Yesterday I listened to a bit of the dancer Twyla Tharp, on book tour I guess, during one of those commuting moments. I was kind of shocked that she was still kicking–hers is a name I’ve been aware of ever since I knew art (terpsichorean art) was a thing. Even today I’d be hard pressed to come up with the names of five dancers, but she’d be first, and it’s been so for … five decades?

It was a little sad at first because the book seemed to be about some kind of exercise regimen, usually a sure sign that someone’s career is just That Close to being toast. But listen. One, her body really is her artistic instrument, so there’s credibility on that level. Two, it wasn’t about … do this do that do jazzercise or anything. She spoke in very general terms and the message was centered on the idea of just continuing to move, and move, until you can’t anymore, and to keep on celebrating the ability while it lasts.

And, she said, push up against things. Not against yourself, in that palm to palm isometric way, because you don’t want to resist yourself. But push against … a wall, a rock, a barrier, a door, anything else at all. Do it often and with joy. Because when you push against something with your whole body, you’re mirroring a truth about being alive. It’s not about building muscle tone primarily, or lowering your cholesterol. It’s about the art of resistance and overcoming. Manifesting that, in sort of the way that word has been used around here of late.

Then I came on home and left the heat off and bundled a bit and went to bed later than was perfectly smart. And woke and worked fanatically through the afternoon. Do you know what a process is, children?

A process is a program in a state of execution, teacher.

I can see I’ve taught you well. Dissssmissed.

I wander out from there in fuel-burning spirits, up to the double pine for a moment of coasting downhill. I notice: it’s markedly colder tonight at sunset than I remember it being for any other time of post-class near-darkness for a long time. I round the corner of the building and I notice, with awe:

There is the mountain skyline to the west, bathed in the last of the light. Above the noble ridge, there is the entire disc of the moon, with only the crescent edge lit up. Do you know this thing? You see the whole circle? But just that sliver of light with the rest dark … The first time I ever really saw that, in the Castañedan sense, I was out in the Eastern Oregon desert and well into a light but fine acid burn. Above the lysergic moon was brilliant Venus. Around this pair of lights the other major stars were just beginning to show.

I should not say ‘it was so very beautiful’, because you already know and it would be bad writing. So I will demur, reluctantly.

I saw no critters but the chill crystal sky was plenty enough anyway.