Landing but the ride has only begun *

As I suspected I did not sleep well. Too hot, tossed and turned. Slept two hours woke up cranky but back to sleep quickly only to wake two hours after that. Woke around 7 am and decided to just be awake.

The radio provided memories and feelings again today. At some point I remembered that a song played yesterday that brought a name for the long ago past up from the depths. Mr. Keirmeyer? Something like that. He was my gym and health education teacher back in junior high. He was an unlikely ally in my burgeoning adolescence which was heavily colored by depression. If I remember correctly he reached out to me and to my mother to act as a support. It has been probably decades since I thought of him; he was blond and really tall as I remember.

This morning I heard "Addicted" by Saving Abel, a favorite song of Her Geekyness. It's totally her kind of song but I also like it; the sound of it works. Then I heard a song became a favorite of mine when I heard on So You Think You Can Dance, it was one of my favorite numbers from the last season. Stark played this as the second song of that incredible set at DNE this summer. I adore everything about this piece. As I sang along this morning the tears flowed without thought, just pure sadness, loss. Immediately after this I changed stations and I caught the end of a bizarre song that rarely gets played anywhere, which luckily just made me laugh as if I was just as mad as the lyrics implies.

Somehow near the end of my trip I totally missed a turn off and drove an additional good fifty miles to my already long day. I am going to blame Dawn who in an attempt to get me hooked on audiobooks, succeeded as I listened to Nick Hornby's "A Long Way Down" - it's amazing! Yesteday I had started the other book she gave me, Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. Unfortunately the second cd had a skip and I had to stop listening to it yesterday. Dawn may have convinced me of the charm of audio books, at least while driving - great stuff. Plus these were two truly excellent choices, from what I've heard so far! Of course almost no food all day and emotional/physical exhaustion may have contributed to the extra drive time as well.

In the end, after eight hours of being on the road I landed at Sunny's. Sunny kindly put me in her amazing massage chair for 15 minutes which was a miraculous experience. Afterwards I announced that while I realized I need to not be in a relationship right now I wanted to marry this chair (not sure this is exact one but she has one very much like it!). We went out to dinner and afterwards I began to get settled in the basement space. I also checked the boxes I had shipped and realized that all of my Cooks Illustrated bound magazine volumes had gotten lost. It is very sad but at least I know exactly which books I am missing. Sigh. This will be an expensive thing to replace. Oh well, another opportunity to practice letting go.

Now I just feel rather surreal and am trying to make friends with this hobo life I have assigned myself for the moment.

*Thanks to Dru for inspiration of the post title.

Delight

It's been a long few days here at Dance New England, very busy, a fair bit of drama, and lots of hugs. One of the things that I enjoy the most besides actually dancing is watching the people here move. Tonight, just a bit ago a passel of our young adults, most who have been mostly raised coming to camp, came to the dance. This is a new thing.

The teens and those "raised" in DNE often skip our dance or come further into the event when the pull of the rest of world has stopped calling us adults weird or they realize this is not a place they have pull away from everyone five or more years older than them drops away. It's the first full day here and here they were. Dancing, laughing in a rough circle. Working up a sweat as Rob, who just the other day stated he has been coming since he was kicking in the womb (true!), whipped off his shirt. How cool - dancing that hard, the ease of removal no big deal. The music changed from a techno kind of piece into a number from the Nutcracker and what happened is what often occurs when such a piece is thrown in - as if it was choreographed people elegantly drifted in to a ring that circumnavigated the room. The young adults joined, everyone became part of a whole, the music lifting everyone into one mind but many bodies playing with the notes differently but still unified in a directional flow.

Whoops and applause followed. As the music turned bluesy, a rich and thick rendition of the classic Summertime by Gershwin. It was beautiful but I had to write this image before it was gone, not erased but overlaid with the next hundred beautiful moments that could happen before I might write again. I started another entry two days that still has not seen the light of blog. It is after 2am and bed would make sense, but a stop at the dining hall might beckon, or perhaps not.

Mayberry meets Seattle

I love my neighborhood. I really do. It's amazing. Okay the first day we discovered this neighborhood there was a jazz concert on the Greenway. There were families and couples, while kids played on the grass. Then we met the area cheerleader who immediately connected us Holly, who led to Karin - our gracious landlady. Holly told stories of "porch parties" that various people in the neighborhood host in the warmer months.

On Sunday the 14th we did the Rehabarama with TGF's 'Rents. Earlier, before we were there, there was live broadcast of a radio program, "Breakfast with the Bealtes" at the gazebo on the Greenway.Totally fun, all the "hosts" at the houses were friendly - most our future neighbors. At one house we ran into Lisa, whom we had met the previous week when Holly was showing us the project houses. She remembered us, asked how our search was going, and hugged TGF when she found out she volunteered to help get a house ready.

Last week I received a phone message from Lisa inviting us to some gathering on November 10th. We have only lived in the neighborhood for about two weeks and we have an invitation already! Finally Lisa and i connect on the phone a day or two later. Apparently "the ladies" have a monthly gathering (maybe dinner? the details are fuzzy right now) and this is a special one in that "we" are being hosted by Brett and Josh. There is nothing for us to bring - there will be martinis and hors d'oeuvres served. She also wanted to let me know that "the ladies" meet over at the Tavern on Fridays, after about 7 or 8pm every week.

Early this evening about 5:45pm I take Wyatt out for a walk on the Greenway before I leave for my stitch and bitch meet up at Panera's on Miller Lane. The wind is blowing, swirling leaves, making that autumn noise of crunchy leaves banging against each other, the trees and asphalt. Off in the distance I hear music and think it's coming from a car. As the sound comes across less polished I think there is a band practicing in a nearby house. The music gets louder still and I realize there is a band playing in the gazebo in this dusky light. There is a small group of folks who form the audience. I want to walk up close but Wyatt is freaked by the drums, the droning voice and the mini tornadoes of leaves every time the wind stirs up hard, so we turn around. Listening the music which really does kind of suck, I figure that all bands start out sounding pretty bad.

I have the biggest smile on my face, watching the leaves twirl in the fading light, listening to the emoting singer behind me, my dog almost running, smiling up at me. This place feels like a home in way that I don't think I've ever really had before.

Life felt so good in that moment.