Dos Gardenias

I've been taking a much needed break from the computer and during my absence I managed to start and finish  a few projects around the house.  Mainly, the project that required the most physical strength and energy and gave me the greatest sense of accomplishment, was fixing up the kitchen.  Halfway through I realized that what I was doing in the kitchen was Feng Shui.  I got rid of a very large and practically useless floor cabinet along with a very heavy hutch that was atop our kitchen table, balanced and up against the wall.  I didn't mind throwing out the cabinet, but I couldn't bear to get rid of the hutch because it was one of the first things I ever bought with my own money.  The cabinet, because of its size, bulk and amount of space it took up, was a big hindrance to entering the kitchen and also to gaining access to the basement door.  The hutch, because of it being atop the kitchen table, prevented the table from being pulled out from  the wall so that the whole family (six of us) could sit around it comfortably. We were all "sqooshed" together with the hutch looming in the background.

That explains my lack of new blog posts until this morning when I found the time to throw this little snippet video together for The Blog That Never Was.  Haha.  Why I chose that name is beyond me.  The video is made up of stills of my mother and her sister dancing.  The music is Dos Gardenias by Ibrahim Ferrer and the Buena Vista Social Club. 

“Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.” ― Rumi

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.”

― Martha Graham

  “Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.”
― William Butler Yeats, The Land of Heart's Desire 

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche 

“We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

 “Dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire”
― Robert Frost 

“Consciousness expresses itself through creation. This world we live in is the dance of the creator. Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye but the dance lives on. On many an occasion when I am dancing, I have felt touched by something sacred.In those moments, I felt my spirit soar and become one with everything that exists.

I become the stars and the moon. I become the lover and the beloved. I become thevictor and the vanquished. I become the master and the slave. I become the singer and the song. I become the knower and the known. I keep on dancing then it is the eternal
dance or creation. The creator and creation merge into one wholeness of joy. I keep on dancing...and dancing...and dancing. Until there is only...the dance.”
― Michael Jackson

“To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful.. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking”
― Agnes De Mille 

 “Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.”
―Twyla Tharp

 “The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews
Not to be born is the best for man
The second best is a formal order
The dance's pattern, dance while you can.
Dance, dance, for the figure is easy
The tune is catching and will not stop
Dance till the stars come down from the rafters
Dance, dance, dance till you drop.”
― W.H. Auden

“If theater is ritual, then dance is too... It's as if the threads connecting us to the rest of the world were washed clean of preconceptions and fears. When you dance, you can enjoy the luxury of being you.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Witch Of Portobello 

 “Dance for yourself. If someone understands, good. If not, no matter. Go right on doing what interests you, and do it until it stops interesting you.”
― Louis Horst

“Life is short and there will always be dirty dishes, so let's dance.”
― James Howe, Totally Joe

 “Now I am going to reveal to you something which is very pure, a totally white thought. It is always in my heart; it blooms at each of my steps... The Dance is love, it is only love, it alone, and that is enough... I, then, it is amorously that I dance: to poems, to music but now I would like to no longer dance to anything but the rhythm of my soul.”
― Isadora Duncan