When You Dance

Years ago I had a sexual dream about Donald O'Connor.  He was wearing that horizontal striped shirt Gene Kelly wore in Anchors Aweigh. I woke up feeling hung over and baffled: not only do I dislike stripes anywhere besides bedsheets,  but my male crush-template at the time was maybe Scott Weiland.  

Over the years I've had a few iconic, memorable actual dreams that feel epic-- cinematic-- long, complicated narratives with specific settings and locations that felt like inventions-- all featuring some Hollywood actor-- Brian Keith, in one-- who had no real association with anything or anyone.  I'd wake up feeling-- well, a little surprised... but connected. In high school I'd occasionally have a random dream about some boy I barely knew and then blush when I passed him in the hallway.  Little did he know, we'd shared some private intimacy which would remain part of my psyche. 

Of course, they say the people in our dreams are substitutes, like when we dream about a neglected dog, it's actually about our self. Regardless of where these come from, there's a literal hangover-- we replay what we recall in real time; we are affected. 'A dream is a wish your heart makes, when you're fast asleep...' sang Cinderella on my Disney album soundtrack. Children have nightmares... the lyric was confusing.

I just finished the superb new James Baldwin biography.  James participated in the famed March on Washington where Martin Luther King gave his iconic 'I Have a Dream' speech.  MLK had not just a dream but a vision and a moral and social platform.  On a much more personal scale, my son recently realized his 'hoop-dream' of creating an urban basketball platform.  Of course this took incredibly hard work, planning and stress... fundraising, organizing, building, turning small failures into success narratives, and a coming of age. More than a dream, it's a passion he parlayed into a career ambition.  

My father, the war hero, was a fantastic dancer. Not like Michael Jackson or Gene Kelly, but he had incredible grace.  Watching him with my Mom at family weddings and celebrations, they were like movie stars in their own world... waltzing or samba-ing with harmony and skill.  It was sort of a revelation, seeing my parents this way-- transformed.

The US Open always reminds me of my father who was also a superb tennis player.  In fact, his dancing skills were probably honed because the tennis club where he worked as a boy recruited the young single employees to dance with random single women at their evening entertainments. He had plenty of practice, and experience with women in his pre-military career.  I'm sure that helped win my Mom over.  

'Do you love me, now that I can dance?' asked Dave Clark in one of the first 45's in my little collection.  My first real romantic experience was a slow-dance at a summer-camp mixer. I went to an all-girls Catholic camp that year and they integrated us once per season with a boys' camp from across the lake.  It was well chaperoned and the lights were bright, but the DJ put on 'Surfer Girl' and a tall boy held out his arms to 10-year-old me.  I could feel his heart beating, among other things.  But I realized dancing was sort of a physical metaphor. 

'When you Dance...I can really love' Neil Young sang and reinforced this metaphor.  There's an irony-- besides entertainers like Michael Jackson, rock musicians commonly do not actually dance much. Think Dylan, Tom Petty... Clapton, even Hendrix. They move around and weave a kind of sexual veil with their performance but they don't don't do steps. I've dated a few and offstage they can be a little awkward. 

Over years I've thought long and hard about the Donald O'Connor dream... were the initials significant?  Was this a substitute for my father?  As a young girl my father taught me a few steps; this was surely one of the few 'tender' moments between us. Knowing how to partner-dance was a part of our education. I was also sent to ballet-- to tap and jazz and modern dance because it turned out I loved learning steps and the choreographic role-playing.  Not to mention the music.  But dances-- parties-- this seemed to be a much more prevalent courtship ritual in 60's and 70's culture than it is now.  A slow dance with a new crush was a devastatingly sexy experience. I'm dating myself.  My college boyfriend and I loved dancing; it's what brought us together the very first night.  I miss this.

While I can't remember my father ever watching any of my dance recitals (and he certainly boycotted band gigs, lol)... he was very attentive at those of my son's school basketball tournaments he managed.  Although he doesn't really dance, my son shares a kind of athletic grace with his grandfather.  While I never shared my literal dreams with parents, I imagine my father might have been amused by the Donald O'Connor appearance.  I know how they relished watching those musicals...  and besides the Fred Astaire kind, he loved seeing James Brown, Sammy Davis Junior, and later, Michael Jackson. 

All these years later, I recall that old dream like an actual memory. Maybe it was a reference to my father I couldn't understand at the time. I'm trying, years after his passing, to smooth out the rough patches-- not to dance on his grave but to process the legacy with a little remedial choreography and the softer echo of old dreams.

Some Kinda Love

Betrayals and break-ups always seem more prevalent in the rain. This cold relentless October rain was sort of a jolt to the city; just one week ago we were bathing in the radiant sunlight of a warm September, waving to our Pope, feeling a kind of hopeful optimism and magnanimity.  Everything I did felt just a little 'blessed'.  Tonight, it's business as usual. I've committed my one or two unforgivable social etiquette sins-- let the rebel-girl out of my mouth--  been just a tiny bit mean-spirited.  I'm soaked, freezing, snappy and blustery.

As I grow older, I'm noticing I become a little more clairvoyant and uber-empathetic.  I don't just observe-- I actually feel things around me.  I can read minds and hearts and find myself having to blink  and look away more often.  Tonight I began to hypothesize that there are two kinds of love-obsessed people: the ones that are all about being loved, and the ones that are addicted to loving.  We know the narcissists-- attractive and charming-- generally someone at their beck and call, their 'mirror-boy' (or girl), not to mention some in the wings, waiting for a stage-cue. But their counterpart-- the 'lovers' who are  so good at maintaining relationships, at partner-grooming and socializing--  they give gifts, they dote-- a little like pet-owners?  And I can spot them in a second.  The ones not currently 'in a relationship' are stalking the online dating sites, browsing Bridal magazines, seeing themselves as half of any given celebrity couple.  They are theoretical, future wives.  They make very good partners-- they cook, decorate, make reservations-- and for some men-- this is great.  They will get married, have kids, vacation, play doubles, barbecue, retire… and some will wonder where it all went.   I see these couples all too often… they seem happy and even look good together-- this is important.  But what I see now, also, is this missed connection somewhere; for the 'other half' of us-- the ones who don't really know what it is we want from love---- they will fail us and we, of course, will fail them.

Having read too much from an early age, I tend to infuse common objects with symbolic meaning.  I see a card lying in the road and find some ironic synchronicity.  Tonight I stepped onto a curb and there was a long stem… without the 'head' of the rose--- just the twig, and the thorns, lying on the puddled sidewalk.  At first it looked ominously decapitated… this is a bad sign, I think.  A death card.

A car passes-- windows open, despite the wet night… blasting some Coldplay…  Magic, I think it's called…and I don't and I don't want anybody else but you… the driver hitting the steering wheel, mouthing lyrics… I could feel his exhilaration… young, driving through the wet city, Friday night… picking up his girl… it has always been this way-- music lets us love-- through the lyrics, through the sounds… we let go, we align with someone's joy… we dance…

I can remember how this is and was… the songs we love, the songs we loved… burying our face into some chest, eyes closed… feeling enfolded and lifted into the music… even when it is a different man -- we can still close our eyes and be inside the song, inside an old memory , another dance… it is okay.  How many lovers, dancers, are closing their eyes in the wrong arms… leaving their dreams in a heap on the floor while they crawl into some warm bed… the wrong bed, the right bed… we can close our eyes and be somewhere-- anywhere.

Thinking back… how this bald man coming out of this building, with the glasses and his shirt collar buttoned up tight--- he could have been that soft long haired boy, swaying by the stage with a beer can, looking at you like you can save his life… and you can…and you did, maybe,  and who am I now, this woman walking on the slick sidewalk in the street lamplight thinking about old love, evaporated nights, reading a message into some missing rose petals?   Loves me, loves me not… we'll never know this way, will we?

James our local boom box-bearing homeless resident of the street… is howling tonight, holding his box like a megaphone, screeching out lyrics to a distorted track… he is looking not just thin but taut and drawn, ashen… wired and wiry, angry and boisterous… pointing up at the moon, chanting and preaching, singing and stomping.  Where is his love?  Who will dance with him in his dream?

In the lamplight I see something shiny-- it's a jade earring… I take it into the Starbucks on the corner.  A woman has called them, they tell me-- maybe 5 or 6 times, looking for this earring.  It was nowhere.  No, she hasn't left a number… but I leave the earring--- it's perfect and lovely...another piece to a cosmic puzzle that won't be solved, a lost soul watching its other half sail away..

My apartment feels cold and damp; my son surprises me with a late-night visit-- comes to sleep over-- feeling some October restlessness he can't shake…I remember those times, when everywhere felt like a rocking boat, a crowded subway-- except that one bed where you could lie in the dark forever, listening to the minutes-- a record on the turntable… a 25 minute universe, while all you are is the music, the ceiling, the bit of streetlight streaking onto the wall… the man beside you for an lp eternity… your version of paradise… inside this music where you can really love, like Neil Young says.  He hasn't quite found that bed this time… and maybe his boyhood room feels like 'home' for tonight.  Within minutes he is sleeping peacefully.

I am still thinking about my bad angel-- the one bed where I could always find my home… missing for so long, the last time lying beside him on his hospital bed, trying to absorb the pain… Sing to me, he said, in a morphine stupor, but he can't hear me anymore… and the lights, the lights were harsh and the machines were humming and the roses by his bed-- the perfect white roses-- they couldn't keep him any more than this headless stem I have somehow carried home… and that one person-- even if he lived.. he might have slept with other women because people do this-- they betray you, they go away, they shoot up and pass out and step out in front of cars and they jump-- they jump into and off and away.

I do one of those random record picks with eyes closed and I get the Velvet Underground… the one that starts with Candy Says.. so fragile and vulnerable… and I light a candle, and my son wakes up and joins me for a glass of wine and makes fun of my music.. while he stares off, unusually pensive, for him….By about the 3rd track he taunts me a little, singing in his out of tune buoyant boy-voice that gets me smirking… mocking the lyrics and now he is up and mock-dancing and grabbing my funny green stem in his mouth-- I am full out laughing… Put on your red pajamas and find out..  and I am singing, too, now… suddenly Lou Reed and I are as we were, as we will always be, in the music…

Black and Blue Friday

I can't quite remember the first time I heard the phrase 'Black Friday'. Surely I would have thought it was some Catholic designation for one of the days preceding the Crucifixion.  Something terrible.
As a teenager it was a day after the huge tense family dinner.  Parents were hung over and kids were punchy and overfed.  Breakfast was black coffee and a cigarette for my Mom.  Maybe cold stuffing for me with hot chocolate and some dirty looks for whatever I might have said or done the night before.
It was quiet and cold outside.  The air smelled of bonfires and rotting leaves.  It was a day for huge library books and blankets on the porch while my father slept off his angst and the meal.  It was claustrophobic.

On break from college it was a reunion day.   Homecoming for my girlfriends and sometimes a movie and a local bar.  Phone calls and yearbook reminiscing.  Comparing our new boyfriends and nasty roommates.  Dogwalking and getting high in a sort of innocent way.  No one shopped in our household.  We hardly spoke.

Once I played in a band, Thanksgiving meant a turkey sandwich in a diner or Chinese takeout after the gig.  Friends showing up with girlfriends and wives, looking sheepish and disgruntled.  It was a day you'd evaluate your own family; usually things didn't measure up.  As a musician, it was a relief to come home in early Friday.  You could sleep it off and here was a regular weekend.

My first marriage meant excommunication from my family.  I was banned from their Thanksgiving.  The gig was the Lone Star-- the original one on 13th-- and I remember feeling a little non-Texan and isolated.   I was writing Black Friday songs in my head without having heard the expression.  Once I had a son I began my own dinners-- we were usually destitute and someone would either donate a bird or we'd manage to collect enough scraps for a feast and it felt good.  I lit candles.  I bundled up my baby boy and went to watch the floats getting blown up at 2 AM and drank hot chocolate in some diner.  On the Friday we'd go see Christmas lights.

One Black Friday I remember having one dollar.  One.  I decided I'd buy a couple of bananas and 2 rolls for 25 cents apiece.   My son and I went out looking for the best deal on bananas and on the side of the road I found an envelope with some cash in it.  $550.  For me that was hitting the lottery.  It was groceries for a year…. baby clothes too.  It was amazing… visions of Christmas trees… toys… going into a diner with my son and letting him order something besides chocolate milk.

But that $550… it was someone else's winning lotto ticket.  It was someone else's loss.  Some poor cab driver or laborer had taken out his savings and lost everything… a cancelled vacation … whatever.  Why is it that I can never accept good fortune without considering the B-side?  So I gave much of it to homeless people, to charity.  Yes, we bought an Ernie and Bert Lego set… we shopped Toys R Us like royalty and we picked out Sesame Street Action figures and a plastic house.  We saw Santa and ate burgers and fries in the Herald Square mall and looked out at the Empire State Building lit up for Christmas.  My son was singing with his little red corduroy hat on.

I learned about Black Friday from my son when he was a teenager and muttered vicious maledictions at his loser mother because everyone else was getting their new Sevens for All Mankind and Timberlands.  
It was humiliating and sad.  I was unsympathetic and he was angry.  He stayed out until 3 AM and came back stinking of alcohol with a black eye.  A black eye is actually blue.

This year Black Friday apparently started on Thursday.  Stores were open-- kids, including my son, had to go to work at midnight.  People stampeded and fought over merchandise.  Rain checks and bracelets were handed out, internet sites extended their sales through cyber Monday--- but there were stabbings and blood.  What do you call this kind of violence?  Retail-rage?  It baffles me.

I haven't spoken to my older sister in maybe 12 years.  She likes it this way.  Absolutely no competition and she can malign me until the cows come home and no one will disagree.  It has been so long our enmity is like a Thanksgiving float of some kind of nasty cartoon thought-balloon.  I imagined their Thanksgiving--- my parents, the tense old family facade like a toothless old leather-face.  I still cringe when I think of my father; he still hands over the phone like a hot potato when he hears my voice.  The Pilgrims and Indians sat down together, but not my original family--- not any more.  They have invented a new tradition which is now older than the original.  My chair has been long filled by grandchildren.

I loved my Thanksgiving guests this year; each one was so special.   I loved my home and my unmatched dishes and funky seating.  No one thought about shopping.  No one discussed things or clothing or new apartments.  We listened to jazz and indie rock until the early morning and then I cleaned my oven.  When I am content and grateful that way, I worry about Jesus--- but maybe that is Good Friday.  Everything seems to be running into everything else-- I mean, what difference does it make--- corn, chocolate hearts, colored eggs, fireworks, parades?  It's all the same thing-- every holiday is cause for celebration and cause for sorrow.  I hope I don't die on Thanksgiving.

While I cleaned, which is somehow a not unpleasant part of my tradition, I remembered.   While I scrubbed my floors and dried glasses--  I remembered the great love of my life, wasting from stomach cancer and deemed 'nil by mouth' his final Thanksgiving…  asking me to describe the smell of my turkey, the texture of my stuffing… we stayed on the phone until he finally slept on Black Friday morning.   I was relieved he'd made it through the day, but it was the last time we spoke.   It has been so many years now, I can't even cry; I light a separate candle for him, on the table, and remember driving back to school after break, on the black turnpike, in a blue car, listening to Cinnamon Girl on the radio, with the heat on and Friday on our mind.