When do you feel the most vibrantly alive? Where do you feel it in your body? What activity or situation stitches your body, soul and heart all together into a joyous whole? I accidentally tripped into the zone of fierce vitality last night like Alice falling into the rabbit hole.
It started out sedately. I drove our hybrid down the verdant Willamette Valley late yesterday afternoon to Ashland, Oregon, for business meetings happening today with the good folks who are developing Ashland Carshare. Ashland is home of the world-class Oregon Shakespeare Festival. But of course in the dead of winter the theater season hasn’t started yet, plus it was a Monday night. So after I got settled in at my bed and breakfast, it was a very quiet and subdued Main Street I walked in search of supper.
Once at the plaza, I found myself following a hand-painted arrow beckoning me upstairs to Alex’s Restaurant & Bar to what I thought would be a quiet and subdued meal. And as so often happens in life, things turned out differently.
What turned out to be the case was that a kick-ass group called the Royal Blues Band was playing from 9 to 11:30. On a Monday night! Not only that, but the place turned out to be rife with dancing fools like myself. I started out eating my Cajun fish tacos alone at a table in the corner, eased over to sit at the bar close to the band once they started playing, and soon was invited to sit with a table full of gregarious women and men eager to include me in their fun. Patty, Glen, Beth, Marshall, Jolie and Marcia and I danced our hearts out, in a variety of combinations, partners fine but not required. And there were others besides us, including a creamy-skinned young woman who wowed and dazzled us with her fancy footwork.
The Royal Blues Band was seven strong and had big, rawboned, freewheeling energy and so of course it engendered that kind of dancing. The lead singer/guitar player in particular was way out there, planting his feet wide apart and singing from deep in his chest while he tossed off amazing riffs. And we all went out there, in different ways according to our ages and body types and dancing backgrounds, our faces animated, often making eye contact and smiling.
As humans, we always feel modern in our own eyes. Every generation tends to privately believe that it, itself, invented fun. But the truth is that with tiny variations in technology, we were doing last night what people have been doing since humans came down from the trees in Africa: making music together and dancing to it in a form of community, celebrating our aliveness.
And our fierce vitality does not hinge on fossil fuels. If fossil fuels dried up on us tomorrow, which to large degree they did in Cuba when the Soviet Union collapsed, our music and dancing would persist. They might not be electrified and amplified, as the music was last night. But the real electricity, the fierce vitality, comes from our bodies, hearts and souls, not from anything we consume.
I look forward to the next time I fall down the rabbit hole.
Hi Alison,
I enjoyed reading at least part of your blog. Are congratulations in order for your household’s new Prius? Glad to see you’re still dancing! I’m teaching tai chi in our town’s new martial arts studio, and loving life as a rural farmer. Hooray for local eggs! Christi