Circle Dance to the Blues

For most of the night, I stood behind her left shoulder soaking in the club scene. Every opening of the front door ushered in fodder for characters in a short story yet to be written. A Blues Club with ties to the Crescent City has a lot to live up to...I wasn't disappointed. With the sound turned down, the room was filled with a jigsaw puzzle of people of varying skin color, socio-economic background, education, leather/no leather, some too young to care they were blocking our view, others so old and soaked in bourbon and cigarettes they created a wake as they navigated from one side of the bar to the other. With the volume turned up, we were one....devotees of The Blues...focused on an aged, weather-worn black man in a light chocolate brown felt fedora that matched his leisure suit perfectly. The way he commanded his guitar and the microphone left no doubt he had earned the right in his lifetime to sing The Blues.

Funny thing about The Blues...when it's genuine, there is great joy in singing, hearing, dancing and experiencing it. At one point, a group of young college-aged women commanded the dance floor. Rocking and swaying to the rhythm of The Blues gave way to the instinctual dance residing in the souls of women no dogma or man can blot out. An older woman they beckoned onto the dance floor completed the circle of five. Joining hands, they began dancing an involuntary movement generations of women have danced in living rooms, on forest floors and around fires. The percussive ending to the song was punctuated by the raising of joined hands high over their heads and laughter...big, free laughter they just couldn't keep inside.

Gazing over her left shoulder at this ancient ritual acted out by maiden, mother & crone, I smiled and then I laughed.