Fandango Friday

On my way to work this morning, I crawled inside a cozy daydream.  I imagined a life in which I possessed a ridiculous amount of money.  Everyone who ever helped me would be repaid three-fold.  In my dream, I buy a chunk of land and create a retreat for writers, artists and the world-weary.  There would be wonderful vegetable gardens, farm animals and a big red barn.  The barn wouldn't be for the animals, it would be a center for classes and lectures on self-sufficiency, arts and crafts, music and more.  My own private Eden where freed from financial constraints, I would live a life focused on family and the act of enriching and nourishing a tiny corner of the world.  Just as I got around to the business of setting up scholarships for poor white kids and establishing trusts for family members, I was at work.  Reality bit me with a cold wet chill.

Reluctantly, I pulled myself from my warm morning daydream into a cold Friday.  My daydream had been even more comfortable than the warm bed I'd crawled from at 6 a.m.  My Friday needed a boost.  In between the luxurious strands of my daydream, the radio announcer had proclaimed, "It's Fandango Friday!"
"Ah" I think, "This may be exactly what my Friday needs, a little fandango!"

Fandango?  It's the name of some local movie theatres.  Isn't it also the name of a steamy hot movement of body and soul arising from sensual Latin America?  A little steam might help me warm up this cold Friday.

Let's face it.  My inner flame has been reduced to a few faintly glowing embers.  I've been stumbling through life like a hopeless tenderfoot hopping across a bed of hot coals.  This is grown tiresome and painful.  It's time to dance.  I'm very tired of trying to reframe the vicissitudes of life in a positive light.  There are many times when the effort to look on the bright side, to vanquish the foe of internal self-doubt, feels too hard.  I just want to throw myself down on the path of life, kicking and screaming like a spoiled toddler.  See, I'm not really as "advanced" as some people may believe.

The Grumpy Me of Yesterday proves this.  After spending several days of being annoyed at a grumpy husband,  I slipped on a big pair of "crabby pants."  Snapping at the kids about unrinsed dishes and the pieces of mismatched ephemera that marks the edges of their lives, I indulged Grumpy Me.  In mid-snap, I realized how silly I was.  My limited energy was being poorly directed.  I decided to throw Grumpy Me out of the house.

For a few moments, I indulged in a bit of self-loathing.  I wasn't happy with myself.  "I'd let the "dog" out.   Still, I understood.  I felt for the snarling canine that strained against its leash.  This me had been chasing after "a carload of crap" all day.  Barking, sputtering with rage and frustration, I see the dog bite at the tires of a passing car. . . my car.  My car barely slips away as it raises clouds of dust bouncing down a rutted dirt road. 

This image is so vivid that for a moment, it carries me away.  I can taste the grit from the dirt road between my teeth as the dust filters in my car.  Dust wants to settle on the dash before me, the seat beside me, the floor at my feet but another rut in the road sends it all airborne.  "Thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return." But, first, that dust is going to fly.

It's summer inside a hot car.  I'm dirty from working in the fields.  The only way out or in is down this dirty road.  Summer insects whine and buzz in the heat.  I want a bath, a complete cleansing, body and soul.  Tired and hungry, I try not to think of the dirt, the grime.  I melt into the moment.  Everything is now.  Nothing is as bad as it seems.

In the distance, the barking of the dog grows faint.  I roll down the window and stick my face into the wind.  If I had a tail, I'd wag it.  The wind and sun feel good on my dirty face and I laugh at the dust billowing around me.  The car is headed home and so am I.

Summer dreams, dog and dog days fall away.  I am left in front of Fandango Friday.  There is reason to celebrate.  Another week has come and gone.  I've plowed through it, leaving furrows filled with daydreams of hope and disaster.  I've been nipped at by the desperate dogs of despair, but I've slipped away.   I begin the Fandango.  Awkwardly, I move, stomping and clapping my way into a delicious frenzy of release.  The dream dogs of summer begin to howl.  They pay soulful tribute to Fandango Friday.  They join me in the dance.  We are dust and to dust we will return but first we want to kick up the dirt, roll around it it, bite at the tires of trouble, feel the wind in our faces.  In between the claps and stomps weave the dirty dogs of summer on a cold Fandango Friday.