My Daddy's Dance

Dancing, one more time, on a windy midnight with my Daddy...

*

The deep summer night was a bit more than warm; a moist upper western (with a touch of surface southern) wind was blowing with strangled gusts as though trying to gain the strength to stir all of the misty clouds into a "full blown" straight- line wind. I would worry about that later.

In the meantime I was enjoying my porch swing in the delicious darkness, I was (at that time) a night person. I scratched Zebo's ears, and ran my fingers through his curly red  hair, the soft sounds that escaped this throat sounded like the purr of a cat; my sweet, gentle, loving cocker spaniel.

The blackness was complete; we lived in a country neighborhood. There was a house to the left of us and one across the street, others down the road on the other side of the barn. Distant security lights shed their glow in tight circles and invaded my yard not at all.  I found an oldies station on my radio; it sat in the frame of the raised window, and it seemed to intertwined melodies from my memories in the singing swing chains. The wind pushed from the other side, and a rhythmic metallic creaking added another layer of music to night around me.

My husband wouldn't be home from work until midnight and I was experiencing a strange euphoria, a lightness, a secure feeling of peace, yet excitement was in the wind around me. I slipped my precious pup over to the pillow nestling by us, and settled him. I left the porch and wandered through the yard I knew by heart. I circled the huge sugar maple; the one we once tapped, and spent at least $70.00 trying to cook it down to syrup, we got about a pint; it was good, but we never tried again!

We had inherited, for a while, an old green glider, it sat in the grass. I sat on it and glode (?), glided for a while, its music wasn't pleasant; it grated, and awakened Zebo. We walked together on the lawn. The music changed; it was from an even older era. It beckoned; I complied; tossed off my sandals, the grass was not cool but comforting. My toes wiggled through the thick mat; I gazed at the lawn as though it was a living, moving being. White heads of clover were undulating in the moonlight adding to the, almost surreal, moment.

I breathed in great gulps of fresh country aroma; I call it the "green" smell; grass, trees, flowers, freshly turned earth, it all drifted around me on the "Westernly" Kentucky wind that lifted my skirts, tousled my hair, and breathed down my neck. It caused me to sway to its rhythm and to my Daddy's favorite songs drifting from the little plastic radio sitting on the window sill, the ones that grabbed my heart. I  turned into the wind; I positioned my arms, as though he was holding me (trying once again to teach his graceless little girl to dance, to feel the beat) guiding me, leading me as he whistled to the melodies drifting on the wisps of the frisky wind.

I twirled, whirled, dipped, and circled. I stumbled;I laughed, and I cried in my Daddy's arms one more time, on a hot Kentucky night, with storm clouds rolling in; my puppy nipping at my heels. A low chuckle lifted to the tree tops as I whispered, "Must you go?" The car headlights broke through the heavy night and turned into our driveway as I gave God thanks for memories that had—for a moment— become flesh, breath and dancing feet.

Because of this one night of memories I have learned a beautiful thing; It is not keeping time to the dance, but the time of dancing that lingers timelessly.
Love you Daddy!
~~

Thank you Father for the earthly Father you chose for me, for the years past and the future we shall spend together. And thank you for words of yours he lived daily,they caused me to have a clear understanding of the kinship we all share!

1 Corinthians 13:3-10
The Message (MSG)
 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
[U][FONT=Arial Black] Love never dies.[/FONT][/U] Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

The Message (MSG)* Reflecting this story; my hand painted memory bracelet, for my daughter.