Aloha, Shalom, My Eyes And My Heart Have Reached An Agreement

Mary and I have just returned from the islands and are still getting all the sand out of our shoes. 

We did 12 presentations and many ballroom lessons at nursing and retirement facilities, senior centers and one Alzheimer unit. My partner Mary did all the design and made all the costumes that were used for this program and all the choreography for the dance numbers; such a talented lady!

Since this was the 25th year of our outreach programs, we will think carefully about whether we will try again; oh heck why not?

Best regards,
Mary Petersen and Steven Behr

Above statement from Mary and Steve both seniors and both active in promoting dancing where they live in Washington State. What Mary and Steve accomplish is far and above what many seniors would even attempt at their ages. Many seniors give up doing marvelous things when they hit Senior Plateau as I named it. We cannot give up, else we become old people and old people are what we thought our parents and grandparents were when we were young.Mary was 86 when this  article was written in 2010.Steven in his seventies.

It is relevant now because as seniors, they represent what is right on being an active senior. They give of their time and talent when they visit Hawaii and teach dance over there for several weeks almost every year for the last twenty-five years. There is a Yiddish word “kvetch” which means to complain in a kind of pleasant way. Steve and Mary do not kvetch, instead they “ kvell” (another Yiddish word) meaning they are proud of what they accomplish in Hawaii with their volunteering of teaching dance. They fly a long distance to Hawaii and though they may enjoy what they do, it is still a hard and long trip for seniors. I was there when I was  about forty years of age and believe me, it is a long journey to see this magnificent state.

Seniors now days dance, drive, golf and do more. Many volunteer their time helping needy kids to learn to read and to learn to love reading. Many seniors still work out of necessity and do their jobs well. Many like Rene and I write and try to encourage everyone to dance. Rene  Zgraggen writes and manages a glorious website, where I write a monthly column for the last six years.   Rene also teaches dance and shows us oldsters that dance can enhance our lives. Rene is a glorious senior and proud to be one. So am I. My late friend of fifty-nine years Virginia L.Woerner said in her next to last note to me  July 2011 that she was proud of me for being a senior who was active. She said many who she knew were quite inactive.She did ceramic work and gardening and so she too was an active senior.

I love angels. Now I know there are no real ones, but it is still nice to imagine that one looks over our shoulders and helps us to cope, to succeed and to be healthy as we can. I made up an expression. This is it. There are angels with golden hands. There are angels with golden feet and there are angels with golden words. I complimented my hair stylist (formerly known as hairdressers) and told her when she finished doing my hair yesterday and it looked especially wonderful, that she was an angel with golden hands. Her eyes teared up and she thanked me and said no one ever said that.

So, we who dance have golden feet (even though many of us have hammertoes, bunions and etc. from dancing) and it is well worth the fantastic times we have dancing. We, who write and express our selves about our dear dancing desires and devotion are angels with golden words.

People like Steven and Mary are golden seniors when they go to Hawaii and present dancing shows to people who may never have had the experience of viewing a dancing exhibition or even to learn a few steps.

Let us all become golden seniors ( as my columns have been called for over  twenty years.) We will remain golden folks and show other people that seniors are alive, well, happy, healthy and delightful. LET'S DO IT AND I MEAN DANCE! If you are inspired to do other things beside or in place of dancing, that is excellent too. Anything you accomplish is truly an achievement and a realization.Dennis H. Myers, the physician assistant I use as my main medical person said this to me today “we have the choice to make a choice in our life on doing things.”

Choice means a selection or a preference.We can prefer to be sedentary in this our golden years; or we can select something we prefer to do and then go ahead and do it, regardless if it seems unattainable.We have the choice to at least try something new and it will bring a new light to our life.

In this season of many Christmas lights adorning our homes, our stores, our malls and the additional Chanukah lights of the menorah lit for eight nights for that holiday;gives us a plethora of lighting sources to brighten our neighborhoods. Some people choose a simple decoration of a doorway or window with lights, others choose to light up the whole lawn and driveway with many lights and other prefer to just let the Christmas tree which is all lit up to be seen in the shade less room and it shows beautifully from the street. What ever you choose, light up your life, anyway you see fit.

When I was a young girl, there was a popular song called “You light up my life.” It was sung by the daughter of a well known singer Pat Boone and his daughter Debbie became a hit vocalist with the words and music of this song being sung so brightly.It was sung at many local weddings as the song of the evening because it offered hope about love, light and the future.

In Sonnet 47 by Shakespeare, the  translation of it goes like this “ My eyes and my heart have reached an agreement and now each does the other favors.” Your eyes and your heart are usually in agreement and the eyes see the beauty of light or lights and the heart feels the serenity of the shining illumination.

Little Ava and Ethan who I always refer to in my articles, because grandparents are known for their bragging rights and ability to talk about their precious grandchildren, got on the phone on Monday night and each sang a song from the now occurring holidays. Ethan sang to me “I have a little dreidel” which is a Chanukah song and Ava sang “Merry Christmas to you.” Each with their sweet youthful voices lit up my life and I recorded them on my audio tape machine to listen and relisten to them often.

In this holiday season of December 2011, let us all brighten up somebody’s life with kind words, sweet meaningful greetings and as Mary and Steve said a lot while in Hawaii “Aloha” which means hello and goodbye. There is a Hebrew word which is “Shalom” and that too means hello and goodbye.

Hello to good  moments and goodbye to bad thoughts and boredom.

Something wonderful is happening to my husband Jerry and I this coming Thursday. We will meet once again with our first dance instructor Laurence E.Miller of Maine.He was the one who instilled in me the love of dance that I always yearned for. He taught me as a single dancer and us as a couple for  eight years until he left for up north to establish his own studio. We will meet once again, as I always knew we would in this lifetime after not seeing one another for twenty-six years.We will have lunch together, talk about the ‘old’ days when we were  forty-three, forty-seven and he was twenty. A lifetime ago, and we remained friends via the internet and the phone.

That is going to be an interesting Shalom, Aloha experience for us and especially for me. Laurence and I are going to write in 2012 a book on ballroom dancing and we hope to get it published on Kindle. It will relate stories from me the amateur partner in this book writing endeavor and him the professional partner. We shall relate everything we both know about ballroom and what it has accomplished in both of our lives.

You light up my life is indeed what ballroom dancing meant to me.This was my choice and as Shakespeare said my eye and my heart have reached an agreement. My eye and my heart reached that pact when I began my ballroom dancing career.It still lights up my life and continues the Aloha/Shalom hellos to my heart.