Dancing in the Office (But Not on the Desk)

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DANCING IN THE OFFICE (BUT NOT ON THE DESK)
Monday
May 14, 2007

Dear Betty,

I happened upon my friend Fred dancing in his office. It was late in the afternoon and most of the other school
district employees had left the board building. Fred is only slightly younger than me, of predominantly African-American extraction, relatively slender and unusually tall -- perhaps 6'8" in height -- and an unusually intelligent, friendly, well-spoken, even somewhat philosophical guy who mostly sits at a desk at a computer screen most of the day. But here it was, perhaps 5:30 on the afternoon of a long workday; and here was Fred, to the strains of soft soul music playing on his CD player, dancing ever so gently in his office, his gestures articulated just enough that one could call it dancing.

And it got me to thinking. Of lots of things. Including you, because of your being a semi-retired psychiatrist, and therefore, of how utterly healthy Fred's dancing this particular dance to this particular music in his office near the end of a long workday struck me as being. And how utterly healthy it would have struck you as being.

That was last Friday afternoon. As I try to remember that moment now, I'm put in mind also of that delightful little tragicomic William Carlos Williams poem in which he closes the blinds and dances alone in his room. Fred's dance in his office was even less rowdy than was the late poet-physician's in his poem.

But most of all, my happening upon my friend Fred dancing in his office (though not on his desk) left me with that feeling we sometimes experience when reading or hearing a devastatingly beautiful or profound poem -- that feeling of "often felt, but ne'er so well expressed." And yet it wasn't so much translatable into: "Gee, why didn't I think of doing that?" -- as it was translatable into: "Gee, why doesn't everybody do that?" It could turn out to be precisely the shot in the arm that the American office scene has been needing to put America back into our formerly competitive position in the global market place.

Or do you think that it may take something more than all of us dancing in the office?

HONEY BEES ON BUTTERCUPS,

Galen

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P.S.
Marie will be on a trip to Dallas from the 17th till the 30th. Would you care to have dinner and conversation the afternoon or evening of May 19th or 20th or 26th or 27th or 28th? I'd love to get together with you and at least begin to try to catch up. RSVP!!! /gg


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