For a Dancer

Today would have been contemporary dance pioneer and legend Martha Graham's 118th birthday.  I used to be a dancer; I studied ballet from age 3 to 13, then went on to jazz, and was later in a couple of small contemporary dance troupes for a number of years.  To this day, you can find me bopping around in my kitchen, especially when my daughter is home on a visit and we crank up the tunes and pull out all the stops, fuelled by wine and a shared sense of the ridiculous.

Here's my birthday card for Martha, composed of a photo I made of a bouquet of flowers combined with a picture of Martha I downloaded from the internet. 

I wanted to give the impression of a charcoal and chalk drawing. 

And here's a favourite song of mine by Jackson Browne that seemed more than appropiate. 

...
"Just do the steps that you've been shown
By everyone you've ever known
Until the dance becomes your very own
No matter how close to yours
Another's steps have grown
In the end there is one dance you'll do alone
...
Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive
And the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive
But you'll never know"

I feel pretty sure that Martha Graham knew exactly the reason she was alive. 

As my ballet teacher used to say,

"Make a dance of it!" 

Seems good advice to apply to one's life,

wouldn't you say?