him "I have to sleep now."

To live is to dance, sis, and never let anyone ever tell you otherwise, cuz it ain’t true. True, she says, like how J. Dove gives me so much, but demands so much attention. And how pretentious he is, but he’s seen and been and read and fed so much more than I have. And how naive he is, but he just doesn’t pay attention to a whole frame of mind that I just got used to. And if he could only admit that he just wants sex, but if I had a dollar for every time he could have taken advantage of me. And if he could only admit that he has an ego, but he always blows his sax like he’s the only one listening. And if he could only admit that he just doesn’t care. He never leaves me alone and he always wants to play with my hair. And if he would only say that I do things wrong, rather than letting me do whatever I want, like when I turn the music up loud or belch or drag him to see bad ballet...and he LET’S ME??

And how much he manipulates me by never getting a hold of me. Yeah, I know; if I talk and think about him so much....

This is just between me and you and the rails of the train, blessed with bliss, cursed with care, daring to save on my way away from here. And I wave and I whisper and I doze and I dream and I see you above me, body blue with black stockings without seams. Seems as if forever is always just a few days away. Feels like the past is mine to forgive, forget and reclaim.

I remember saying, as my new days opened, in the first light seen here, "Here is someone new." And the little girl who lives down the way reminds me: "Sssshhhh."

 

Always here,

Estrelica