Birthright

I went to see a homeopath earlier this week and learned that remedies are often person - not symptom - specific.  This notion that you treat the person, not the symptom, is counterintuitive for a child of Western medicine such as myself. After spending a bit of time reshuffling my brain, I'm starting get it.  I know that certain things, like licorice tea and music, always work for me regardless what I'm wrestling with.

Yesterday, I woke up blue. After the realization sunk in that I wasn't just going to shake it off by drinking coffee and puttering around the house, I applied my standard remedy, loud, and with Zoey dancing at my side. "As", "Nothing but Flowers," "Bitties in the BK lounge," "Birdhouse in your soul," and other go-to classics filled us up.

Mr. V. came home from carpool in the middle of our dance party. Aside from being my own private ski coach, (he was an instructor in Jackson years ago,) he's also an amazing D.J.; barring the times when he's in his super dark melodramatic music moods, he always knows exactly what I need to hear.

This photo was taken right after I received this instruction: "Don't let the mountain have its way with you! Bend your knees, lean forward, own it! Own the mountain!"

I used to feel sheepish when Chris found me in my dancing fits, but now I just embrace it. And beg for a playlist. He started off with Tracy Chapman, a singer neither of us were particularly drawn to until we saw her play at the Bridge School Benefit a few years (a decade?) ago. That night, her bright spirit poured out of her and just lit up the sky. A tiny speck of a thing on a stage a million miles away from us with her acoustic guitar in arms, she shined like crazy - so pure and present. We saw a lot of amazing musicians that night, but she was so stunning that Chris even remembers exactly what she was wearing.

Here's the song that's stuck with us both ever since.

Zoey and my dancing party progressed and, because Chris was at the helm, included rare and esoteric songs that I would never think of but love, like a bit off the soundtrack to Shortcut to Nirvana, a movie made by our long-lost neighbor, Maurizio Benazzo.

In the rarest of occasions, I even scored a dance with the man. Zoey watched with fascination from the big chair by the fireplace, and then suddenly I felt her clinging to my leg, begging to join us.

We held her between us and finished our dance, her head leaning back on one or the other of our chests, her face transcendent as she claimed her birthright, a love that was gummed up and buried under layers of patina when she arrived, but has been gingerly, tenderly revealed.