I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living. — Psalm 27:13
In the background, I could still hear Flying Fish giving their rendition of Pink Floyd. I love every cover they do, Jeff jamming on a harmonica selected from an impressive suitcase of harmonicas, Robert’s soft, melodic voice crooning the lyrics and Tim’s always just right drums. I thought once again what a wonderful surprise the abundance and quality of local music is in this beautiful place we now live.
Earlier we spread out a blanket and chairs in front of the bandstand and continued Olive’s education on how to be a proper bar and festival dog. Olive came to us through courier from Sacramento. My daughter rescued her at about age two. (She’s now nineish). Olive was crazy even then, but after my daughter had a difficult pregnancy with twins and her husband got sick, they could no longer deal with Olive’s extreme anxiety - She came with her own prescription for Zoloft.
….. So Omi to the rescue. (Omi is my grandmother name - Omi Katherine).
Olive did really well, better than expected. I walked her around the booths introducing her to sounds and smells and other dogs. Afterwards, she lay contentedly while Flying Fish entertained the crowd..
Definitely a successful outing.
We moved to the street where the Mardi Gras parade was beginning to drown out the Flying Fish’s last song. All the wonderful local festivals were yet another reason to love this place called the Forgotten Coast.
My goal, if Olive allowed, was to video some of the parade so i could share with my twin grandchildren. COVID limited so many experiences for them.
(I never bash technology. Free out of state phone calls, texts, Facetime, phones that take videos - these are perks of technology I love!)
Olive cooperated.
The Forgotten Coast Dancing Witches came into sight and I zeroed in with my iphone camera. They were all in their finest regalia, a bright tribute to Mardi Gras with smattering of witchy black. My body started to move. I hear the beat and my feet want to dance. I feel the music in my body as much as I hear it. Music hits my soul and my body needs to move.
Mardi Gras wasn’t my first contact with the witches. The dancing witches were part of the Christmas parade a few months before. I remember thinking at the time That looks like so much fun! Today was the same.
My idea of hell is a party where I don’t know anyone. I hate introducing myself to someone I don’t know.
But I really wanted to dance.
Could I get up the emotional courage? How would I ask to join the group?
I fell back on humor, my go-to coping mechanism. I approached a blonde-headed witch and told her I felt called to be a witch. (I didn’t say by the Lord, but the reference was there). After a pause, she handed me a card and told me I could call about joining.
Now that I know her, it makes me chuckle.
Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance.
- Rabindranath Tagore
Imagine my surprise to find myself with a group of women where I really felt welcomed and accepted from the start. I’ve always felt awkward around other girls. Most of my friends growing up were guys. I never was very good at being a girl.
I embarrassed everyone when on about the third practice I told them how much it meant to me to have friends. It was just so unexpected.
Brenda and I were the ones most in need of help learning the dances. She was a newbie, too. Everyone else seemed to already know all the dances.
Karla, a natural caretaker if there ever was one, began a Tuesday practice just for remedials (Brenda and me). It later became a practice for newbies, but somehow or another Brenda and I remained.
We met in a small building down the road from Karla’s house. A friend of hers allowed us to use it to practice….. and I needed it! Brenda and I bonded in our frustration with learning the steps. Fortunately for both of us, I asked for more time and repetition. I couldn’t fake it. I was lost.
What looked like a lot of fun to me was serious business to these witches.
When I started, I knew two line dances that I worked on for weeks. In my exceeding boredom during COVID isolation, I used YouTube to learn Copperhead Road and the cowboy shuffle.
I walked 2-3 miles every morning, but then I had humid summer days to get through when I couldn’t be outside for more than 15 minutes after seven a.m. and sometimes not that. So I did my walk early and didn’t do much else the rest of the day.
My answer was to learn a line dance or two.
Thank God I did.
The witches knew 27 dances and were adding more. I wasn’t sure I wanted to learn that many dances. This was more serious than I thought.
I’ve always loved to dance, but pretty much free style. Me and the music dance together. There are no rules. The only line dancing I’d done was at weddings and middle school dances. I sucked at it.
The blonde-headed witch turned out to be the leader. Tracy cracked the whip to get me into shape and I didn’t really appreciate it until we did a St Patrick’s Day bark parade two weeks after I joined. I actually knew the dances (mostly) and it turns out practices are serious and performances are for fun.
It’s theater. I’ve always loved theater.
I’ve never been great with names but after several contacts between my face and hard objects, I’m really terrible at names. They go in one ear and out the other. Two minutes after hearing a person’s name, it’s gone unless I repeat it with every contact.
No one seemed to mind when I repeated their name for the fifth or sixth time. Not remembering someone’s name isn’t generally a problem for me because new relationships for me are rare. When we moved to Port St. Joe, I would go home after talking with my neighbors and write their names on our chalkboard with something about them to help me remember. If Kerry erased the board, I was out of luck.
Getting to know these women was a joy. I found a place where I could be my quirky self. I never expected to find that again, and certainly not in more than one or two people.
What we don’t have in ethnic diversity, we make up in personality uniqueness. I told my husband early on, these women seem very comfortable with who they are.
Kerry and I joke about my top 10 weird people in my life and how no one will ever break into the top 3. (Weird is a compliment for me). They’re pretty much set in stone. I’ve always loved people who dance to a different drummer.
Perhaps because I hear a different tune myself.
I’ve never felt so comfortable so quickly being me within a group. I feel like I’ve found my people.
Robin helped in those Tuesday practices. Some people just exude cool. Robin is one of those people. When we are dancing, I sometimes lose my place because I get caught up in Robin’s dancing. Even though she’s doing the same steps as we are and ends up in the right place, it's her own brand of cool. She is definitely far away in her own zone when she’s dancing. (She reminds me of me in that way). My problem is that I needed to concentrate like she didn’t. I had no muscle memory.
But Robin always emerges to encourage and help us newbies. She’s as patient and kind as Karla. What a bonus for Brenda and me.
Brenda, Robin and Karla were who I felt a bond with almost immediately, but every witch in the group is a good person that I’d like to get to know better. That is such a gift.
I opened up and talked about my daughter’s struggle to become pregnant and how carefully excited I was that she finally succeeded. Susan, a former midwife, was especially encouraging to me. Everyone was supportive.
I more tentatively shared about my daughter getting married. No one asked me questions about who she was marrying, but I figured it might come up. Port St Joe is about as red a town as you can get. One night as we were finishing up our newbie practice I said, Would now be a good time to mention that my daughter is marrying a girl? The immediate answer was Yes! Otherwise we might say something we shouldn’t.
It was just so honest.
I have, in my life, been accused of being brutally honest. Like I might have mentioned, I’m terrible at “small talk”. Even saying I’m fine when I’m not is a bit uncomfortable. I always appreciate honesty in others.
I have to mention how witty Brenda is, how funny and outspoken. I don’t think there’s ever been a practice where she didn’t make me laugh. I don’t know how you can get through life without humor. As long as I’m around Brenda, I know I’m safe.
And Karla may be the sweetest person I’ve ever met.
All the nights that joy has slept
Imagine my surprise to find myself with a group of women where I really felt welcomed and accepted from the start. I’ve always felt awkward around other girls. Most of my friends growing up were guys. I never was very good at being a girl.
I embarrassed everyone when on about the third practice I told them how much it meant to me to have friends. It was just so unexpected.
Brenda and I were the ones most in need of help learning the dances. She was a newbie, too. Everyone else seemed to already know all the dances.
Karla, a natural caretaker if there ever was one, began a Tuesday practice just for remedials (Brenda and me). It later became a practice for newbies, but somehow or another Brenda and I remained.
We met in a small building down the road from Karla’s house. A friend of hers allowed us to use it to practice….. and I needed it! Brenda and I bonded in our frustration with learning the steps. Fortunately for both of us, I asked for more time and repetition. I couldn’t fake it. I was lost.
What looked like a lot of fun to me was serious business to these witches.
When I started, I knew two line dances that I worked on for weeks. In my exceeding boredom during COVID isolation, I used YouTube to learn Copperhead Road and the cowboy shuffle.
I walked 2-3 miles every morning, but then I had humid summer days to get through when I couldn’t be outside for more than 15 minutes after seven a.m. and sometimes not that. So I did my walk early and didn’t do much else the rest of the day.
My answer was to learn a line dance or two.
Thank God I did.
The witches knew 27 dances and were adding more. I wasn’t sure I wanted to learn that many dances. This was more serious than I thought.
I’ve always loved to dance, but pretty much free style. Me and the music dance together. There are no rules. The only line dancing I’d done was at weddings and middle school dances. I sucked at it.
The blonde-headed witch turned out to be the leader. Tracy cracked the whip to get me into shape and I didn’t really appreciate it until we did a St Patrick’s Day bark parade two weeks after I joined. I actually knew the dances (mostly) and it turns out practices are serious and performances are for fun.
It’s theater. I’ve always loved theater.
I’ve never been great with names but after several contacts between my face and hard objects, I’m really terrible at names. They go in one ear and out the other. Two minutes after hearing a person’s name, it’s gone unless I repeat it with every contact.
No one seemed to mind when I repeated their name for the fifth or sixth time. Not remembering someone’s name isn’t generally a problem for me because new relationships for me are rare. When we moved to Port St. Joe, I would go home after talking with my neighbors and write their names on our chalkboard with something about them to help me remember. If Kerry erased the board, I was out of luck.
Getting to know these women was a joy. I found a place where I could be my quirky self. I never expected to find that again, and certainly not in more than one or two people.
What we don’t have in ethnic diversity, we make up in personality uniqueness. I told my husband early on, these women seem very comfortable with who they are.
Kerry and I joke about my top 10 weird people in my life and how no one will ever break into the top 3. (Weird is a compliment for me). They’re pretty much set in stone. I’ve always loved people who dance to a different drummer.
Perhaps because I hear a different tune myself.
I’ve never felt so comfortable so quickly being me within a group. I feel like I’ve found my people.
Robin helped in those Tuesday practices. Some people just exude cool. Robin is one of those people. When we are dancing, I sometimes lose my place because I get caught up in Robin’s dancing. Even though she’s doing the same steps as we are and ends up in the right place, it's her own brand of cool. She is definitely far away in her own zone when she’s dancing. (She reminds me of me in that way). My problem is that I needed to concentrate like she didn’t. I had no muscle memory.
But Robin always emerges to encourage and help us newbies. She’s as patient and kind as Karla. What a bonus for Brenda and me.
Brenda, Robin and Karla were who I felt a bond with almost immediately, but every witch in the group is a good person that I’d like to get to know better. That is such a gift.
I opened up and talked about my daughter’s struggle to become pregnant and how carefully excited I was that she finally succeeded. Susan, a former midwife, was especially encouraging to me. Everyone was supportive.
I more tentatively shared about my daughter getting married. No one asked me questions about who she was marrying, but I figured it might come up. Port St Joe is about as red a town as you can get. One night as we were finishing up our newbie practice I said, Would now be a good time to mention that my daughter is marrying a girl? The immediate answer was Yes! Otherwise we might say something we shouldn’t.
It was just so honest.
I have, in my life, been accused of being brutally honest. Like I might have mentioned, I’m terrible at “small talk”. Even saying I’m fine when I’m not is a bit uncomfortable. I always appreciate honesty in others.
I have to mention how witty Brenda is, how funny and outspoken. I don’t think there’s ever been a practice where she didn’t make me laugh. I don’t know how you can get through life without humor. As long as I’m around Brenda, I know I’m safe.
And Karla may be the sweetest person I’ve ever met.
All the nights that joy has slept
will awake to days of laughter
Gone the tears that you have wept
You'll dance in freedom ever after
Gone the tears that you have wept
You'll dance in freedom ever after
- Julie Miller
It’s been a brutal decade for me.
In 2014, I woke up in an ambulance not knowing how I got there. I remember hearing Holly, my assistant principal, talking. I don’t know what she said; I remember it was kind.
Holly is another precious friend.
Turns out a local firefighter found me by the side of the road next to my wrecked Piaggio X-9, It’s basically an electric motorcycle with the power (400) and the weight (500) without the noise of a motorcycle, or having to change gears. He turned me over and I started to breath normally so that he didn’t need to do CPR. I only know this because I was told.
Amnesia is real. I have never remembered what happened after I pulled out of the parking lot at school. For a couple of weeks, I didn’t even know where it had happened.
The ER determined that I had a seizure. I was 58 years old. How could I have epilepsy all of the sudden? Evidently, it was a case of bad timing. My seizures were only seconds and put me in automatic pilot. I guess I had one while making the turn where I was found.
There were many parts of my body that needed mending but the worst was my brain. Like I don’t remember my wreck, I don’t remember normal before my wreck.
It didn’t help that I had a concussion; and epilepsy medicine, by design, is a mind altering drug. I spent at least six months walking around like a zombie. It was not conducive to teaching middle schoolers. I retired at the end of the year.
Long story short. In the next 10 years, I’ve had three more falls on my face, a violent death of a loved one, and Hurricane Michael flooded my not in a flood zone house. Those were the biggies. There were other devastating heartbreaks too private to mention.
One of the most often cited recommendations to counter dementia is to learn something new and to be socially active.
Forgotten Coast Dancing Witches came to my rescue.
Sunday practices in Apalachicola is where we usually learned new dances. Thursday practices were more for review, but not always. I quickly discovered I needed to place myself near Gina or Carol. I’ve never seen either miss a step. Gina and Tracy both tried in vain to teach me the box step. My brain just could not do it that day.
Now I know it so well I can teach others.
Kerry and I would often go see the Flying Fish play at the Half-Shell Dockside on Sunday afternoons where they have a regular gig. When I started dance practice on Sundays, he would take the dog there and I would meet him afterwards.
Soon it was a dancing witches habit as well.
The Forgotten Coast has music and fun festivals in abundance. In our six years here, I would often plan to go and then forget. Dancing with the witches sent me to festivals I had so often thought of going to. Even when I couldn’t dance because of my asthma, Kerry and I followed the witches to the Carabelle festival where Kerry took photographs and I took some videos on my phone. I mentally kicked myself for missing it in the past. It was so much fun.
Brenda and I could no longer call ourselves newbies when Kelley and Tari joined. They came as a set. They were so obviously great friends. They stayed newbies for about two weeks before Tari assumed her leadership role. She became another go-to dancer like Gina and Carol.
… and the outfits!
They both dived in head first.
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil, nor spin; yet I tell you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
- Matthew 6: 28-33
Let me take a moment aside to discuss theater.
I love theater. I’ve performed in a few plays and directed some middle school plays. I’m all about the voice and movement. I would direct on a black box stage….. but for middle schoolers and a helluva lot of others, it’s all about the costumes.
Eva Haynie and Desiree King saved my life there. They loved dressing up. I never had to worry about that at all. Eva would have made such a great witch! Her four children were in full costume for every holiday…. I think they still are.
I found myself in the midst of many Eva Haynies. (Kimberly especially reminds me of her… both beautiful women. (Both good at being girls).
Amazon is troubling for me, but in a small town, I use them often. I found a cool witch dress, Gina gave me a witch hat, and I thought I was set. I had a costume. Then, I realized that outfits changed with the theme, and every dancing event had a theme. No one size fits all.
Queen of Good Enough became my moniker.
Tari and Kelley immediately joined the throng of amazing witch attire. I think Kelley may have won the all time award with her white witch, but the competition is way beyond stiff. Every performance is a work of art among the dancing witches. Except for me, of course.
My goal became not to embarrass myself (or them) by being “good enough.” While waiting on the Christmas parade, I happened to be standing next to Kelley and Robin said something to the effect of here we have the most and the least. An apt assessment.
I can’t do justice describing the witch outfits… way beyond local theater, these costumes are professional. All I can do is enjoy and have Kerry take his stunning photographs of these picturesque women.
It’s been a brutal decade for me.
In 2014, I woke up in an ambulance not knowing how I got there. I remember hearing Holly, my assistant principal, talking. I don’t know what she said; I remember it was kind.
Holly is another precious friend.
Turns out a local firefighter found me by the side of the road next to my wrecked Piaggio X-9, It’s basically an electric motorcycle with the power (400) and the weight (500) without the noise of a motorcycle, or having to change gears. He turned me over and I started to breath normally so that he didn’t need to do CPR. I only know this because I was told.
Amnesia is real. I have never remembered what happened after I pulled out of the parking lot at school. For a couple of weeks, I didn’t even know where it had happened.
The ER determined that I had a seizure. I was 58 years old. How could I have epilepsy all of the sudden? Evidently, it was a case of bad timing. My seizures were only seconds and put me in automatic pilot. I guess I had one while making the turn where I was found.
There were many parts of my body that needed mending but the worst was my brain. Like I don’t remember my wreck, I don’t remember normal before my wreck.
It didn’t help that I had a concussion; and epilepsy medicine, by design, is a mind altering drug. I spent at least six months walking around like a zombie. It was not conducive to teaching middle schoolers. I retired at the end of the year.
Long story short. In the next 10 years, I’ve had three more falls on my face, a violent death of a loved one, and Hurricane Michael flooded my not in a flood zone house. Those were the biggies. There were other devastating heartbreaks too private to mention.
One of the most often cited recommendations to counter dementia is to learn something new and to be socially active.
Forgotten Coast Dancing Witches came to my rescue.
Sunday practices in Apalachicola is where we usually learned new dances. Thursday practices were more for review, but not always. I quickly discovered I needed to place myself near Gina or Carol. I’ve never seen either miss a step. Gina and Tracy both tried in vain to teach me the box step. My brain just could not do it that day.
Now I know it so well I can teach others.
Kerry and I would often go see the Flying Fish play at the Half-Shell Dockside on Sunday afternoons where they have a regular gig. When I started dance practice on Sundays, he would take the dog there and I would meet him afterwards.
Soon it was a dancing witches habit as well.
The Forgotten Coast has music and fun festivals in abundance. In our six years here, I would often plan to go and then forget. Dancing with the witches sent me to festivals I had so often thought of going to. Even when I couldn’t dance because of my asthma, Kerry and I followed the witches to the Carabelle festival where Kerry took photographs and I took some videos on my phone. I mentally kicked myself for missing it in the past. It was so much fun.
Brenda and I could no longer call ourselves newbies when Kelley and Tari joined. They came as a set. They were so obviously great friends. They stayed newbies for about two weeks before Tari assumed her leadership role. She became another go-to dancer like Gina and Carol.
… and the outfits!
They both dived in head first.
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil, nor spin; yet I tell you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
- Matthew 6: 28-33
Let me take a moment aside to discuss theater.
I love theater. I’ve performed in a few plays and directed some middle school plays. I’m all about the voice and movement. I would direct on a black box stage….. but for middle schoolers and a helluva lot of others, it’s all about the costumes.
Eva Haynie and Desiree King saved my life there. They loved dressing up. I never had to worry about that at all. Eva would have made such a great witch! Her four children were in full costume for every holiday…. I think they still are.
I found myself in the midst of many Eva Haynies. (Kimberly especially reminds me of her… both beautiful women. (Both good at being girls).
Amazon is troubling for me, but in a small town, I use them often. I found a cool witch dress, Gina gave me a witch hat, and I thought I was set. I had a costume. Then, I realized that outfits changed with the theme, and every dancing event had a theme. No one size fits all.
Queen of Good Enough became my moniker.
Tari and Kelley immediately joined the throng of amazing witch attire. I think Kelley may have won the all time award with her white witch, but the competition is way beyond stiff. Every performance is a work of art among the dancing witches. Except for me, of course.
My goal became not to embarrass myself (or them) by being “good enough.” While waiting on the Christmas parade, I happened to be standing next to Kelley and Robin said something to the effect of here we have the most and the least. An apt assessment.
I can’t do justice describing the witch outfits… way beyond local theater, these costumes are professional. All I can do is enjoy and have Kerry take his stunning photographs of these picturesque women.
And picturesque they are.
If I started to name all the superb witch attire, I would surely fall short. I did love watching Wanda’s shimmying behind with her jingly waist band. I had to get one myself, but I would never match her shimmy.
And there’s Caroline. She was misplaced at birth in California. She is the quintessential Southern lady in the manner of the progressive women of the 30s who brought public libraries, food safety laws and so much other good to our country.
When I learned her age (which I won’t share), I couldn’t believe how well she danced. She was slowed down by knee surgery, but she came back in an amazingly short period of time. Caroline is one of those fantastic dressers, and is a little like Robin in adapting her dancing while still being totally in tune with the group. (In her case, more because of physical limitations).
The Forgotten Coast Dancing Witches is so much more than the dancing. It’s the camaraderie. I take great pride in goading Robin into karaoke. She completely blew us away. I’ve been waiting breathlessly to hear her again.
I love the company for a beer or meal. It’s always been just Kerry and me since we moved here.
These ladies do like to eat out. They must have a separate bank account just for restaurants. Kerry’s cooking is better than almost any restaurant we go to, but sometimes I just have to join for the fun of being together.
The butterfly counts not months, but moments, and has time enough.
- Rabindranath Tagore
For the past decade, I find myself just waiting for the next disaster. It came this month when I awoke to a thump and realized Kerry had fallen off the bed. I rushed to his supine body and held his head in my hand as I tried to talk to him. He was completely unresponsive. His eyes were open but there was nothing there.
This is it, I thought. My life is once again going to change forever.
When we got to the ER, I was so wrapped up in my fear that it wasn’t until Tari said, you didn’t get enough of me yet, that I realized she was his ER nurse. (We have so many witches who are, or have been, nurses….something I’ve pondered. We have a lot of former teachers as well).
I immediately felt better.
At our next dance practice, Tari stood next to me and quietly asked how he was doing. It’s hard to explain how such a small gesture can mean so much.
Life is just so much richer when you have friends.
Our witch troupe keeps getting bigger and better. Obviously, the bigger the group, the less likely to get really close to someone. (a lesson churches should heed). But I feel like I could. And I am.
The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
- Muriel Rukeyser
My Christmas stories are almost exclusively fiction. Most of them are imagining back stories of people in the Bible. I think I’ve only written two autobiographical ones.
So why this year?
Christmas is a time of seeking light and grace for me. All my stories are ultimately about grace, about a light that shines in the darkness.
Our world is pretty dark right now…. as it was when Jesus was born. We are not just divided in our nation. We are divided in so many ways. Prejudice is universal. We fear people who are different from us.
Red-blue, black-white, citizen-immigrant, rich-poor, hungry-fed. People living in war zones and in the midst of natural disaster devastation. Kindergarteners gunned down in their classrooms. Mass shooters everywhere. Spouse abuse, child abuse. It is so hard not to be overcome by the evil. It is so hard to find joy.
So I tell a real story. My story. I tell it because we all have our stories. We are alike so much more than we are different. Mostly, we all want to be loved. We all want to be heard.
Perhaps by telling my story I can make it easier for someone else to tell theirs.
Maybe I was called by the Lord to be a dancing witch.
Jesus never said Follow me and you will go to heaven when you die. Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
We can be part of it.
We can be friends.
We can love and be loved.
Peace and Joy, Christmas 2023
Mama
My Christmas stories are almost exclusively fiction. Most of them are imagining back stories of people in the Bible. I think I’ve only written two autobiographical ones.
So why this year?
Christmas is a time of seeking light and grace for me. All my stories are ultimately about grace, about a light that shines in the darkness.
Our world is pretty dark right now…. as it was when Jesus was born. We are not just divided in our nation. We are divided in so many ways. Prejudice is universal. We fear people who are different from us.
Red-blue, black-white, citizen-immigrant, rich-poor, hungry-fed. People living in war zones and in the midst of natural disaster devastation. Kindergarteners gunned down in their classrooms. Mass shooters everywhere. Spouse abuse, child abuse. It is so hard not to be overcome by the evil. It is so hard to find joy.
So I tell a real story. My story. I tell it because we all have our stories. We are alike so much more than we are different. Mostly, we all want to be loved. We all want to be heard.
Perhaps by telling my story I can make it easier for someone else to tell theirs.
Maybe I was called by the Lord to be a dancing witch.
Jesus never said Follow me and you will go to heaven when you die. Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
We can be part of it.
We can be friends.
We can love and be loved.
Peace and Joy, Christmas 2023
Mama
