Flora and the Flamingo/Molly Idle: Reflections

Flora and the Flamingo, a 2013 Caldecott Honor Book by Molly Idle (Chronicle Books), arrived at my home yesterday—and how happy was I to see it. Like all truly outstanding picture books, this story about a flouncy girl and an elegant bird needs no words. On bright expanses of white, these two mostly pinkish creatures posture and pose, pursue and retreat, provoke and mimic—which is to say, they forge a friendship.

The flamingo stands on a single webbed foot. Flora does too. The flamingo rearranges its skinny leg. Flora flexes her own rather less skinny one. The flamingo stretches its wings, and look, Flora has wings as well. But soon things get complicated—the flamingo so happy to be looked at, so unto itself, that Flora (trying too hard to emulate the bird's strutting configurations) takes a tumble. Feelings get hurt. The flamingo turns, Flora turns. The you-do-as-I-do changes to a let-us-do-together. The two dance now, face to face.

What is remarkable about this book is how emotional it all becomes. How everything is said without the expenditure of a single letter. But also: how much like dance this really does become—graceful, exuberant, joyous, each character bigger by far within the wingspan of the other.

A better Beth would take this book to the nearest child as a gift. But I'm just going to have to buy a copy for the next little one in my life (and I know precisely who that is). I'm keeping this copy for me, for when I want to be reminded of the power of friendship and the necessary glory of dance.

For those who wonder, that is Scott Lazarov and Magdalena Piekarz, as I photographed them back in 2009 at DanceSport Academy in Ardmore.

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ballroom dancing in a spectral palace

Less than a week from now, I will be dancing a tango/rumba, all attitudes of Cher, to "Welcome to Burlesque."   I will be partnered by my husband of so many years.  I will dance in my own alma mater high school, my Hall of Fame plaque shaking on the auditorium's exterior wall, as it wonders what has become of my dignity.  I will be transformed!  Electrifying!  Snatch-worthy!  I will not trip! (maybe!)  I will not forget!  (perhaps!) I will.......move!

(With all these exclamation marks I am beginning to remind myself of Tom Wolfe!)

In the meantime, I watch videos like this, discovered by DanceSport's own Tirsa Rivas (who actually is a star).

I think:  If only I had two more weeks of practice.  

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GHOSTS Kindnesses

Those of you who read this blog know that I was given the enormous gift, in the publishing of Nothing but Ghosts, of the extended, active friendship of bloggers who joined together to lift this book and me from one realm into another. Kindness such as this is revelatory. It is touchstone kindness. The memory one returns to in darker times.

This morning I discovered two bloggers who, inspired by My Friend Amy, bought and read Nothing but Ghosts and had deeply touching things to say about it. I am constantly afraid, with this blog, of seeming to be self-promotional. But I am equally afraid of not honoring the kindness of others.

And so: Today I honor Beth Fish and BookingMama for their extraordinary words—words that taught me something new about a book I'd written.

I also wish to extend a virtual hug to Em of Emsbookshelf today. We became blogging friends early in this journey, and she's now like a sister to me. She was among the first to read House of Dance in galley form, one of the first to read Nothing but Ghosts, and, this week, she became the second reader that I know of (outside my editor and copyeditor) to read The Heart is Not a Size, the Juarez novel due out next March. I hold my breath until I hear from Em. She says that I can exhale now.

Thank you all, and now, finally, a postscript. I wrote earlier today about the boy and the girl at the dance studio—how she anticipated an argument, acquiesced to a decision, and danced happy. I should have noted—it's essential—that their relationship seems to be of that wonderful reciprocated type. For later on, during the photo session, the young girl taught the young man some new steps. He watched and listened carefully. He respected what she had to say. He was grateful for it. And then he stepped from the sidelines, and together they danced. Thank you, Beth F., for urging a fuller telling of that story.

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The Kindness Question

Last Thursday, two of the young stars of Dancesport came early to practice, and since I had my camera, I had the privilege of photographing them. I've seen them many times of course; they have terrific talent. But more than that, they are deeply good souls who look out, as partners, for one another.

When I mentioned to them both that I'd like to take their picture, the young girl responded with a warning: "We'll have a little argument first," she said, "about which dance we'd like to start with. And I'll say one thing and he'll say the other, and in the end, of course, he'll win." She laughed, he threw his arm around her, and so it was quite clear that there was no antipathy here, just friendship—just the way that things get started off between them, when they come to tango, waltz, or jive. Their kindness toward each other made me happier than I could say. It was part of the beauty that I snapped into my camera.

I was thinking about these two today as I read the New York Times Book Review commentary on a new Adam Phillips/Barbara Taylor book called "On Kindness." In his review, Peter Stevenson writes, quoting, in part, the authors:

The punch line of the book is that we are, each of us, battling back against our innate kindness, with which we are fairly bursting, at every turn. Why? Because “real kindness is an exchange with essentially unpredictable consequences. It is a risk precisely because it mingles our needs and desires with the needs and desires of others, in a way that so-called self-interest never can. . . . By involving us with strangers . . . as well as with intimates, it is potentially far more promiscuous than sexuality.” By walling ourselves off from our inner kindness, we end up skulking around, hoarding scraps from the lost magical kindness of childhood, terrified that our hatred is stronger than our love.

I've not read the 114 pages of this book, only the review, but I'm intrigued. Kindness as innate? I hope. Kindness as danger? I can attest. Kindness as essential? Oh yes, absolutely. Kindness as something that children teach us? All the time, and every day.

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Viral Happiness (and a thank you)

You think I love dance so much because, well, I love to dance. And that is true. But perhaps I love dance more for the friendships it has yielded, for the conversations, for the simple but abiding truths that emerge—during lessons, during practice.

There is, for example, the bit about radiant joy. About how, once it is found (once it emerges, is discovered) happiness is a contagion. Perhaps it begins (often it begins) with the song itself. The power roar of rhythm. The lyric lush or tease. But after that, there is the one who asks the other, Dance with me?, and where happiness has asked the question, happiness answers back. There's just no not smiling when you are dancing with one who is. There's no holding back.

This week, all throughout the blog-o-sphere, readers, writers, bloggers, and all-round good souls have engendered, in me, an uncontainable happiness. They have reached out, thrown me a party, given me cause and room to dance. I am not a celebrity writer, not a powerhousing commercial writer, not a writer headed out on tour. But this week I was an embraced writer. I could never ask for more.

This morning I wish to thank the always-dear Miss Em, for her gorgeous review of Nothing but Ghosts. I wish to thank My Friend Amy for her amazing words about this book she chose to believe in, to rally behind, before she even turned its pages. I wish to thank all of you—Lenore, Becca, Florinda, Ed, Anna, Sherry, Holly, Vivian, Bookworming, Erin, The Book Resort, Serendipity Teacher, BooksLoveJessicaMarie, Ellen, Colleen, so many more—who have done what you have done.

Happiness. Happiness going viral.

Nothing But Ghosts is written in Beth's trademark lyrical style. It's a rich look at the heart and at life and loss. It unravels slowly, like a lazy summer day giving us glimpses into what makes a person disappear, what grief looks like, how life can go on after we lose someone we love. I liked that there was a bit of mystery, a hint of romance, a lot of reflection. But what I loved most about this book is the simple truth that we are all a bunch of people who have loved and carry around aching loss in our hearts, and yet there is hope to be found somewhere, often in each other.

— My Friend Amy

It does what all books should do, provide hope for the character's future while not telling us every single thing that will happen in that future. Katie is a living character in my mind, someone that I might meet on the street or in a library one day. And there are so many other details, so many wonderful layers to this book—the glass bottles, the bird at the window, the paintings—I couldn't possibly write all of them down in this review. Just trust me and get your hands on a copy as soon as you can.

— Em's Bookshelf

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This Photograph was also taken by Jill's Blackberry

I have drawn the brilliant conclusion that all important messages are sent to me while I am at the dance studio being tossed about, from partner hip to hip (do they really call that move the back breaker?), or when being encouraged to go high on the tango kicks (really? you want me to kick that high?).

For today while being asked to scorpion my legs while being spun but a quick half turn (okay, you try it), the red phone light was blinking with this news: The Heart is Not a Size is now available in galley form.

There is so much, for me, that is bittersweet about this book, and so much that, quietly (can I say this?) I am proud of. Not proud in a hang-the-ribbons-on-the-wall fashion, but proud because this book required me to push through issues with which I have struggled for nearly a lifetime, and because it takes place mostly in Juarez, a border town where I discovered community of a most essential sort.

In any case. And so it is. And someday, maybe, I'll execute that scorpion kick in a manner that does not cause Scott Lazarov to gently roll his eyes.

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Shoe-ing

Well, because it's funny, and because it's my blog, and because if Paul Krugman can blog six times a day, maybe it's okay if I blog twice, but:

Some of you have asked about those shoes I bought in Atlantic City. The ones I danced around in after getting some nice publishing news.

It's this very pair, photographed against a black tango dress. Also bought yesterday. Also silky, and sleek.

Because, while it is true that I was the kickball queen when I was a kid, that my high school years were filled with guys who buddied up with me (and saved their flirting for others), that I wear lousy, ripped jeans when I'm out with my Sony digital, and that the running joke during a recent Friday night dance party was that the only way I'd get a man to dance with me is if somebody paid the poor fool for the favor (thanks to all who contributed to the dance-with-Beth fund), I do, every once and while, like to be a girl. A real one, with real shoes.

Like these.

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