I always carry my nomadic friend B.’s experience in the back of my mind, and after all my travels, my own version of it as well: When you set your motion forward, the old ways try to keep you stuck in place. You have to navigate some things, let go of other things, and once un-stuck, the future unfolds easily.
It has always been true. Even leaving on this winter trip, back in December, when on my day of leaving my house, I got into my truck, turned the key, and ... click. Nothing. Luckily it was just a battery, and my version of a squeaky wheel got the attention of the right people at the service desk at the dealership I do repair business with. Love those guys!
But, I wonder how many other areas of my life have this pull/push false start too?…the neuro-pathways grabbing hold as I reach for a tree branch. I don’t want the quicksand beneath my feet sucking me in.
I come to Austin to honkytonk two-step. It has been my great passion of movement along a dance hall floor, the live band setting the pace of my heart. The pathways have already been set for me from over the years of visits to this city. The tall downtown buildings of this Texas capital loom in the backdrop to the other roads leading to each and every dance hall holding the keys to unlock my heart again and again.
Yes, it is the heart, now, isn’t it? The neuro-pathways of joy and passion and wild abandon. Or is it the sound of a different beat I hear? Or feel in my gut?
It has always been true. Even leaving on this winter trip, back in December, when on my day of leaving my house, I got into my truck, turned the key, and ... click. Nothing. Luckily it was just a battery, and my version of a squeaky wheel got the attention of the right people at the service desk at the dealership I do repair business with. Love those guys!
But, I wonder how many other areas of my life have this pull/push false start too?…the neuro-pathways grabbing hold as I reach for a tree branch. I don’t want the quicksand beneath my feet sucking me in.
I come to Austin to honkytonk two-step. It has been my great passion of movement along a dance hall floor, the live band setting the pace of my heart. The pathways have already been set for me from over the years of visits to this city. The tall downtown buildings of this Texas capital loom in the backdrop to the other roads leading to each and every dance hall holding the keys to unlock my heart again and again.
Yes, it is the heart, now, isn’t it? The neuro-pathways of joy and passion and wild abandon. Or is it the sound of a different beat I hear? Or feel in my gut?
Three Chord Rodeo at Mercer some other year... | And the Pearl Snaps highlighting our spark and flirt! |
My journey this new year started with the desire to think less and feel more. I also have the desire to stay as drama-free as possible now in life. Make my serenity a high priority. Keep the balance. It is not only a desire, but an ongoing spiritual practice. I’ve gotten good at it. Too much drama? Well, then, time to move on!
As I stand with my back to a pole at the edge of the Mercer Dance Hall floor in Dripping Springs, why is it that my feet won’t retreat? I've not even landed in Austin quite yet, and drama infects my personal space. Also invading my space is something else…something felt, not thought…something deep and destined. This is the point to run like hell, but my feet have a different version of reality. Darn it, I just came to dance….
And so I do...amidst the drama vortex of forbidden action, venomous backstories, and karmic destiny. I dance with a Texas two-stepping man who starts to two-step his way into my scar-tissued heart.
Why me? Well, of course, the old has it’s hold on me…complacent and comfortable within my serenity. Or is it that cosmic timing is playing a joke on my balance? Or some soul/heart contract has shown up on the calendar?
Whatever it is, over the course of several dance events at several dance halls, he is there, and the spark ignites by bellows unknown to me over the last nine years. Yes, I have flirted with the idea of romance….the Santa Cruz guy, the California poet, the Louisiana charmer-boy, and the Covid-convenient online dating match of compromise. Always too much drama. And me moving on!
I push back in each new dance hall: the Broken Spoke, then Sagebrush, but the stars have their way with me, fanning the flames until the spark is so great, there is no choice for either he or I.
We are caught in the vortex of old experiences, our hearts fact-checking each other for truth. And in so doing, once again at Mercer Street where it all began a week ago, the spark turns to flirting. Nothing holds back now, and our dancing gets closer, more intimate until there is no question in the way. There is no choice to be made.
As I stand with my back to a pole at the edge of the Mercer Dance Hall floor in Dripping Springs, why is it that my feet won’t retreat? I've not even landed in Austin quite yet, and drama infects my personal space. Also invading my space is something else…something felt, not thought…something deep and destined. This is the point to run like hell, but my feet have a different version of reality. Darn it, I just came to dance….
And so I do...amidst the drama vortex of forbidden action, venomous backstories, and karmic destiny. I dance with a Texas two-stepping man who starts to two-step his way into my scar-tissued heart.
Why me? Well, of course, the old has it’s hold on me…complacent and comfortable within my serenity. Or is it that cosmic timing is playing a joke on my balance? Or some soul/heart contract has shown up on the calendar?
Whatever it is, over the course of several dance events at several dance halls, he is there, and the spark ignites by bellows unknown to me over the last nine years. Yes, I have flirted with the idea of romance….the Santa Cruz guy, the California poet, the Louisiana charmer-boy, and the Covid-convenient online dating match of compromise. Always too much drama. And me moving on!
I push back in each new dance hall: the Broken Spoke, then Sagebrush, but the stars have their way with me, fanning the flames until the spark is so great, there is no choice for either he or I.
We are caught in the vortex of old experiences, our hearts fact-checking each other for truth. And in so doing, once again at Mercer Street where it all began a week ago, the spark turns to flirting. Nothing holds back now, and our dancing gets closer, more intimate until there is no question in the way. There is no choice to be made.
The Austin dance community is in cahoots, trying like the dickens to keep us apart: the antagonists of this star-struck love story. In order to feel our way to the truth, and the urgency of my upcoming geographical motion, we leave the whirling dervish of gossip for the Texas hill country a couple of hours away from the city lights.
We head for the Frio River winding its way through the sleeping winter trees. We settle into the fact-checking, the heart opening, the deep conversations thrust in our direction unbeknownst to the antagonist's intentions. We bond.
I am a traveler, however, and momentum is in motion: Louisiana, Yuma again, New Mexico, Utah….he is in Austin. Nothing feels relaxed about this spark.
We return to Austin and dare to be in public in a different way. The old and the new collide. We dance with our hearts to Weldon Henson at the Broken Spoke again, skirt around the voices gossiping behind our backs. We are with the stars now, and there is light beyond this vortex. We are breaking free. By the time we return yet again to Mercer Dance Hall for Bob Apel, we feel solid in our trajectory. Gossip be damned, we say.
What do those pesky stars have in mind here? Are they laughing at us, he and I, caught in the breaking apart of heart scars? Are they weeping at the healing that can happen for both he and I if we can continue to find our way together? Are they relieved, now, that he and I have finally crossed paths?
Hell, yes! Most likely all of the above.
We are seeing in each other a new place where our hearts can be all of what they were meant to be…and feel. And in order to play out our destiny…our souls will need to navigate time and geography towards a new life momentum, slowly freeing us up from the old dramas.
Court and spark!
And Cupid gets a shout-out for stepping up!
Took him long enough, I say.....
Hell, yes! Most likely all of the above.
We are seeing in each other a new place where our hearts can be all of what they were meant to be…and feel. And in order to play out our destiny…our souls will need to navigate time and geography towards a new life momentum, slowly freeing us up from the old dramas.
Court and spark!
And Cupid gets a shout-out for stepping up!
Took him long enough, I say.....