Special Sections

Peggy Pollard, Teacher www.PeggyDance.weebly.com Join the funnest social dancing in Santa Cruz! Santa Cruz Waltz & Swing In-Person & Online Dances & Lessons Meet cool & sophisticated new friends! Senior Outreach peer-counselors (55+) provide in-home counseling free of charge to adults 55 and older residing in Santa Cruz County. As we age, transitions can sometimes be painful and hard to adjust to. It may be helpful to talk to someone near your own age to help work through the issues at hand. Peer-counselors bring their lived experience and counseling skills as they support their clients through grief, loss, loneliness, change in independence, illness, relocation, family conflicts, situational depression, access to resources, and other age-related issues in a safe and confidential environment. There is someone who will REALLY listen to you. PLEASE CALL 831-459-9351 SENIOR OUTREACH (a program of Family Service Agency of the Central Coast) WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME SOMEONE REALLY LISTENED TO YOU? Leave a message for a call back within 24 hours. We All Have A Gif t It was a fair and equal exchange, I thought. They teach me; I teach them. The ladies ran out to greet me at the front porch as soon as our car drove up their village dirt road. My hosts and I piled out of the car to carry my bags inside, but the six women blocked us. form- ing a half circle around me on the porch. They would not let us enter without a proper Lhuwhwahwa Village welcome. I readied my phone's camera to record the im- portant moments. It stayed glued to my hand for the next two days. Host Sedriss sang out the melody in Lukonzo language. The other women echoed it back, stepping side to side, swinging arms, swaying hips and elbows while they sang, repeating the dance and song many times, to the good feelings sink deeply in. My! They looked elegant in their beautiful dresses, and ornate hairstyles, nicer than I had seen them on my past visits. Evidently their lives had improved from our water projects in the past 10 years, during which I have come once every four years, so far. Kind of a leap year occasion. On this, my third visit, they welcomed me as their familiar friend. It showed in their danc- ing exuberance. "Welcome visitor Peg Poe-lard. We are so HAPPY you are joining us" Sedriss sang out in her Lukanzo-esque English. The ladies echoed, their vibrant voices swelled louder and deeper, notes rising up into the rustling green leaves of the Matoki trees around us. The ladies' dark brown faces glowed with big white smiles, so happy that after those two extra covid years waiting for us, I had FINALLY come. "Our lives are better now," my host translated. "The whole neighbor village has also joined in our happiness. Now their new Rotary projects are helping them too, to live healthier lives with clean water and sanitation." Though many other people near and far helped our project, my solo visit triggered this occasion to commemorate. They know -- when Peggy comes, good things happen. The celebration had begun. The six ladies circle around me, still dancing. I clap my hands in rhythm, receiving their thanks. I was almost to the end of my ambitious four weeks of travel at this point. So I'd been in fast forward mode, constantly rushing to not miss any appointments. But in my haste, I had al- most missed this beautiful moment, standing at the entryway to their village leaders home, letting them welcome me proper- ly to their village, to begin my visit awesomely with them sharing their hearts with me through their welcome dance So I try to let my face re- lax from my overly tense, trying-too-hard, grin and just enjoy this beautiful moment. But the dance spark inside me soon flares up, until I can no longer stand it. I'm not happy being merely the object of their thanks. I jump into the circle to dance at their side as an equal partner. Like Alice through the looking glass, I step into their world, become one with the dancers. This feels better. Now, instead of merely observ- ing their joy, I'm sending it from my soul too, part of their communal flow of thanksgiving. How cool is that? Later, after our two-day celebration wound down, host Sedriss asked me to teach them a dance. Fair enough! Now, what dance could be more American than Swing? Invented by African-Americans it is a world favorite dance from American culture. So for me to teach it to real Africans… How cool is that? So I demonstrated the basic East Coast Swing step: side-tap, side-tap, rock-step. While Sedriss struggled to catch the rock-step, the other ladies got it, grin- ning with delight to know an American dance. It was a fair exchange, I think. My teaching them a Swing Dance for their teaching me their Lukanzo welcome dance? No, actually. It's not. It's not an exchange. It's pure generosity on both sides. Instead of thinking that for our "Welcome guest" and "Thank You Host" gifts we need to go out and buy with money (which some of us don't have) some physical THING more valuable to give, even better is giving what we already have in our body, in our spirit. How cool is that? The hard part is trusting that it is enough. "Peggy we have no gift to give you" my host confid- ed to me. "Oh no," I assured him, "you have many gifts: your time, your friend- ship, your good work on the project." But, I realize, the one gift I REALLY enjoy the most is their gift of dance. Perhaps for others the best gift is singing together, or fishing together, and of course talking is import- ant. But to dance together? This is my favorite. If I can't jump in and dance with them, I feel I hav- en't fully connected. It was the funnest part of my visit, honestly. The act of moving your entire physical self through time and space to music, for another person's sake -- risking judgment or rejection, though ephemeral as a mist, often unrecorded, existing only in the mem- ory of the viewer and perhaps forgotten-- if we truly mean it, is a weighty gift to impart. We all have this gift to give. How cool is that? Very cool indeed. By Peggy Pollard, Santa Cruz Waltz & Swing www.peggy- dance.weebly.com Adobe stock photo Look as Young as You Feel! Feel as Young as You Want Solutions for Women's Health 831-226-2108 rejuvenatemedi-spa.com 1595 38 th Ave., Capitola Satellite Offices in Aptos, Scotts Valley, Watsonville List of services for women's health: • Stem Cell & Exosome Therapy • Safe Menopause Treatments • Anti-Aging Aesthetic Therapies • IV Therapy & Vitamin Shots • Adrenal & Thyroid Analysis & Support

• Cover