Ennui in Tap Shoes

Tap Dance is vigorous. Lassitude is the antithesis of the vigor involved even in executing a flap. Ennui mixed with the silence that is provoking the muse, stares out in space at the sparse but spirit filled garden absorbing the sun on my rocky knoll. I promised that today i would put on my tap shoes. I will after i have fixed my gaze on the bees buzzing the flowers of my oregano plant. (Time passes) Oh a butterfly. Which butterfly is it. It is orange, and then another one. That picks up the pace a little. A breeze. Some leaves wave at me. We are so intimate, the leaves and me. I will miss them when they are gone to bronze and dropped to mulch. A deep breath. Climb the stairs to my studio. My dance studio, which is also my music studio where I practice playing Bach, Chopin and Charlie Parker on my concertina, and the piano where I write music, with one hand at a time. And it now holds the desk that holds my two computors, and all the little books that secret away my passwords, lost in pages between new poems, zoom addresses, notes on my new novel, notes on my new memoir on PRACTICE. Oh yes, that is it my promise. Practice...shoes on. I will soon be 83, on September 7th. When I practice now, I get migraines. So softly I proceed. Ahhh the shuffle, the cramp roll, the riff and all my crawls. Surprisingly the feet remember what my mind forgets. i am grateful but I must not go on too long. That is the saddest part. Now that I have started i want to continue, on and on and on, vigorously. But I must not. If I continue too long, tonight my legs will cramp just as I fall asleep. And soon I will have to wonder what these migraines mean. Do they mean no more cramp rolls, where the heels drop deeply into a bass sound, no more bringing the bass notes up from the heels, creating interesting syncopations when I am playing 8th notes or 8th note triplets. it is a cruel irony that articulation is so clear and precise and that even tonality brings music to my ears, that I can not sustain this blissful activity. Will i get stronger if I dance just a little every day. Will I be able to dance longer? If...that very big if, if every day I can climb the stairs away from the ennui that waits for the world to begin again and the wondering will i begin again with the world or will it be too late, because ennui ate my tap shoes, and old age settled me into my soft comfortable slippers, content to write the next novel and conjour up a new pot. 78 years in Tap shoes hardly seems long enough.