As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, at the bar last night bar I read my friend Charlie’s Book (his version of the Tao Te Ching), which includes these lines:
Whatever bends can stay whole.
Whatever twists can stay straight.
Whatever's empty can be filled.
Whatever's worn out and be renewed
As I read, a woman danced.
I cannot swear she goes to this bar every night, although I have never been there in the later hours without her also being present.
While I know zero Dutch, I am sure she slurs hers. Whatever she actually says comes out in a slow mumble and occasionally shouts.
She wears outsized cat-eye glasses and her hair falls in front of her face over and over. With pinkies stretched out, she rakes the strands back each time, always in movements that suggest glue in the veins and uncertainty about where her head begins.
You would be excused for thinking her an alcoholic of the most committed kind.
Still, the bartender, who obviously knows her well, and Martha, the chef, both greet her cheerfully. Sometimes, late at night, they ask her to stay quiet if she shouts too much but other than that she's treated as an agreeable, well-known, steady-drinking presence.
And when she can, she labors her arms above her head, aims her hands vaguely at the ceiling and sways to whatever music may be playing for the more sober patrons.
Speaking her mind, a familiar to those she knows, and a dancer where all the rest talk, that’s the way of a kind.
Maybe tomorrow something about people who refuse to know what is bad for them or a report on warm watermelon.