A MINUET OF THOUGHTS

WORDS LIKE LIGHT

Saturday, September 3, 2022

“… a state of mind liable to melt into a minuet with other states of mind, and to find itself bowing, smiling, and giving place with polite facility.” — George Eliot, in Middlemarch

         These words of George Eliot exactly describe the dance my own ideas seem to do. My mind is like an old English ballroom where ideas warmly move among each other in a strange kind of sociability and easiness. Thoughts of delight glide beside thoughts of fear, and beliefs that bad times are looming hold hands with beliefs that a bright sky is always overhead if I would only look up. What’s especially interesting about this is that my thoughts can be so cordial to each other, like English lords and ladies letting their friendliness guide the flow of the dance. Perhaps if I would simply stand back and watch them, the thoughts that move through my mind might seem as graceful as the movements of eminent manor house guests. If I stopped trying to always rule and regulate them, and gave up getting in fights with them, I might be able to enjoy the pleasant movements of my thoughts, their stylish steps and swings.    

DANCING WORDS 
(said by Byron S., age 82)

"I don't know how to dance, but my words 
seem to dance effortlessly whenever I speak. 
They're instinctive dancers, these 
undomesticated words of mine 
that twirl and whirl, thousands 
each day, dancing around on their own 
inside me and then outside when I 
set them loose by speaking. And isn't it 
interesting that words live by their own laws,
though we like to think we command them? 
The store where I work is a wonderland 
of waltzing words when customers are there. 
They release their words and the words 
start frisking and frolicking around
and finding their own style of life, 
and I sometimes stand and listen and stare."