Monthly Archives: July 2007

My mother in law, Sonia, has been lonely since her husband died. Luckily, she’s made a few new, widowed friends (also in their 80’s), and they go out for lunch at least once a week.

Eve is from Scotland. A few years ago, she flew to London to have lunch with the queen. English people who happened to be born on the same day as the Queen’s 80 years ago, were invited to a rare and special lunch in the palace as part of a grand celebration.  Since Sonia is also English, this impressed her mightily, and they became instant friends. Eve is very independent, vivacious, and likes driving nice cars. She keeps buying new cars so she can give her old ones to her grandchildren when they get their license. Cushy deal for the grandkids, I’d say. 

Titine, is Belgium and even though she came to America 50 years ago, she has a thick lolling accent when she talks. She makes wine from scratch and happens to drive at least 40 miles over the speed limit everywhere she goes. When officers pull her over, she says, “What did I do wrong, darh’ling”. She invites them to her home for chocolate cake and coffee and tells them she has lived here 50 years…. all alone since her poor husband, God rest his soul, passed on. She says, “My son bought me this car a while ago, and I told him it goes faster than my old one. Isn’t that horrible. I’ll tell him to take it back!” Naturally, they let her go. She and her friends find this hilarious and tell rousing stories of how she gets pulled over all the time but she bats her eyelashes at the nice young cops and they wave her on. Yes, being old and seemingly innocent has its perks.

Titine happens to ALWAYS wears lilac. Sonia ALWAYS wears pink. It is funny to see these elderly women all decked out in pastels making their own kind of fashion statement though unyielding single color commitment.

I think it’s remarkable that in a quiet country place like this, three relocated Europeans found each other and sparked a friendship. They meet for tea and talk about British royalty and such. They also like to frequent thrift stores. They love a bargain, not because they need one (for they are all well enough situated) but finding a good deal is a challenge they find entertaining. Sonia doesn’t like thrift stores, however. She misses Target. Every opportunity she gets she complains that the problem with living here is the lack of civilized shopping.
 I say, “What do you need?”
“Nothing. But I like to shop everyday anyway.”
Shopping for me is a drag, certainly not entertainment, so I just can’t relate to her misery. I let Diane take over the necessary one hour drive trips to malls and Target to keep her happy. I find different ways to spend my time with my Mother-in-law if possible.

Considering this, I decided it would be nice to invite Sonia and her friends to our house one day for their weekly lunch and yesterday, they came. I wanted to organize a fancy, English Tea, so I set the dining room table with white linen, candles and flowers, and set the table with the English China my mother-in-law gave me when we moved to Georgia- a symbol of family heritage that I didn’t necessarily want, but I do appreciate for its family significance.  Sonia has always been an avid English china collector, and she has several complete sets of expensive china. She gave a set to Diane, one to me, and still has several sets at home. Funny, considering you can only eat on one set at a time, and she really never did much entertaining other than the traditional holiday dinners. Ah well, I suppose more than a few people think my interests are impractical too.  Anyway, while the china certainly doesn’t fit this rustic cabin house, it makes a very pretty table and I was glad to finally have a reason to use it. Just as I guessed, it impressed the white-haired trio for they felt they were being treated as special guests.

I cooked chicken in a creamy mushroom and broccoli sauce poured over a puffed pastry, like a fancy smancy chicken pot pie. I served this with honey sautéed carrots and rice pilaf, two types of homemade bread (buttermilk and whole wheat cottage cheese bread – sounds weird, but it is earthy and great) and for good measure, threw in some zucchini muffins (because I must cook zucchini every meal, don’t ya know, due the fact that it won’t stop growing and I’m on a quest to use every thing that comes out of that blessed garden.). I diced watermelon and cut fresh lettuce from our garden too for a homegrown fancy salad. First time I’ve used any of our own lettuce- exciting. This meal was served with some local Georgia peach wine, a very fresh luncheon wine (I’m all into buying local now – besides which, I am checking out the competition and setting benchmarks for flavor since I am making wine from produce grown in the same kind of soil as these small vineyards are.)   I topped off the meal with a chilled rainbow fruit pie, made from diced fruit in an orange glaze, poured into a homemade crust. And, of course, tea.

The ladies spent three hours at the table, swapping stories and enjoying their leisurely, fancy meal. I learned all about Titine’s style of making wine (she uses fruit varieties or muscadine grapes, which she crushes herself). She told stories of how her mother taught her the craft, and how once she was transporting gallons and gallons in the back of her car in this bible-belt dry county, and of course got stopped by a police officer because she was (naturally) speeding again. She thought she would be arrested but sweet talked her way out of it, feeling like a liquor runner. Ha.

Titine also makes cordials. I showed her my blackberry cordial tucked in a dark cupboard, working its magic. This gained me total approval. She convinced me to try peach cordial next time. Titine makes wine without yeast – don’t quite understand how, despite her lengthy explanation, and she doesn’t measure her ingredients. Considering the highly sensitive nature of wine in the fermenting stage, I was surprised. Can’t wait to try some to see how it differs from the batches I’m make. It was interesting to talk winemaking with someone who has done it for years and years, having learned it in the “old country”.

We talked history and books and cooking and how to best buy a car. And sitting there, watching these elderly faces filled with animation, listening to them share their vast experience and intriguing lives,  I was impressed. They are wonderful conversationalists, far better than many people my own age who seem to have lost the fine art of intimate communication, talking more often of the latest movies they’ve seen, or what cell phone gets the best reception – subjects that are far more generic and surface oriented. There is something to be said about growing old, for if we are indeed the sum of our life experience, growing old really is the equivalent of evolving into a more complex, interesting person. A few wrinkles and brittle bones is a small price to pay for a mind swimming in wisdom and personal stories.

 I’ve spent a lifetime with kids (which I still adore). Somehow, this makes spending time with the elderly now a poignant and novel experience for me. I really am fascinated by people in the advanced stages of life. In fact, I’m planning to organize a writing class for older people – memoir writing, so they can leave stories behind for their family. I’m talking to the local college about it now. I want to put my degree to good use in a way that gives something back to the art I love. Mostly, I think it will be wonderful for retirees seeking an interesting activity that isn’t physically challenging, and a learning experience for me too, but this is subject for another blog.

Anyway, after lunch, the ladies wanted a tour of the house, so we went from room to room, viewing the house Sonia has told them so much about. We held hands as they maneuvered the big log stairs, and I realized for the first time this is not a house for the feint of body. It occurred to me that we better enjoy it for the next ten or twenty years, because eventually, we will get old and find it cumbersome too.  The tour was perfect after-lunch entertainment. These ladies notice details and ask earnest questions. They were curious about how and why Mark did the things he did as he planned and built this home. I suppose people in their 80’s have seen a zillion homes in their day, and they’ve owned more than a few, which helps them appreciate the artistic and original facets of the house. They certainly thought it was beautiful and different.

We’ve had younger friends walk through the house and express appreciation. They whistle under their breath and say, “Nice digs. Cool. Where’s the beer?” But with these women, it was different. They would walk up to the mantle, adjust their glasses and stare up close at the wood work, asking what kind of tree it was made from. They’d make guesses determined by of the grain and color, then shake their head and say, “of course” when Mark revealed the true nature of the wood. They’d ask how long it took, and why he chose one particular design or tree over another. Looking at the geodes in the rock of our fireplace, they’d ask if we’d thought to get some original stone from the copper mines (we live near Copperhill where they had working mines up until the late 70’s and for years, big chunks of natural copper could be found in area stones). We were sorry to say we didn’t think of that, a shame considering the historical significance. But we promised we would try to find some for the fireplace in our new rustic coffee shop/art gallery that we are building, and Titine told us where to go and who to speak to when we were ready to find some. Gee, old people are a walking wealth of information. They pointed out the different crystals saying, “What is that, I’ve forgotten the name.” And Mark would say, “This is amethyst,” or quartz or what have you.

The ladies noticed the turned wood bowls on the mantle and the antler baskets and the furniture Mark has made, and asked about these too. Mark stood about, answering their questions, receiving their heartfelt praise – I don’t suppose he ever never felt so appreciated! They noticed my spinning wheel, and this spurred a conversation about llamas and spinning. They peered into my incubator to see my Peacock eggs and marveled at our “diversity”. They also kept commenting about the windows and how everywhere you looked you saw trees and birds – so serine.
 
They said, “You have your own estate here! How wonderful for your children!” I thought it particularly sweet that they saw our home not as a “good investment” or a sign of success, as people our age tend to do, but as a precious haven for family rearing. I guess after 80 plus years, you tend to remember what is enduring and important in the big scheme.

The funny thing was, I think this was the first time Mark’s mother really looked at the house closely or saw it as something special. Seeing it through her friend’s eyes made her suddenly see the house as an accomplishment, something remarkable created by her son. She said over and over, “You know, this really IS an amazing house. It’s not as dark as you’d, think being made of wood and all, and the view is nice even though it is just trees.” (Before this, she was always saying, “Why anyone would want to live in a log house the wilderness is beyond me. You could have a pristine condo in Florida right by the beach! I’m sick of trees and mountains. That is all you see around here.”) And we’d say, “Yeah, trees and mountains. Hum-bug. Who’d want to be here instead of Florida, with neighbors living practically on top of you? The problem is, where would we put the donkey?”
She’d give us that, who really needs a donkey? Look.

It was a nice afternoon. It ate up the entire afternoon, true, and I was exhausted by the end, but I know how appreciative Sonia was to be able to show-off to her friends. She is now the gal with the great daughter-in-law, who cooks and is a gracious host, and the son with the amazing building talent etc.. etc.. Laying claim to successful, thoughtful offspring seems to count big in the 80 year old sect. 

Mark later thanked me for making the luncheon for his Mother a big deal.
I said, “Anytime. It sure beats spending a day at the mall or driving her 2 hours to Sam’s to stock up on toilet paper (her other favorite pastime).” You see, it is not that I’m such a great daughter-in-law. I’m just maneuvering my way out of doing things I despise – replacing them with something I like doing. Cooking and good conversation is more fun than driving and shopping for un-required things – at least for me. It’s a win-win situation.

I think the most important thing about a day like today, is what it teaches my own children. My son, who was only there for a few minutes before being whisked off to band camp, kept smiling and saying, “I feel like I’m in England having lunch. Grandma must be out of her mind happy about this.” He gave me thumbs up for the meal (having snagged a plateful in the kitchen.) My youngest daughter got all dressed up and joined us at the table, sipping orange soda from her fancy wineglass and delicately eating her lunch. To her, this was nothing more than an exciting grown-up tea party and she was thrilled to participate. She stuck with the conversation for as long as she could hold out, then went off to play, returning a bit later with some of her original poetry to recite. (She is constantly writing poems and they are spectacular). Couldn’t have hired a more perfect, young participant to add flavor to the afternoon. Almost seemed staged, but it wasn’t.

The point is, my children were gracious and polite to these elderly guests. And they witnessed their parents going out of their way to do something nice for older people too, which will be important when I am an old broad wearing the same color everyday and I have friends who need an afternoon’s entertainment.  I hope I’m teaching my children how to behave when they become adults – to be caring individuals with patience for the elderly, not so self-involved that they can’t pause once in a while to give time and attention to people who are lonely and not “useful” to their lives in obvious ways. I think it’s important to be the kind of person you want your children to be. And this involves the big stuff, like working hard for what you want and always trying to improve your mind and living an authentic life, but it includes the small stuff too, like being kind to others and pausing your busy life once in a while to do something that doesn’t have any measurable returns for you personally.

It’s the things you bother to make time for, even when they “don’t do it for you”, that often will resonate and impact your existence long after the moment is over. In the end, will any of us close our eyes for the last time remembering all that laundry we did, the great deals we closed at work, the money in we accumulated in the bank, the movies we sat through or the chores we thought were such a priority? While all this feels so important in the moment, it isn’t. I believe what counts is the people we impact, the moments we share, the non-material things we leave behind, even if they are sometimes invisible, subtle influences on the lives of others.

Yesterday, I fell behind on my chores, fed my hungry, ornery horses in the rain later than scheduled, missed my hair appointment (oops) and spent half a day pulling out (and later putting back) a ton of china from awkwardly high, inconvenient shelves, even though I had perfectly good dishes a short reach away that would have sufficed. 

And yet, this was all a part of creating what was really a very good day.  Nice surprise. And an important lesson to remember.

Every Thursdays from 6-9, throughout the summer and into the early fall, a park down the street from us features what they call “Pick’ in in the Park”. This park runs along a curve in the Ocoee river and has park benches, picnic tables, a playground, and roofed pavilions. Most impressive is the rolling river and graveled walkway beside the water. It is a quiet, simple place with striking beauty, more remarkable because you never see more than a few people (if that) at the park. Except Thursdays, of course.

“Thursday Pick’ in in the Park” is simply a night area musicians are invited to come play. No group is formally scheduled as entertainment for the community. No one puts out jars to take donations or advertises a CD or upcoming performance either. Yet many musicians come, just because they love music and camaraderie and the informal audience.  They show up with banjos and fiddles and guitars and what have you (the occasional mouth harp and washboard show up too) gather wherever they land and jam. Sometimes, the musicians all gather in one area around the pavilion for one big makeshift band. Other times, they form various clumps around the park, so you can walk from one end to the other and hear different groups or even a solo folk guitar. People gather around any area where music is being made. A couple hundred people show up with lawn chairs and blankets. Kids run in the grass playing, dogs chase balls into the river as they play fetch; people spread picnics on the grass. It is very casual. You could swear you’ve just been dropped into Pleasantville.

When we go, I always pack a picnic dinner. Last night, we spread out blankets and I set out the food. Neva was playing with neighbor kids in the river, catching crawdads. Denver and her boyfriend had not yet arrived. Mark and I were sipping coffee and enjoying the music. I couldn’t help notice people kept staring at our “station”. I wondered what was up with that, because lots of people picnic here. Yet we kept getting the “double take” look. Finally, it was made clear when one fellow walked by with his dog and chuckled and said, “That is one pretty presentation!” 

I looked at our picnic and saw what others were seeing. I had made saucy chicken wings and tortellini and a big ring of deviled eggs with fresh cherries heaped in the middle. We had peaches and cheese. The food was so colorful, glistening in the early evening sun that it looked like an article out of Southern Living Magazine. It happened to be a very pretty picnic set up. Yes, we have landed in Pleasantville, everybody.

We ate and our pretty display was soon nothing but empty Tupperware. Then, my neighbor walked by. She told me that last night a bear was on her porch. She just wanted to let me (and my chickens) know. Heck with the chickens. It’s my angoras I will worry about –Last summer a bear tore open my bunny hutch and ate all my rabbits. It was a devastating carnal explosion, with wood and wire ripped not at the seams, but broken apart like a tornado had come through, only it was massive bear hands doing the damage. There was blood and bunny fur everywhere. Pissed me off.

Yesterday, I moved the peacock and his chicken buddy down near the chicken house, as a transitional move while I build a formal, permanent pen. I thought the chickens free ranging might go up to the cage and say hello so Early can begin making friends. Now, I have visions of Early becoming bear fast-food. Do I need to mention how this will set off a war between me and Yogi?

The worst part is that I like bears and I think seeing one on my own porch would be about the coolest thing on earth. So I have mixed feelings about it all. I just don’t relish the idea of any creature thinking my animals are an all you can eat buffet. A bear also stole my horse mineral block. Twice. Those blocks weigh about thirty pounds and I can barely lift them, but the bears pick them up and walk away with them like they are Twinkies I set out for dessert. Damn bears.     

Then, there is the issue of my bees. My beehive is set up only two hundred feet from my neighbor’s porch. Bears happen to be the number one enemy of bees because they tear apart the hives and eat every spec of honey inside. (This is why they tell you not to wear black when working with bees, because the insects automatically sting anything black as an instinctual move against bears.) It would take me another year to get a beehive started due to the seasonal nature of this project. As it is I have to wait a full year until I can harvest any honey because it takes a full season for them to build stores and create a home of honeycomb for themselves. I have a second hive ready to set up, but until I build up my bee population to divide them or order new bees in January before the suppliers are all sold out, growth in this project is on hold. If a bear comes along and wipes out my bee playground, I’ll not take it lightly.

As such, I am on bear alert now. I will have to have a discussion with my rabbits today and tell them to lay low and get ready to run if need be. I’ll tell my bees to keep quiet and stop buzzing so much and to get their stingers ready.  I will tell my dog, Maxine (who happens to be a plot hound, a breed bred to chase and fight bears) to stop snoring on the porch and to start paroling the grounds. She will ignore me, or course, but still, I can try.
All I know is that we have plenty of succulent blackberries around. A polite bear could do fine with those.  I’ll hope this is a polite bear.

When we got home from Pick’ in in the Park yesterday, it was still light out (love those long summer days) and Mark suggested we stop the car to check out the garden and how it was doing. I had spent the morning out there feeding the plants, weeding. I’d brought in a few squash, but that was all that was out there. I told him there wasn’t much to see. Nevertheless, he goes out with the kids.

He is out there about two seconds when he says, “Um….. why didn’t you pick the beans?”
“What beans? We don’t have any beans.”
He bent down and came up with a handful of wax and green beans. “Do you even know what a bean looks like on a plant?”
Obviously not.

With squeals of excitement, Kent and Neva started helping Mark pick beans. I joined in feeling rather like the bumbling garden idiot. We were all oohing and ahhing about how cool it is to pick beans right off a bush. Everyone was making fun of the fact that I would have ignored them until the wildlife ate them all or they shriveled up and died on the plant with my savvy gardening instinct. Yeah, well I didn’t see you out here this morning gently tending these plants, so give me a break. Besides which, I think they just “appeared” magically in the last few hours while we were out. I’m quite certain these beans were not here this morning.

In other words, who you calling a garden idiot?

I rest my point!

While we were expressing our excitement and picking furiously, Denver drove up (to retrieve some laundry she had left yesterday for the Mommy Laundry Fairy). We shouted for her to come out and see! We wanted her to share the fun. We said, “Come pick some beans! This is so cool!”

Her boyfriend blinked drolly and said, “I’ve picked beans before. Who hasn’t? What is wrong with your family? I think their enthusiasm is just a way of making fun of country people.”

Denver said, “No, they respect and admire country people. Tbhey are not making fun of anyone. They are genuinely thrilled with picking beans. You know how I know that? Because I want to pick some too!” And she ran out and we all picked beans together marveling at how bean plants produce, looking with furrowed brows at the beetle holes on leaves, checking out the other plants.

Her boyfriend stood by sighing, bored, thinking we city folk are too queer for words. Denver picked a squash with as much excitement and tentative concern as she displayed the first time she drove a car. We walked over to see the pumpkin vine all in bloom and talked about how exciting it will be if we can carve a jack-o-lantern from our very own garden pumpkin this year. My mind was swimming with pumpkin recipes (I happen to be the queen of pumpkin cooking – no joke.)

The laughter and excitement the family was sharing was truly refreshing. I thought of how only two years ago, living in a different environment, my kids were “too cool” for just about everything. Then, designer clothes and electronic devices ruled their existence.  Now, they have fun in unabashed, down to earth ways and they care little about what is “cool”. (Well, we are not in school at this moment which, let’s face it, might make a difference.) Nevertheless, they see the wonder in life basics and suddenly have respect for the earth, our food sources, and family time. How I appreciate the opportunity to stand right beside them when they discover new things and react with unaffected delight. Between you and me, I was really more focused on that then the beans.

We came in and Kent took a picture of last night’s harvest to add to our other fine family memories, like vacation photos. (I included the berries we picked on a short four wheel drive too, just for the color contrast). At eleven last night (inspired by the bean discovery) I made two batches (19 jars) of blackberry jam. (Now, Chuck can rest assured he will have jam with his pickles when next I go to Florida, Patti.)  I’m on top of the jam thing, so I’m going back to seeking ways to preserve beans – pickling, canning, freezing … hummmm what exciting things can I lean to do with beans other than cook them now – ‘cause at the rate they’re coming, no normal human consumption could keep up.  I am going to buy a food dehydrator this week. I want to try drying bananas and apples to make my own health mixes. Speaking of which, when WILL those dang tomatoes start turning red?

I keep wondering if I should try a batch of fried green tomatoes. Made a pretty cool movie, but I can’t imagine eating them. My lifestyle may be “country” but my palate is still “city”. Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try. Growth begins with keeping an open mind and not making judgments on things you do not have first hand experience with.

Anyway, that is the Hendry country update. Bears and beans. Boo-ya!

Mark sent me a message asking if I wanted to join him at the Daily Grind (our one semi-local wine and coffee shop that we like to visit for wine tastings and such) to hear a band play on Friday.
A night out? Like a date? Are you kidding? Do I get to get gussied up? Yippee.

The band is called the Hot Poker Dots (very classy) and here is their myspace site
http://www.myspace.com/theredhotpokerdots

I particularly like the song “Happy Fuck’in Birthday To You.” I’m just a girl who can’ t resist country sentiment.

Where, I wonder, was that song when I was scrounging the universe for Birthday Party songs for FLEX ballerina parties.

Today happens to be Mark’s mom’s birthday. The family is coming over for dinner – I’m making a spectacular Chocolate Marvel cake with raspberries. (I traditionally use Birthday’s as an excuse to make something fancy regardless of people’s diets or desires to keep things “simple” – yuck, simple is for sissies).  I’ll serve it while playing the Hot poker Dots song…. well….. maybe I’ll just sing it in my head.

So, I’m off to make a fancy dinner. If it was six weeks from now, I’d be devising this meal all around the pickles. Principal, ya know.  Instead I’m going to make it more in line with Sonia’s favorite things – strip steaks and all the trimmings. Fancy side dishes. Lots of chocolate.    

For entertainment, I’ll drag everyone into the mud room to see my Pinot Noir percolate as the gaseous fumes eek out of the fermenting pot (makes an exciting bubble action in the release valve). That 5 gallon tank will be sitting there for months, so might as well introduce it to the clan. If everyone begs, I’ll even allow them to stir the blackberry wine, which is as dark as oil and kind of scary. Hummmm……….. we’ll see.

Gee – I hope I don’t poison anyone during my Renaissance of new discovery. Might almost put a damper on the creative kitchen fun. . . Almost.
La, la, la. Happy fuck’in birthday, Sonia.
 

You may ask, what do the Hendry kids do for fun now that they are living in a place without a mall or a beach?

You’d be amazed.

Yesterday, Kent and a friend were hanging out for “band practice”. They have a band now, and honestly, they are getting pretty good. Later, they asked if they could go four wheeling. I said “Sure, if you will stop and pick a few blackberries.” They didn’t mind devoting a half hour to “the cause” if I’d promise to give Jake a bottle of wine later (for his family, of course) so we came to a bargain. Then, the boys proved their manhood, by returning with a huge bowl of juicy blackberries and only one hornet sting. It allowed me to make my blackberry wine – VERY labor intensive with 30lbs of blackberries, 11 pounds of sugar, 1o pounds of boiled banannas and …. well, that is another story. 

Then, Kent said, “Mom, we’re going surfing. Be back later.” 
I was busy making wine AND pickles at the same time (country multitasking) , so I didn’t think anything of it. About ten minutes later, I thought ,”Surfing?”

Later, Kent made a video of his adventure to amuse us. I told him to find a way for me to share it with friends, so he put it on a site and this is how you can see it.

Check out the brilliant talent, natural grace, and inovation of young master Hendry. This is how my kids spend a Sunday in Georgia.   

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rAR1gJEewM4

I bought this dumb seven dollar snow disk last November. My kids have used it endlessly, for snow, mud, and grass surfing. I used to buy things like 500 dollar wii’s. Now, it’s a generic  plastic disk that gets grins. I’m telling ya, simplifying has more perks than you can imagine. Part of this video was shot at night, because they had so much fun, they went back for more later. The dogs are my son’s sidekicks. Go everywhere with him. You haven’t seen fun until you see Kent in a flat out snowfight with his dog. Perhaps with his new video camera, we’ll get a video of that too this winter! This is by the site for my future barn. The horses watch, blinking, and you know they are thinking, “Humans are weird. This one in particular…”  

Today, we are all going tubing. We will sit in huge inner tubes and float down the occoee river watching the clouds go by and sharing stories. My son will amuse us with physical antics (he always does) and Neva will spend the day seeking out and pointing to every live creature she can spot. Fish, raccoons, lizards, you name it. I will write books in my brain. Mark will stare at trees and mentally plan his next house. Dianne will squeel when a rock hits her butt. This will cost us exactly the fifty cents worth of gas to get down the river which happens to be right by our house (we own the tubes – I’ll pack lunch). You see – we don’t have a mall, but we do have fun.

Who’d a thunk it was possible in a place so remote it doesn’t have even a single Starbucks to put it on the map?  

You have GOT to see this:

www.srqdance.com

I am excited for Cory and Sharon as they gere up and get ready for his first season as the perfect “post flex” school.
Almost everyday, Cory talks to both Mark and I, bouncing off ideas and seeking advice and/or assurance that the concepts he wants to impliment will work. It is not that he doesn’t have a wealth of experience of his own, (and talent) but that he respects our years of experience, not only with dance and that particular facility, but  also an understanding of most of the customers he will be catering to – their needs and desires. 

Frankly, we are very proud of him, and it’s a wonderful feeling watching someone we trained, now so innovative and committed to art and education, taking over where we left off. He has the energy, enthusiasm and lofty ambition – all steeped in idealistic goals that we can’t help but admire. These are the elements our former studio needed as it charged into a new decade, one that presents difficult challenges regarding youth arts education. (One of the reasons we left was simply exhaustion – we knew what the studio needed to keep on the cutting edge, but we were no longer fueled to keep up. It was our awareness of exactly what a truly progressive school needed- and our understanding that we were no longer interested in making the sacrifices required, that we left. Our bailing was an act of love, in a way.)

As Mark and I read Cory’s e-mails, check out the website, and discuss with the Boyas’ their plans, we can’t help but grin and feel at peace. More than anything else, I am impressed by how Cory and Sharon are commited to NOT letting scandal, rumor and unproductive emotional sabotage be a part of dance. A great deal of non-admirable behavior has conspired in the Sarasota dance world, which makes stepping in and remaining removed from it all quite an undertaking. But they are commited to building a great dance school in the tradition of the one they loved as a youth, however long it takes. And they will do so with integrity, constraint, and respect for all dancers, teachers and parents. Now THAT is a former student to be proud of!

SRQ has gotten calls from former FLEX dancers, feeling out the waters and suggesting that a staggering migration (again) may be at hand. “Who else has contacted you?” they ask, as if they are one communal mind rather than individual artists seeking the best training venues.

Cory calls us and says, “Why are people asking me to share registration information? Feels like answering would be an invasion of privacy to the individual customer. Besides which, I don’t want all the problems of the recent past coming here. Sharon and I don’t want to be a part of that mess. We want people to come here happy and filled with positive attitudes. How do you think I should respond?”       

I say, “You know us, our opinion is, people should think for themselves. It’s not like you are soliciting students from anyone or anywhere else, so you are not inviting or instigating a personal war. The heck with other people’s dancers. If you are truly a good school, you can make your own. And your own will have the discipline, attitude, and generosity of artistic spirit you choose to imprint. Great dancers are not made with steps or competition trophies. They are not to be coveted and wooed from where ever you can get them so you can take “credit” for training them. Great dancers are made by balancing training with the proper attitude. It begins and ends with respect. Respect for dance, for the school, for teachers, and for yourself.  Having true grace means more than perfecting pretty dance steps.  It’s a state of mind.
     If former dancers come, consider it a privilege and a challenge, because it means they are seeking something they are not getting elsewhere. Can you give it to them?”
“Yes I can. And more.” 
“So, make a great school. That is problem enough for one man to wrestle with. Let everything else unfold as it will without interference or influence.” 
“Okey dokey.”

Ha. That’s the spirit!”

So, SRQ is soon going to be up and running. The “Master Series” begins with the Parson’s dance company visiting, and even if only a few dancers take advantage of this exciting opportunity, it is promising that Cory is already thinking about important and significant extra-curricular dance experiences.

Mark and I will be down there for the opening, as a friend, benefactor, and to revel in our new title: “Artistic consultant” (ha, not like we need or want a title – but that was sweet. . . and. . . ahem . . . I think he will make us work to earn it.) In fact, I believe we are teaching the first two master classes and helping judge the competition team auditions. Fun, considering we will be setting a dance for these groups later as well. We will help train incoming teachers, at least in the beginning. I’ve no doubt Cory will impliment a training program of his own soon enough, perfectly modeled for his personal studio vision. And Sharon has impressive plans for the preschool as well. In fact, it will be interesting to see which division of the school can boast of being the strongest by next season, because they are getting equal, intensive attention.

We are giving Cory and Sharon a huge step up as they enter the dance studio business by way of teaching materials, store stock, preschool fixtures and advice. But they are giving us the graceful exit we dreamed of when we first decided to let FLEX go. It’s lovely really. A positive, exciting energy blankets our exchanges.  And we are all having fun without the damper of actions being misconstrued as some kind of threat. It is just a case of artistic personalities, the ones exiting and the ones entering, working together to build something wonderful out of the past, with no limits for the future.  We even disagree sometimes, and that is fun too. 

We said, “Cory, August 4th is pretty soon – what if you don’t have any dancers yet to audition? Who in Sarasota will know what you have to offer by then? “
“We have enough students already signed up – even without advertising – so we are bound to have some dancers wanting to participate in competition teams … and won’t they be the lucky ones. And if the audition takes only a half hour, we can go to Bennagins and toast to the future – unknowned as it may be.”
Heck yeah – I’ll bring the wine. You bring the teachers so we can pick their brains and do a pep talk.  

Things seem to be falling into place for lots of people now. I guess a dance studio is like raising a peacock. You can tend eggs and brag about how fantastic your birds will be, but some simply don’t hatch because they were never properly fertilized to begin with. The one that does hatch might be slow to grow, delicate, and will need love and care, but that doesn’t mean it wont be a spectacular bird in time.

Well, I must go. I have wine to make for this opening – and music to listen to if we will be teaching again. I need to get alone in that studio we have downstairs to begin some creative planning and to get in dancing shape. Don’t want to disappoint the big boss, ya know. He has high standards! No that I am complaining….  those of us who live in glass houses . . . .