Dancing with angels
posted in Uncategorized |Spring has truly sprung here in Small Mountain University Town.
Music on the square has started up again. Once a week, between mid-May and late-August, a community group provides live music on the square. The first year the dotter was home, we took her every week, and had a grand time…she would bounce and run out to dance and just generally be an adorably cute toddler.
The next year was the OmegaFamily’s sturm und drang year, and the family took a pass on the music. It would probably have helped, looking back…
Then last year, we just kept forgetting.
So this year, when I saw the notice on the local newspaper’s website, I made sure to insert every single one of those dates into my calendar at work. No forgetting this time!
This week’s music was courtesy of the Cadillac Angels, a nostalgic rock band, playing great oldies from the ’60s with verve and expertise. The lead Angel, sporting a ’60s look and ’60s shades, was truly amazing on the guitar.
Coincidentally, the day before, dancing on the square had begun. 
Another once-a-week do, it’s open to anyone who wants to learn to dance. The crowd from DOTS showed up for the live music, and the dancing began. It was good to have the group there, because it’s like seeding the pot. If no-one’s dancing, getting anyone to step out and dance in the spotlight (as it were) is very difficult, but if there’s a group of dancers out there already, it’s much easier to get more people to join in.
I sat there tapping my toes and bouncing, while the dotter sat there looking glum and OmegaDad headed off to the burrito place to get (AWESOME!) burritos. Before I knew it, the old mountain man in blue had tapped me on the shoulder and swept me down to the open area in front of the band. I insisted I had two left feet, but he just smiled, and started twirling me around. I didn’t even last one whole dance–it was aerobic exercise, and I started huffing and panting. Oy! But it was grand fun (and fodder for another post, somewhere down the line).
When OmegaDad returned, the dotter being much less glum and more into the music, it was time for me and the dotter to get up and dance.
While the music was playing, kids of various ages were darting to and fro, dancing in circles in the dance area, running between various watchers, and generally being quite cute. In addition to all the scuttling about, the kids were climbing on the artsy semi-railings scattered about. OmegaDad and I watched while the dotter clambered up onto one like it was a jungle gym, OmegaDad muttering to me that it scared the heck out of him, and me trying very, very hard to sit on my hands. My philosophy is “let ‘em do it”, and if they get hurt, they get hurt. But, oh, how hard it is when you see your dotter dangling head down over brick steps… OmegaDad, unable to keep away, went over to “help” her, and I got this lovely father-daughter picture.
At one point, I glanced over to one set of the faux railings, and saw this lovely array of little boys (and one big boy, the blue-clad mountain man), perched like clones.
The crowd ebbed and flowed–at times, it seemed like hardly anyone was there (as in the boys’ pic), at others it seemed like the area was jam-packed.
The music was grand, the dancing was fun, the weather was perfect, the array of characters was splendid. What a great way to enter into spring!
