Ten Women Dancing
We laughed so much that later I wouldn’t be able to recall a thing we laughed about. But what is clear from the first hug is that we have come for the weekend to reclaim our Louisiana roots and to commune at a holy table of sisterhood.
Linda has brought the bread, sourdough fresh from San Francisco. Beverly has brought the wine, bottles of red and white “Fat Bastard,” (which she has delighted in calling her “house” wine ever since a nasty divorce.)
As I look around our circle, it is evident how much we have all changed. We carry the extra pounds and pains of three and a half decades. My own gray hair is thinning, my hips are spreading, and my body has suffered a mastectomy. In dismay, I declare, “I’ve lost all the wrong things!”
The circle spontaneously combusts in laughter. We’ve all suffered losses—a breast, a baby, a couple of husbands, and more than a few aspirations. There have been bankruptcies, betrayals, and bitter disappointments. But there are no victims here, only survivors. And so the remark brings laughter, served up like a side order of grits and potent as a cup of Community Coffee.
We grew up in a state that declares on its bumper stickers, “Laissez les Bontemps rouler.” Beneath Faye’s purple and gold LSU flag flying from the deck, the good times do indeed roll.
We catch up by sharing our triumphs with one another-the Ph.D. Beverly earned, the educational endowment Tina and her husband created, the Scottish highlands Betty backpacked.
Voices swirl about in a gumbo of laughter and hilarity. At one end of the circle, Kathy and Barbara share amusements about their children:
“My daughter is working at the UN; she wants to save the world and eradicate poverty.”
“My son is taking a year off from school. It’s called a ‘gap year.’ Hope it doesn’t turn out to be a gap decade.”
There is no husband bashing. Gladys tells us that John is “a dear, dear man,” and Faye brings hoots of laughter when she recalls the time Jerry chastised her by saying, “Knock over another beer, and I’ll write LSU, and they WILL take away your diploma.”
Washed in the blood since birth, religion is a natural topic. We learn that Barbara believes in reincarnation and still practices Catholicism. We grasp for religious definitions. I confess to being some kind of illogical combo of pantheism, paganism, and Christianity.
“Yeah, she goes outside on her farm and worships the sunrise naked. Then she writes us about it!” Beverly chortles.
Somehow the discussion leads to a theological question. “You’ve never heard that pride is the most deadly sin?”
“I’ve heard of it, but not in my church,” says Beverly who is chairman of the deacons at her Southern Baptist church. Then she adds with sardonic humor, “Actually I think the Baptists kind of like it.
Everything is subject to laughter: our children, our religion, and most especially ourselves. Nothing is sacred.
And everything is sacred celebration.
We clear the table of a gourmet meal, the gift of a gifted cook. It has been fabulous, even without Gladys’ raspberry maple chipolte sauce, for which she searched 3 stores in vain.
Crowding around the kitchen island, we each moan in gourmand ecstasy as we dip Kathy’s fresh strawberries in a chocolate sauce bought while touring the Chateau Morrisett.
An Irma Thomas CD plays. Bodies move to the rhythm and beat of memories. Soon Charlotte is dancing, and then another and another, until we are all ten swept up by the music. Who knew we could still boogaloo? If anyone had looked through the window that night, they would have seen ten women dancing in a communion of laughter and friendship, celebrating life, ourselves, and each other.
~ Tina
