"Dance...wherever you may be"

Ian had a party CD on in the family room, and he abruptly announced to me:

"Daddy, any music I hear now, even if I don't like it... I feel like I want to start dancing to it, even if I don't like it."

This is no surprise. During the summer, we made a famous visit to Harvard Square - or "Hartwood Square," as Ian ended up calling it, and there was a pair of young men performing some very post-postmodern music for a small crowd outside the Out of Town Newsstand and the entrance to the subway, and Ian couldn't help but dance for the audience, which is par for the course in Cambridge, of course. Within a couple of minute, he inducted me to dance as well, so I did a little hopping around, as you might expect from some hokey 45-year-old Irish guy, but this wasn't enough: Ian instructed me to turn toward the audience, which I did briefly and with a good deal of discomfort. As we were heading home that night, he told me, with some sense of accomplishment, that this was the first time he had done a dance performance.

Of course, he comes by it honestly. Since I started writing this, Madeleine jumped to her feet, and is rhythmically stomping around the family room, waving a bright purple leash like a baton.

(September 17, 2011)