Redneck? My cowboy boots tell a different story. They say: "Big Class."
I don't wear my cowboy boots every day. I wear them when I'm dressing up and going out to impress people. Usually I don't care to try to impress anyone. Sarah Palin doesn't know this or that? Obama knows all things cool and smart? I know a few things about class that Obama must have missed in Marxism 101. I know a few things about class that Debra Jackson knows.
Do-Sa-Do: Square Dancing and Mindfulness
When I was 12, one of my best friends was a square dancer. Twice a week, her family would pile into the Country Squire station wagon and head to the Grange Hall, where they'd gather with their square dancing club for an evening of music, friendship and do-sa-do.
As a regular guest, I was fascinated by the form but, in the height of my coolness-conscious years, also acutely aware of the overwhelming dork factor. These people lived to square dance.
They skipped around for two or three hours at a time, twirling and smiling and dabbing at their foreheads between dances. They hunted for holiday-themed fabric months before special dances in order to whip up the perfect ruffled dress and matching shirt for each occasion. They packed their petticoats and headed to Penticton, British Columbia every summer for a regional square dancers' convergence.
The square dance girls were just as boy-crazy as my regular friends, but they had a built-in way to hold hands with the guys they liked. As for me, I had a major crush on my friend's older brother who, at 15, was an articulate, ambitious student body president with piercing blue eyes and blond hair to his shoulders (it was 1972, after all).
In one of our (for me, anyway) excruciating conversations involving much blushing, he told me that square dancing was like meditation. "It's a way to forget about everything except what's going on right now. You have to pay attention to what the caller says, and let your mind and body make sense of it naturally, without trying too hard."
http://ambafrance-do.org/
When we take a class action and return ourselves to our home, maybe then I'll go home too. For now, home doesn't impress me. I'm not dressed up for it. Folks'd sneer at me, I do think so. When I go back home and walk through the door and see the Debras dressed to dance, and when I smell the hay and cattle and the clouds, then do sa do. 
That's a class action I'll be part of.
6 comments:
Obama might make a good caller, but what the heck is that on his right lapel and left coat pocket?
I can't make out the details. Maybe it's gang colors for those in the know.
I don't blame him for what he's doing. It's the people who failed themselves by failing the nation. We live with this until such time that we can remedy it by electing a serious person to do the nation's needed business at the top federal level. Maybe by then we'll know better what we truly care about.
I know it's "square" to be a patriot, but that's the way it is out here in the recesses of my evil mind. Yeah, I see colors, man, and patterns, like an acid trip. But it's a square dance. I'm very uncool.
it's "square" to be a patriot? I'm not so sure. Did you know that this turn of phrase, along with expressions like "on the level", and "past master" likely has its origin in Freemasonry: a "square" was, presumably, someone pious about his lodge's fraternal rituals. Fully public patriotism, on the other hand, is still cool to many of us, as is square dancing.
I'd always assumed it was a shortening of Aimee Semple McPherson's Foursquare Church. Who knows where she got the idea. Maybe some Masonic influence.
"In one of our (for me, anyway) excruciating conversations involving much blushing, he told me that square dancing was like meditation. 'It's a way to forget about everything except what's going on right now. You have to pay attention to what the caller says, and let your mind and body make sense of it naturally, without trying too hard.'"
Therein lies the secret, Dag-Man --
Truly. Square-dancers -- yogis -- Buddhists -- all those who focus on the right-here, right-now, have it pegged.
As did Cyndi Lauper, with her "Girls Just Want To Have Fun."
That's pretty much all it is. Having fun is, well, pretty much all life is all about. The rest of life's detritus is best taken care of by those who sit around and soberly care about it. And, in fairness, we need that.
*bracing self from accusations of not taking life seriously enough, not parsing life's nuances properly, not having a clear understanding, etc. ad nauseam*
I don't dance like folks dance on MTV. It makes me cringe. It doesn't make me happy to do something obscene in public. I like square-dancing because I like the people I can dance with. These are people who value getting it right and doing it for the good and the beautiful in all. I like that it's totally working-class and a "dumbing down" of 18th century aristocracy. Yeah, it makes us working-class, red-neck, back-woods trailer-trash types pretty noble. These are people who are free and royal in themselves.
I'm really badly home-sick. I'll certainly get back. Maybe after apple picking....
Post a Comment