Merry May!
Saturday night we used the last of our season tickets to the SF Ballet and saw "Romeo and Juliet", music by Prokofiev, choreography by Helgi Tomasson. It was gorgeous and we were all a bit weepy by the end of it (in fact I got weepy at the end of the Balcony Scene, which was purely beautiful). I still think Kenneth MacMillan's choreography for the Royal Ballet is the best ever, but that may be because I saw it danced by Nureyev & Fonteyn. The review in today's SF Gate was lukewarm, but we all loved it.
All of which meant that I got to bed about midnight, only to wake up again at 3:45, dress, eat a bit and head up to Inspiration Point for the Morris Dancing and Welcoming In The May. I was the first to arrive, followed shortly thereafter by snowwy and the Walpurgisnacht crew. People continued to arrive, greeting old friends and getting settled. The darkess began to lift a bit. The dancers finally began arriving, putting on their bells and ribbons. And as a faint glow began to backlight Mt. Diablo in the east, the Horn Dancers padded out of the pre-dawn darkness to the music of pipe and drum.
The Horn Dancers wear bells but their sound is very muted. Each dancer carries a stick with a pair of antlers affixed to the top. As the pipe and drum play an odd little tune the dancers circle and then divide into two lines. The lines come together and the horns clash, then separate and the dancers weave in and out. Circle, clash, weave, the dance goes on and finally ends as the dancers pad quietly back into the dark and the pipe music trails away.
I love the Horn Dance (official name "Abbots Bromley" for the village where it originates). The village records of it go back to 1226, and I'm sure it's older than that -- much, much older. When it's performed in the early dawn light it makes all the hair on the back of my neck stand up and I can see in my mind fire-lit caves with ochre paintings on the walls. Pure earth magic...
Then all the Morris dancers burst forth in their bells and ribbons and flowered hats, waving white handkerchiefs and dancing up a storm. There was at least one new dance this year, to the tune of "My Grandfather's Clock" -- we all sang along. One of the dancers was a little boy, maybe 10 years old or so, whose shorter legs had a hard time keeping up but who danced very well indeed. There was a new Clown this year in addition to the Bear (who had a new mask and robe), a woman dressed as the Queen of Hearts playing card complete with red-light-tipped wand who went about blipping people on the head for luck. The Morris Cake with a sword stuck through the pan was duly served round, and we all dropped a bit of money in the hat as well. And at last the sun rose above the horizon to great cheers -- it worked again! So to finish up we all did the mass round dance and departed, and many of us went off to Vicki Solomon's house for sausages and quiche and enormous strawberries and lots of good company.
My mother came up from Pasadena on Thursday to spend the weekend with friends. I picked her and her friend Barbara up at Oakland airport and took them to lunch at Kincaid's in Jack London Square before delivering them to Barbara's condo in SF. They had plans for most of the weekend but Mama wanted to spend Sunday with me. So when I got back from Inspiration Point I had just time to change to rather jazzier clothes and drive over to SF to pick her up. We drove down to Sunnyvale to spend the afternoon with her oldest friend Marcia, whom she has known since they were both a year old (they will be 82 this summer but don't tell anybody). Marcia lives in a double-wide trailer full of beautiful antiques, family oil portraits, hand-made needlepoint-covered chairs and lots of little bibelots. Neither one of them looks their age -- maybe 65 at most, and Marcia's hair is still a soft brown with almost no grey. She fed us lunch and we talked non-stop for over 5 hours on an amazing variety of topics -- it was huge fun. These women aren't futzy little old ladies, they are dynamic, well-informed, interesting people with whom I happen to disagree a lot. It got even more fun when they disagreed with each other. Nobody was nasty or mean and we all enjoyed ourselves hugely. Eventually we had to take our leave and I drove Mama back to SF on 280, deriving immense enjoyment from pointing out (to her dismay) that we were driving along the eastern edge of the San Andreas Fault. I got home in time to eat dinner and walk the dog, after which I fell on my nose. A long, eventful, richly enjoyable Beltane Day...
Today I sort of walked around in a sleepy haze and got very little done except a load of dishes. Tomorrow I will make bread, probably corn & rye since my housemates like it, and keep looking for a job. And I have been asked by our_meg and shadowwalkyr to officiate at their wedding next year, an enormous honor. Blessed Be, dear ones!
All of which meant that I got to bed about midnight, only to wake up again at 3:45, dress, eat a bit and head up to Inspiration Point for the Morris Dancing and Welcoming In The May. I was the first to arrive, followed shortly thereafter by snowwy and the Walpurgisnacht crew. People continued to arrive, greeting old friends and getting settled. The darkess began to lift a bit. The dancers finally began arriving, putting on their bells and ribbons. And as a faint glow began to backlight Mt. Diablo in the east, the Horn Dancers padded out of the pre-dawn darkness to the music of pipe and drum.
The Horn Dancers wear bells but their sound is very muted. Each dancer carries a stick with a pair of antlers affixed to the top. As the pipe and drum play an odd little tune the dancers circle and then divide into two lines. The lines come together and the horns clash, then separate and the dancers weave in and out. Circle, clash, weave, the dance goes on and finally ends as the dancers pad quietly back into the dark and the pipe music trails away.
I love the Horn Dance (official name "Abbots Bromley" for the village where it originates). The village records of it go back to 1226, and I'm sure it's older than that -- much, much older. When it's performed in the early dawn light it makes all the hair on the back of my neck stand up and I can see in my mind fire-lit caves with ochre paintings on the walls. Pure earth magic...
Then all the Morris dancers burst forth in their bells and ribbons and flowered hats, waving white handkerchiefs and dancing up a storm. There was at least one new dance this year, to the tune of "My Grandfather's Clock" -- we all sang along. One of the dancers was a little boy, maybe 10 years old or so, whose shorter legs had a hard time keeping up but who danced very well indeed. There was a new Clown this year in addition to the Bear (who had a new mask and robe), a woman dressed as the Queen of Hearts playing card complete with red-light-tipped wand who went about blipping people on the head for luck. The Morris Cake with a sword stuck through the pan was duly served round, and we all dropped a bit of money in the hat as well. And at last the sun rose above the horizon to great cheers -- it worked again! So to finish up we all did the mass round dance and departed, and many of us went off to Vicki Solomon's house for sausages and quiche and enormous strawberries and lots of good company.
My mother came up from Pasadena on Thursday to spend the weekend with friends. I picked her and her friend Barbara up at Oakland airport and took them to lunch at Kincaid's in Jack London Square before delivering them to Barbara's condo in SF. They had plans for most of the weekend but Mama wanted to spend Sunday with me. So when I got back from Inspiration Point I had just time to change to rather jazzier clothes and drive over to SF to pick her up. We drove down to Sunnyvale to spend the afternoon with her oldest friend Marcia, whom she has known since they were both a year old (they will be 82 this summer but don't tell anybody). Marcia lives in a double-wide trailer full of beautiful antiques, family oil portraits, hand-made needlepoint-covered chairs and lots of little bibelots. Neither one of them looks their age -- maybe 65 at most, and Marcia's hair is still a soft brown with almost no grey. She fed us lunch and we talked non-stop for over 5 hours on an amazing variety of topics -- it was huge fun. These women aren't futzy little old ladies, they are dynamic, well-informed, interesting people with whom I happen to disagree a lot. It got even more fun when they disagreed with each other. Nobody was nasty or mean and we all enjoyed ourselves hugely. Eventually we had to take our leave and I drove Mama back to SF on 280, deriving immense enjoyment from pointing out (to her dismay) that we were driving along the eastern edge of the San Andreas Fault. I got home in time to eat dinner and walk the dog, after which I fell on my nose. A long, eventful, richly enjoyable Beltane Day...
Today I sort of walked around in a sleepy haze and got very little done except a load of dishes. Tomorrow I will make bread, probably corn & rye since my housemates like it, and keep looking for a job. And I have been asked by our_meg and shadowwalkyr to officiate at their wedding next year, an enormous honor. Blessed Be, dear ones!