Grateful

Diary 10/8/19

This is a few minutes of a dance piece that a senior dance student from Oberlin and I performed for this past April ‘s Kendal community event, Spring Fling.

I look sorrowful and full of longing in most of it, but end with a grin as butterflies surround us. The end of the actual longer piece indeed had gorgeous butterflies flitting thickly through the air from a clip of a copyrighted film from another photographer which cannot be shown here. You just have to imagine them glowing in all their ephemeral beauty.

It is a sharp reminder to see myself as I was then to compare with how much harder it is for me to sit and move now. Then I was still in recovery from my laminoplasty three months earlier. The symbolism of me emerging from a cocoon was not lost on my audience. Perhaps there will be another emergence of wings after my next surgery. We shall see.

Here are the words of a song I wrote last month. The words were originally written for a poetry class last fall, but the melody driving the original lyrics was not what I wanted so I put the poem away. Watching the Ken Burns series on Country Music a few weeks ago, suddenly inspired a tune to carry them, which I am sure came from a compilation of any of the hundreds of songs mentioned or featured in his movie. The poem took on a waltz rhythm; rewriting the lyrics as they wedded to the melody. I am so grateful that creativity has a means to be shared at Kendal. I got to sing this song at our bi-monthy gathering called Song Swap, led by a professional folk songstress that resides here with her musical audio-visual technician husband.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

By Judi Bachrach

1)When I was younger, I fed the hunger

to become Somebody that the world could see.

Now I am older, I am much bolder

And daring and caring to simply be me.

Chorus:

Two sides of the same coin

laughing and crying and living and dying

the rainbow of aging is always engaging

with who we really are.

2) Loved ones are leaving, teaching me grieving