When I knew my Grandmother she was bedridden most of the day. She had a heart condition that controlled most of her adult life. It was her heart that took her places and her heart that now held her captive.  I remember watching General hospital on the sofa while she napped, or learning to sew by her side and taking long breaks for tea. She got permants at home from my mom and a trip to the diner was well planned to keep things easy for her. This certainly was not an establishment we were stumbling into late at night after a full dance card looking for more. We all decided what we were ordering and wrote it down before we even left the house.  And she wasn’t dancing in the diner. I wonder if, sitting there,  she thought back to that moment, to the moment she could. I bet she was glad she did.  I would have been grateful. Grateful that I chased my dream, that I even dared to dance, before the dream changed.

What a juxtaposition, she was not old, maybe just my age. The freedom of her youth and her curiosity about the world was infectious. She did not mind being seen as an Old Maid for wanting more than just marriage. She thought girls were marrying too young. I have an image of this red-headed woman dancing with abandon in a place she traveled far to be, a place that she defied convention for.  Yet her heart was always split between that overwhelming curiosity and her longing for the farmer. Her heart….

There is a pause between freedom and farmer and she lived into that with courage as well. It is hard to stand in the gap and accept the circumstances of life as it sometimes happens to us. I don’t know the story that brought her another man’s baby shortly before she was to leave, but the courage to find a way home, to stand again and say I still love you if you still love me, is huge.

It seems to be where I find myself these days, the gap. I have shaken off the past and stand in the sunshine waiting for my feet to dance. It’s all brand new. But where am I going? It can feel odd, freedom. Maybe just go, think later. I was speaking with a friend the other night who is paralyzed by anxiety. She had just received a gorgeous supporting message from her grandmother and was headed to meet all of us for dinner, a dressed-up girls’ night out. She leaned into me and said,

“So sorry I am late. I just froze up. I believe in you. I believe you would be there for me. I believe you are really my friend, so why am I terrified?”

I paused, refreshed by her honesty.  I saw myself in her.

“I think it is because you don’t know what to do with joy. There are no monsters under the bed, sometimes that is just as scary.”

What do we do when the pain stops or the dream changes? Dance. Fuck the takers or those with limited visions of this life. Just move. Don’t let the talons of our captors hold you any longer. You are free. It’s a new dream. Let go and trust that where you are is good and not somehow less than because it is not like other people. I need to dance those 24 straight dances.

My Grandmother was lucky, her love of the farmer matched the moments she felt the wind in her hair. When you are ill you often see the immense beauty in the small things, reality bends a little and your vision becomes so clear. It’s like a superpower. You see value in more than what the world offers or what we are "supposed to be.” You just kind of know better.  Imagine the secrets she held while everyone else ordered french fries. Her quiet joy, the simply living of it all. I never once heard her complain.