Tag: dancing

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Music and Memory

As the online music rocked, Missy partied like it was 2020.

By itself, the scene could have come from a hundred different nights. Missy, our disabled relative who’s physically in her 40s but much younger in heart and soul, has never met a dancing moment she didn’t like. Crank up her bedroom stereo or a YouTube video and she’ll move and sway as only she can, her smile beaming like a lighthouse.

But this night? Call it “Recent Retro.”  For the first time in several months, her favorite group – the Face Vocal Band – was livestreaming a basement concert. No crowds, no driving, just the joy of good a cappella rock on the doorstep.

“Yeah!!”

If you’re feeling a flashback, I get it. Two years ago, this was the music of lockdown. With masks everywhere and a vaccine nowhere in sight, live concerts became one of the biggest potential super-spreaders out there. So instead, musician after musician recorded quarantine videos and livestreamed concerts from their homes, keeping the music alive in the only way they could.

And in an off-balance world, they became a source of light. That not-so-simple act said “We care. We’re in this, too. And we want to make it better however we can.”

Since then, of course, many restrictions have eased or been put to rest entirely. People mix and mingle and even attend live concerts again. On the surface, things look – well, similar, if not the same.

 But when we look closer, we know it’s not really over. Not yet.

Not while so many are still so vulnerable.

I’ve written here before about my wife Heather, a wonderful woman with WAY too many autoimmune conditions for one human being. Even with the COVID curve so much lower than it was, it’s still totaling about 400 to 500 deaths a day in the U.S. That’s way too much virus for her to safely go out unless she has to.

She’s not alone. There are many others – more than most realize – for whom the pandemic is still a reality and a threat. For whom “normal,” or even this current fun-house mirror of it, is still a long way away.

And so I want to thank Face and others like them. Because once again, a not-so-simple concert said something special.

And this time, the message is “We remember.”

Easy to say. Powerful to feel.

And even without an uploaded video and a really kickin’ backbeat, it’s a message all of us can and should echo.

We remember that not everybody can come out and play yet. That post-pandemic is still mid-pandemic for a lot of us.

We remember that caution and courtesy are not just artifacts of 2020, but remain vital for everyone. That it’s not just about ourselves, but about those around us.

And yes, we remember that even in the midst of stressful times, we can still bring light to someone else’s world by seeing them and reaching out to where they are.

When we remember, we lift all of us up. And together, we become stronger. Maybe even strong enough to carry all of us to a better place.

That’s a pandemic attitude worth keeping.

And when it finally helps us break through to the other side – that will truly be a moment to dance.

I’ll bring Missy.

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Invitation to the Dance

Written Dec. 14, 2019

Missy seemed to be made out of rubber. Up and down, up and down she bounced in her seat, too excited to stay still as the ballerinas danced her favorite – “The Nutcracker.”

“Da’y, look!” she told me as the music swelled. Her head swiveled, now watching the action, now smiling at me, now looking around at the audience to make sure they were appreciating it before returning to the dancers again.

For those who know Missy, this isn’t unusual. On her own, she can watch the world go by silently for hours on end. But in an audience, in front of a show she likes, the Quietest Extrovert In the Universe finds her power. She becomes restless, eager, involved, full of energy. It’s not the usual “seat etiquette,” though we’ve mostly had understanding neighbors over the years.

But today, there was no worry. Today, every neighbor was in the same position.

Some called out in appreciation – or just called out. One or two stood up briefly to dance themselves, carried away by the music. It wasn’t rock-concert wild, but it wasn’t concert-hall silent either. And it was wonderful.

It tends to be, at the “Gentle Nutcracker.”

If you’re not familiar with the annual show, the Gentle Nutcracker is designed to be “sensory friendly”  for those whose disabilities might otherwise get overwhelmed by the lights, sounds, and intensity of a full production. The house lights remain on at a low level.  The show is shortened. A number of seats remain unsold so that there’s room to move around if needed, and there’s a quiet room for moments when even the reduced stimulus becomes too much for someone.

Most of all, more than anything perhaps, there’s understanding.  From the performers. From the staff. From the other audience members. For anyone who’s ever had to worry about being “that family” at a show, that’s huge.

In fact, it’s one of the best examples of holiday peace that I can think of.

“Peace” may sound like a strange word to describe a concert where there may be involuntary words or movements at any moment. And it is a strange word if by peace, you mean everyone knowing their place and staying quietly in it, like figures in a Christmas pageant.

But there’s more to peace than that.

An author friend of mine, Stant Litore, likes to point out how the meaning of the word changes as it goes from language to language. In Latin, peace implies simply the absence of violence or disturbance. In Greek, it implies a weaving together of a community, individual strands forming a greater tapestry . In Hebrew, it implies a restoration, with everything made whole and brought back to where it was meant to be.

Moments like this create a peace in that larger sense. There may be a little bit of ruckus. It may not be silent rows in perfect order. But it’s a community reaching out to each other, seeing the needs that are there, and helping everyone to be a part. Helping a family to live as any family would, even if they don’t do as every family does. Sharing gifts so that all can be part of the whole.

That is peace.

There’s a song that captures it well. “Let There Be Peace on Earth” gets a lot of circulation this time of year. The opening lines conjure not meditative silence, but a reaching out: “Let me walk with my brother, in perfect harmony.”

That’s a gift. One of the greatest there is.

May peace be with you all this season. Whatever that may look like. For us, we’ll be limbering up a little.

The ballet may be over. But our dance has a lot of music left.  And Missy’s just bouncing to get the next round underway.

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Watching the Mirror

As the song goes, just one look was all it took.

Mind you, February has always been a magical time for Missy. Not, I might add, because of the weather. Our developmentally disabled ward has been known to declare “I’m cold” when the weather dips below a sunny 70 degrees. When Colorado becomes a realm of ice, snow, and penetrating wind – suffice to say it gets remarked on. Many times.

Which makes it ironic that many of Missy’s favorite experiences are wintertime ones. Like Christmas light tours. Or bowling with old friends. Or especially the February “prom” for the disabled. Dress up in fancy clothes and dance the night away? It would take the White Witch herself to keep Missy away from that.

The night was in full swing – as was Missy, dancing with me and any volunteer within a 20-foot radius – when I noticed something. As Missy was having a blast near the edge of the stage, the lead singer of the band had spotted her and begun mirroring her movements, keeping up with each step, sway, and raising of hands.

Missy then spotted him. Her smile and her eyes widened. For the next couple of minutes, she and the front man danced together without coming near each other, their eyes and their moves perfectly aligned. When the song ended, Missy’s excited face could have outshone any stage light – especially when the singer acknowledged her from the stage with a gesture.

Dance like no one’s watching, they say. But someone had been. And it made the night that much more special.

Someone was watching.

Someone usually is.

As I write that, I realize how ominous that may sound. After all, we live in an age where privacy may seem to be a nostalgic memory. Numerous stories of data hacks have made it clear how often we’re being profiled without our knowledge, never mind the volume of data we willingly share with friends, family, and barely-met acquaintances across the world.

But that’s not where I’m going with this. This is something older than the internet. Maybe even older than recorded information in any form.

Someone is watching.

Someone is learning from you.

Stephen Sondheim put it well in “Into The Woods”:

Careful the things you say, children will listen.

Careful the things you do, children will see and learn.

We all teach by example. And it’s not just to kids. Every day, whether we know it or not, we make ourselves a model for someone else. What we say, what we do, what we embrace or avoid gets noticed and learned from.

That can sound a little intimidating – “Oh, my gosh, I’d better be on my best behavior!” But if you think about it, it’s kind of endearing. Somewhere, someone has decided – consciously or not – that they want to be like you. That you’re cool. That something you do is worth their attention.

It may be subtle. We may not notice right away. But each of us quietly shapes the world.

Admittedly, that does put a little responsibility on us. It means we don’t exist in isolation, that we can’t disclaim any effect on others. Even if we don’t have to turn into Clark Kent, The Super Boy Scout, we still have to think, at least a little, about what we put into the world, because it will come back to us. We know this, even if we don’t think about it all the time – “Do unto others,” after all, is one of the oldest rules there is in almost any culture.

What we would see, we must be.

But it’s an exciting thought. It means we can put beauty in the world as easily as anger. It means that our joy, our wonder, our kindness, can create ripples that may someday lead to a wave. It means we have hope – that we can build hope.

We’re not alone. And that’s a wonderful thing. Even on the coldest night, a friend you’ve never met may just be waiting for your cue to start the dance.

Just ask Missy.

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The Wonderful Whirl of Missy

The lights went down. The applause rang out. Opening night of another triumphant show was in the books. Time to get changed, get out and celebrate with the cast.

But first I had to leap in the car and race home. The real celebrity was on her way.

“So did she dance every dance?” I asked the driver as we both helped a smiling, exhausted Missy to the door around 11 o’clock at night.

“Oh, yes,” the driver answered as Missy’s smile grew wider. “She had a GOOD time.”

This is not unusual. Our developmentally disabled ward Missy – who is my age physically, but much younger in mind and spirit – has a social calendar that sometimes leaves me tired just thinking about it. There’s the bowling, of course. The Friday night trips and activities, including dancing whenever she can. At different times, there have been art classes and Bible studies, softball games and out-of-town festivals … just about everything short of red-carpet premieres and dinner at Spago.

Mind you, not every hour of every day is filled. There are plenty of nights spent simply listening to music (at FULL VOLUME) or doing a puzzle or waiting impatiently in the bay window for me to get home from work. But Missy is an extrovert at heart, and it’s not unusual for her to grab a coat and head for the front door as soon as she knows I’m back with the car.

“I wan’ go bowling!”

“I wan’ eat the food!”

“I wan’ goooooo!”

And so, more often than not, we hit the bookstore, or the game store, or the reading group, or even a downtown restaurant that knows us so well, they’ve practically reserved her a table. I’ve lost count of how many people recognized her slight frame, warm smile and massive red purse as we go out and about.

It’s impressive. Hard to keep up with sometimes, but impressive.

And it’s a good reminder to look past assumptions.

We’re not good at that. In fact, we’re pretty awful. A recent MIT study found that false news stories circulate more easily on Twitter than true ones, attracting more interest and prompting more retweets. Facebook users are no stranger to the phenomenon, either, frequently posting items that can be proved false in 30 seconds – if anyone bothers to look.

But why bother? After all, we know what we know. And if something reinforces that belief, well then it must be true, right?

Taken to its extreme, it leads to a life of surface impressions and confirmation bias, whether it’s called the bubble, the echo chamber, or the privileged perspective. It’s an easy way to live, if you can call it living. And it’s a lot like driving with a blindfold – however much fun you may be having, you can hurt a lot of people without ever realizing what you’ve done.

It takes more effort to see what’s really there.

Missy doesn’t hide very much. Heck, she wears her feelings on her sleeve in letters the size of the Hollywood sign. But if someone doesn’t want to look past the disability and the speech difficulties, they’d never see the fuller life beneath.

Facts aren’t a hard thing to find on the internet. But if someone doesn’t dig beneath their favorite headlines, they never see the proverbial “rest of the story” or if there’s even a story at all.

Prejudices and biases are fragile things at their foundation – but only if you bother to push.

Get out. Look closer. Question what you see. There’s always a story worth learning, if you take the time to hear it and not just the version in your own head.

And if you’re after Missy’s story, I sure hope you’ve cleared your calendar. And that you really, really like dancing.

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All About That Face

Missy twisted and turned, her hands in the air, her face brilliant with delight. Her knees bent to the rhythm, then straightened, then bent again.

“Yeah!!” she called out, laughing and bouncing as the energized voices of the Face Vocal Band – Colorado’s own a cappella rock band – powered their way to a close. Stopping was unthinkable, sitting down impossible.

“All right, Miss!”

Regular readers of this column know that our disabled ward Missy – eight months younger than me physically, but younger still in mind and spirit – will dance at any excuse or none. She’s the original crank-it-to-11 fan, capable of blowing the speakers off a car stereo with just one cut from a John Denver CD. She’s rocked it to the Bee Gees, to Michael Jackson, to a department store recording of the Hallelujah Chorus.

But since we first moved in with her four years ago, a cappella seems to have zoomed to the top of her list. Face holds down the top spot, whether it’s live in concert at the fairgrounds or over and over again on a DVD never made for ritual abuse. But there’s room for more, discovered on old recordings and through the magic of YouTube. The Nylons. Pentatonix. Straight No Chaser. If it’s got all voices, no instruments and a beat that can’t be stopped, Missy is all in.

I can’t say I blame her. After all, this is fuel for my own personal Wayback Machine.

Back in high school – never mind when – I sang in the Longmont High School men’s chorus. The crew met at the what-time-is-this-class hour of 7 o’clock in the morning, an hour at which basses rumble and tenors gasp. (If you’ve never heard a teenage tenor trying to get his voice started at 7 a.m., I encourage you to watch … but don’t try to swallow any carbonated liquids while you do, please.)

We sang whatever the fertile mind of Mr. Harrison could come up with, from show tunes to cowboy songs. But the best ones, for my money anyway, were the a cappella bits. Mind you, I sang bass, so that usually meant my vocal line was something like “Doo doo, da doo doo, da doo doo, whoa, whoa, whoooa” or some similarly deathless lyric. But it didn’t matter.

This was magic. This was music. This was creating something fun and spectacular with nothing more than what you had inside.

There’s no rush to match it.

You don’t have to be a singer to get it. Any talent, loosed into the world without restraint, will hit a similar vein. One man’s sculpture is another woman’s martial arts is another person’s passion for old cars. No brakes but your own enthusiasm, no limits but your own perseverance.

It’s exciting. Addictive, even.

And maybe that’s some of what speaks to Missy.

Her world is often a silent one, even a little mysterious to someone who doesn’t know her well. But rev up her enthusiasms – for dancing, for bowling, for art or a good story – and she’s a woman transformed. How much more so when her transformation is ignited by someone else’s?

It’s more than imitation. To this day, Missy’s musical tastes don’t perfectly match with mine or Heather’s. It’s something that reaches the core, some alchemy of voices unchained meeting a spirit unrestrained.

How can you beat that? Why would you even try?

So tune the tenors. Strike up the bass. Get that vocal percussion going. Missy’s revved and ready to rock.

Trust me. You’ll never have a more Face-ful fan.

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Shall We Dance?

Missy’s finger unerringly found Feb. 27 on the calendar. Then her hand went to her collar, tugging it up and out at an angle – her signal for getting dressed up.

“I want to go,” she said firmly.

This one didn’t require an expert in Missy Charades to figure out. Once again, we would be off to the prom.

The prom, in this case, is the “Shine” dance for the disabled, currently held every other year at Flatirons Community Church in Lafayette. It’s a huge night in every sense, inviting hundreds of people to don their best clothes and then eat, play games and – of course – dance until the floor wears out.

For Missy, this is an experience just short of heaven. After all, it combines some of her favorite things in the world. It’s peoplewatching on a massive scale. It’s dressing up for your friends (and especially, in the case of Missy the Flirt, for the guys who can be greeted with a shy smile and a “Hi …”) It’s music cranked up past 11 and freedom to move with all the energy and enthusiasm you can muster.

And this year, it’s something else as well. By some odd coincidence of the calendar, Shine falls on my birthday this year.

That couldn’t be more appropriate. Because being with Missy these last four years and seeing the world through her eyes has been a gift beyond compare, for both me and my wife Heather.

Better still – to see how many people can truly see her.  That’s not always a given for the developmentally disabled.

I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: We have a gift of invisibility that would put J.R.R. Tolkien’s magic ring to shame. But it’s almost never used on ourselves. Instead, we grant the “gift” to anyone whose presence is too uncomfortable for us to bear.

That could be the disabled. It could be the homeless. It could be anyone we don’t know how to approach – or that we fear might approach us, as though misfortune were somehow contagious.

Maybe that’s part of it. Maybe it’s too strong a reminder that all our gifts are temporary, from the money in our banks to the thoughts in our heads. That at any moment, something could happen that resets our entire existence.

It’s a scary thought to look in the face. No one could deny that. But when it keeps us from looking others in the face as well, it’s gone too far.

Those others look back. They know. And they understand more than you would ever guess.

Certainly Missy does.

And thankfully, blessedly, she’s been lucky enough to be surrounded by people that understand her.  Friends and relatives and neighbors who know the balance needed, how to make accommodations without treating her like a pet or a doll. Because of that, she has a life – and a social calendar! – that still makes me blink.

Bowling. Softball. Swimming. Trips downtown. Always among friends, always with someone who gets a look of recognition and a brilliant smile in return.

I count myself lucky to get a lot of those looks.  And to truly see the spirited, mischievous person behind those dancing green eyes.

And when that means escorting her on her big night – well, strike up the band and never mind the crowds.

Our partner’s ready.

It’s time to dance.

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Hands off the Wheel

The nightmare went right for the gut.

There I was, sitting at the wheel of a car in a crowded parking lot. A car in motion, describing constant circles, not answering any of my attempts to steer.

Foot brakes? Forget it. Parking brake? Somewhere on here, but where? Each new lever or button seemed to make things more disastrous, popping the hood, opening the trunk, making it harder and harder to see the oncoming doom.

The crash was coming. And I couldn’t stop it.

Finally the dream had mercy. Moments before waking, my fingers found the “angel of mercy” brake and yanked up, bringing the car to a slow – of course it was slow – stop.

My eyes blinked open. Relief.

I was never touching that cold medicine again.

We all have our fundamental fears in life. I’ve seen people paralyzed by the presence of a friendly dog, or whose breath grew short in a closed-in space. I even interviewed a phlebotomist once, a professional blood tester, who used to have a deathly phobia of needles.

Me? Well, there are things that make me uncomfortable, like sharp objects or falling sensations. But the deepest, darkest, most basic fear I have – one I share with my wife – is losing control.

After all, I’ve seen some of the consequences.

I’m epileptic. It’s well-managed, to the point that I can live a normal life 99.99 percent of the time. I hold a job, raise a family, even drive a car.

But on those rare nights – only three of them so far, all while asleep, all when off medication for some reason – it’s like Dr. Frankenstein reached over and plugged in the lightning rod.

The mercy of a seizure, at least in my experience, is that you’re not aware of it while it’s going on. You don’t see the jerks and pulls, or hear the noises coming out of your mouth, or know about the bizarre behavior that goes on in the immediate aftermath. (Heather once called an ambulance because my seizure had gone on so long; as they started to put me on the stretcher, I picked myself up, walked to the bathroom, did my business, and came back, completely unconsciously.)

The aftermath: that you know about. If Peyton Manning ran four quarters of the Broncos offense over your body …  if you suntanned on a lane of I-25 at rush hour … if you’ve tried bungee jumping and forgotten that silly little detail about fastening the hook … then you’ve got an idea of what it feels like for three days after a seizure.

It is the loss of control personified. After all, how much more basic does it get than not being able to control your own body?

I hate it. And yes, fear it. Letting go is hard. Admitting I need help – with anything – is even harder.

But lately, I’ve had some reminders.

And most of them are named Missy.

If you read the column last week – or, let’s be honest, many of the ones before – you know our ward Missy, Heather’s developmentally disabled aunt. In many ways, she has control over very little of her life. She reaches for an arm to help her walk. She needs help in a hundred different ways every day, from tying her shoes to managing her home. And yes, there’s many times where it’s frustrating for her, where I can see her wanting to communicate something very simple and not quite knowing how.

But so many times, I see the joy instead.

When we gave Missy her big birthday bash last week, we remembered food and guests and all the usual items – but we also remembered a DJ. Because at her heart, Missy is a dancer, at home with loud music and open floors.

And for  three hours, with only short breaks, Missy danced. And danced. And danced some more.

They weren’t the moves of Baryshnikov or Astaire. They didn’t have to be. Just the bends and the sways and the slow spins of a person in gleeful ecstasy.

Missy had just enough control to reach joy. She didn’t need more. Maybe she even reached a deeper joy by letting go a little.

That’s something I need to remember.

Maybe I don’t always have to drive the car. Maybe, sometimes, it’s OK to just watch the road and enjoy the ride.

Once this cold medicine wears off, anyway.