Isabela has always been early.

At our favorite Italian restaurant, on the main road between Menino Deus and Cidade Baixo – the former, a lower-middle-class neighborhood where we had first lived when we arrived in the city; the latter, an area of town which was like urban foothills to the buzzing downtown peaks – Júlia and I had conspired to have a Last Dinner, a little planned celebration before the next morning’s planned arrival, via c-section, of our daughter.

Some years ago – after the months in Indonesia, after working with the small publishing house, after co-managing the restaurant; before Brazil, before children, before hi-tech consulting – I helped start a small organic vegetable farm in Glencoe, Minnesota. It was the most trying and most wonderful experience. Hours of labor in the prairie sun that at once broke my body and built it up, found me falling into bed as though stunned, waking refreshed as though called out by the fields and the birds. Distant from neighbors and from community, close to life and spirit.

Then there was a little light, burned away what remained of the night colored the fields - the clarity of air - my world, unveiled then there was a sound, I turned around, there was someone coming my way…

there was, there was there was, there was

Then there was a name came so lightly to the tongue then there was a face couldn’t be erased when the day was done then there was a touch - it doesn’t take much to bring you home

Several years ago I was “improving” my photo collection, which had become a wobbling tower of Kodachrome, balanced precariously and in no particular order in a hidden corner of my closet. Every time I saw it, I felt a vague intolerance; and each time I saw it, I felt that intolerance grow, until finally the intolerance was itself intolerable, and I furiously shoveled the concealing junk out of the way, and hooked those boxes and stacks out into the middle of my bedroom floor.

It’s not who she is that begs the lyric; not what he wants that’s the melody’s thread. Instead: when something stirs and merges one and one; makes failing math, is short two by a half; when boundaries gently blur; when bodies move without one saying stay, one saying go…

There is Music’s spring, if not the spring of everything.

Or, what I mean: it’s where the spirits meet that fuels the fire; it’s where they part that puts it out.

O coração baía aberto ao maré as águas vêm as águas vão prá onde eu não sei

Chegam de tempestade ao suspiro elas vão escrevem nomes na areia que as ondas apagarão

… instrumental

Correnteza agridoce pôs tesouros à beira-mar que beleza me traz sorriso despedida me faz chorar

Correnteza agridoce faz tesouros aterrisar que beleza ao alcance dos olhos mas nas mãos é que nem luar

Beleza ao alcance dos olhos desagua das mãos que nem luar

Recently someone asked me about the form of dance I practice – the form I aspire to, really; and like all good forms it is small enough for me to wrap my arms around, large enough to contain my curiosity, lean enough that an evening costs a few dollars and yields a fortune, full enough that I think I will never find the end of it.

I talked about the improvisational “jam”, the coalescence of a couple of dozen movement artists, with no talking, no music, only the sound of sliding or shuffling, running or slowing feet, deep breath… sometimes spontaneous laughter, sometimes spontaneous stillness, deeper because it is shared. My friend tried to imagine that space for a moment, as much as one can really imagine it, foreign as it is, and asked “How can you dance without music?”

I returned late last night from the annual Dance New England summer camp near Lake Ossipee in New Hampshire, and woke this morning with dancing tape still on a couple of toes, the echo of taut and trained muscle still in the sinews, and the ache of separation from that vibrant and affectionate community of dancers already wringing out some sighs.

A beautiful family event that has been going on for some 30 years, DNE Camp attracts top-quality teachers and chefs and musicians from all over, offering the best of what they have to upwards of 800 participants. The cost of classes, food and lodging is all part of the modest fee. This year, like most years, there were community elders in attendance, and adults who at one time were babies born to this once-a-year village; there were newly-inspired youth from all over the States and abroad; and toddlers to teens who arrived with their parents for this summertime camp.

Certas canções - Milton Nascimento

Certas canções que ouço cabem tão dentro de mim que perguntar carece como não fui eu que fiz?

Certa emoção me alcança corta-me a alma sem dor certas canções me chegam como se fosse o amor

Contos da água e do fogo cacos de vidas no chão cartas do sonho do povo é o coração do cantor

Vida e mais vida oferida chuva, outono, ou mar carvão e giz, abrigo gesto molhado no olhar

Spring has arrived with its signature flourish. I enjoy the recognition. It began years ago with delight

The snow’s crust hardened then softened, then became lace through which the roadside stream could be seen, happily (did my happiness make that water happy?) spilling and tumbling downhill past our home. A small stick in a small hand makes the hole wider, tests the depth and speed of water, light infiltrates, the sparkle falls into and back out of the little river. Raise your eyes: follow the stream through its tunnel as it gathers contributions and finally bursts through the ice and crystallizing snow, spreads into the street. Follow your sight, stand and look downstream, then follow it… you must, you must… uninsulated boots, waterproof except for the pinhole in the right toe, through which the cold drips in, spring, spring. Walk downhill where the river leads. Where will it lead? Beyond your small horizon, certainly. The trees arch overhead. They are elms, you later learn. Somewhere sun has found leaf loam and heated it until its fertile fragrance is all around you, then whispered away with a breeze. The trickle becomes a stream and flows into the field where the skating rink has dissolved into slush; stream slows, soaks into the marsh, into reeds, into trees, away toward the lake. Where has curiosity carried you?