Tag: Funny

Places I’ve enjoyed dancing

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Look, I never have figured out what passes for “popular” dancing, but I am grateful a few forms of folk versions have come to my rescue.

I could mention those times I’ve been moved while watching others dance, like at the Tinowit on the Yakama reservation or maybe at a ballet, but this list is places where I’ve done the steps, too.

  1. The Rockwells’ apple barn in Barnesville, Ohio. My introduction to contradancing, despite my initial resistance.
  2. Scout House, Concord, and VFW, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mecca. The latter was also known as the Rocket House, ‘cuz of its mock-up Nike missile out front.
  3. Town Hall, Nelson, New Hampshire. Mecca again. Plus the legendary sloped floor.
  4. Dublin Academy, New Hampshire, for Bob McQuillan’s CD release party. I wound up waltzing with an Amelia when I mentioned the tune we were dancing to shared her name, she said calmly, “It was written for me,” back as a toddler.
  5. Town Hall, Bowdoinham, Maine. Always fun and lots of kids out on a Saturday night out.
  6. Town Hall, Kingston, New Hampshire. Smokey of the band Old Wild Goose shucked fresh oysters at intermission one night, and I really pigged out as most folks turned up their noses, not knowing what they were missing. This was November, and the shells were fattened to perfection. There was another night somewhere when he was both the caller and musician, who knows where the rest of the band was, but everything certainly was fun.
  7. City Hall, Dover, and the Oyster River Band, bringing with it memories of times when they starred in Madbury and Lee and even the Kittery, Maine, Grange Hall.
  8. The Star Grange, Greenfield, Massachusetts. They dance wild out there in the Pioneer Valley. Plus I thought I was engaged to be married, and she was a great dancer. Whole other story.
  9. Our wedding, Dover, New Hampshire. The reception featured national treasures Dudley and Jackie Laufman at their best, getting even beginners moving elegantly on the old one-room schoolhouse floor.
  10. Greek festivals at the Hellenic Center in Dover and a big tent at St. Nicholas in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Feels great learning a new talent, even at this age.

~*~

Gee, how could I overlook the big Ralph Page Legacy Weekend at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, just a dozen or so minutes from us? Maybe because it’s always on the Martin Luther King weekend, when my schedule is pressed by other demands.  This gets serious.

A few random notes found while cleaning up

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
  1. Everything was going too fast to keep up and has only gotten worse.
  2. Have I always been trying to get by on the cheap? To my own impoverishment?
  3. “Higher truths” an interesting concept.
  4. Falling icicle at the mill crushed a parked car.
  5. Momento Mori: “Remember you must die” or “You are mortal.”
  6. Language has a terroir in it … a taste of the earth and its blood.
  7. By coincidence, reading “The Last Temptation” during Great Lent.
  8. How radical to see individuals as the foundation of society, rather than the state, which has been unstable, often with military imposition to the next.
  9. Facing too much of a good thing.
  10. Flatbed Ohio was my original title for the poetry collection Rust and the Wound.

Distances from Seattle to … it really is a world apart

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In my novel Nearly Canaan, Joshua and Jaya settle into a place unlike anything they would have imagined. It’s desert, for one thing, where nearly everything has to be irrigated, for another. Quite simply, it’s a lot like Yakima, in the middle of Washington state. The closest big city was Seattle, three or four hours away. And that, too, was far from much else.

Just consider these in miles, apart from flying time, even when you could fly direct.

  1. Anchorage: 1,448 miles. Alaska has a spiritual affinity in the Pacific Northwest, like it’s just up the road, more or less. Plus, it had good summer jobs on the crab boats, forget the riskiness.  
  2. Honolulu: 2,680. Naturally, driving isn’t an option. As a vacation destination, though, this was a highly popular option, especially considering the sunshine.
  3. San Francisco: 679. Like this was the next town south, and like a grown-up version of Seattle, a few decades back. It’s still a long way to drive.
  4. Las Vegas: 871. Seemed close, especially in winter. Say a weekend getaway. Again, factor in the sunshine, if you ever left your hotel/casino.
  5. Denver: 1,024. While many think of the Mile High City as Western, we thought of it as Out East. Our awareness largely skipped right over it. See next item.
  6. Chicago: 1,737. Alaska was closer, and more of a kindred nature.
  7. New York: 2,408. Largely didn’t matter in our eyes.
  8. Washington: 2,306. Ditto.
  9. Tokyo: 4,792. Psychologically, it felt as close as the East Coast of the U.S. and about as influential. We shared an ocean, after all.
  10. Atlanta: 2,182. And you still had to get to Florida, which didn’t matter since we had Hawaii when you added it all up. Blah! 

How about some remarkable couples?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes the sum is greater than the parts. Helps when each of the parts is already sterling.

Here are ten examples.

~*~

  1. My best friend’s parents: Hap and Pauline. Among other things, they nurtured my love of classical music.
  2. Our drip-line neighbors: Tim and Maggie. Warm, welcoming, generous, helpful, social justice activists, great parents. The list could go on.
  3. Political science mentors: Vincent and Elinor. They taught me how to read analytically and how to dissect public policy proposals. As professors, they never used textbooks but relied on real books, like the Federalist Papers or Democracy in America. Their goal was to train independent scholars and fellow practitioners.
  4. My ex in-laws: Sam and Jeanice. Losing them was the hardest part of the divorce.
  5. Can you identify them in the novel? Phyllis and Ivar.
  6. Memorable ministers: Myrtle and Howard at Winona Friends Meeting. She had the entire Bible memorized. And the dynamics were multiplied when they were joined by their best friends and neighbors, Rose and Harold.
  7. Faithful Mennonites: Bob and Ruby. I learned to sing harmony through Bob, who was also a beloved physics teacher and an avid Orioles fan. Ruby had taught in a one-room schoolhouse before moving on to the big city of Baltimore. She packed the most amazing dinners in her small tote bag, which she shared with all of us at the ballgames.
  8. Fellow Quakers: Jeremiah and Beth. Now that they’ve moved to Dover, we’re getting to know them even better. Lucky us.
  9. An ex-girlfriend’s parents: Gene and Doris. They welcomed me to a whole new world and were surprisingly liberal when it came to their daughter. Guess they really liked me.
  10. Cornerstones of the Meeting: Silas and Connie. Wish I could show you the video. And then, just up the road at Gonic, we had Shirley and Eddie.

~*~

Who would you nominate from your own circles?

Ten random notes in no particular order

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments
  1. Honestly. Our dark sides. Do we really express our weakest aspect in our art?
  2. Big goals versus daily tasks, when in balance, an organized life.
  3. Another overnight snowstorm, I wake up chanting: I’M RETIRED! I’M RETIRED! Meaning no need to spend an hour or more digging out before spending two hours commuting to the office (twice the usual duration). What a huge relief. So nice not to have to scrape frost off the car windows before driving to work. Both parts of that equation, actually. As long as I can delay having to go anywhere.
  4. Some amazing French Baroque fanfares: “Les caracters de la guerre” by Jean-Francoise Dandrieu.
  5. My internal shift from writing to being an author.
  6. The experience of being “clergy” at the ecumenical service.
  7. How was I ever able to do so much while working full-time?
  8. All those years I worked the Vampire Shift came at a price.
  9. Blogging reminds me of a poet back in Indiana who would photocopy batches of his poems – not quite chapbooks – and hand them out or sell them for pennies at readings. Here, take one!
  10. Nobody understands me.

~*~

How about you? Ever feel misunderstood?