Morris dancers at Binghamton, New York's Much Ado About the Garden festival, July 16, 2023, dancing. You can see their shadows underneath them.
Morris dancing is a form of English folk dancing. These dances were choreographed and, here, the dancers are wearing bells on their legs.
Shadows have been hard to find here lately but here's another shadow - me and trees on a local walking trail at the beginning of July.
Joining Magical Mystery Teacher for #Shadowshot Sunday.
Today there was an inter generational dance party on Zoom. I participated, along with over 10,000 other people. This is AARP's fourth dance party with an organization called Daybreaker. I've participated in two of them, having been told of these by a cousin.
The theme was "Motown" and, after some Chicago Steppin' lessons, I found myself with tangled feet. The feed froze for several minutes because so many people had joined, but the party was able to get restarted.
This was my second virtualdance party event, and there is one part of it that gets the tears flowing - when the DJ's show the video screens of people holding up pictures of family and friends that they miss, for whatever reason. The DJ also showed us people dancing in their homes.
The years pass, don't they. But did any of us ever suspect it would get this way? A dance party with over 10,000 from all over the world?
It isn't all rainbows and unicorns, as the saying goes.
Two people I have worked closely with for years lost their fathers in the past three weeks - one in his sleep, one from COVID. A third person who I occasionally had contact with at work (but I know others who worked with him closely) died after a 19 month battle with cancer. That's just a small slice of what is happening all over the world in these days. I don't need to make a list. We all know it.
It is a sad time for everyone.
But history teaches us this lesson: we must let go of the old world and embrace the new. We can see the new world taking shape in a haze, but one day its identity will become clear.
Our children and grandchildren will bear witness to what happened in 2020 and 2021 to their children as my generation dies out, and one day, it will all be just a memory to be studied in history class, as "the Pestilence" (what we now call the Black Death") and the 1918 flu pandemic are to us.
We may be pleasantly (or unpleasantly) surprised by aspects of this new world, but one thing is certain: we will always have music and dance, as long as humanity exists. Until then, my dear readers, I hope you are staying safe and doing what is necessary to survive, and - yes, thrive.
