CLEAR THE DANCEFLOOR
The drive to school with my daughter this morning was as it always is: a conjugation of rural highway and farmland, verdant greens of various tones smeared over acres of rich soil, evidence of glaciation and imagination. My daughter and I cover ground and outside our windows lush emerald hills undulate one over the other like smooth dance moves/shoulders rolling/arms of wind and wave.
This workaday trek is the ride of a lifetime, what with the rising sun and prismatic morning dews and staccato blades of grass and gulls flying over and hawks swooping down. You just never know—you never know what you might encounter on County Road 18 and her tributaries, the wild voyage to school.
This morning, as my daughter recounts the titles of Broadway shows-turned-food-puns—”Okra-homa!” “My Pear Lady!”—from the backseat, we pass clutches of kids gathered at bus stops, small humans shivering patiently along curbs and cul-de-sacs.
In one such group, two girls twirl and glide in unison across the sidewalk, scarlet and amber tresses a murmuration as their bodies whirl like the whole world is watching—because it is. The crowd of bus stop kids and bleary-eyed parents stand stock-still, transfixed.
And several minutes down the road, just around the bend from our destination, a young girl swirls circle over circle wide and far and with total abandon, dances a Möbius strip across a broken driveway for no one other than herself. Her moon face gleams, turned upward toward the dawn. Golden locks catch light; a corona.
Girls, dancing. Girls dancing, unfettered. Girls demanding witness, dancing for the world. Girls demanding pleasure, dancing for themselves. Girls dancing on the blacktop, at the bus stop, through piles of snow and Spanish moss, behind the counter, above board and under the table, girls everywhere glorying in the sturm and drang of their miraculous bodies.
Of course I’m making a point
[about girls, about women, about sovereignty and safety and beauty and power and witness and justice and consent and rhythm and rhyme and the soft animal and the feral animal and the yoni and the maiden and the mother and the man and the boy and the crone and the daughter and the child and the Creator and the dance and the dancer]
here in this cultural moment, at this very particular historical juncture. And readers, if you’ve paid the headlines even a passing glance, I know you don’t need me to lay it out for you.
I haven’t written here with regularity in a long time, because my personal life requires my full attention at the moment. But I had to write today, because of the girls, dancing. The girls dancing in unison at bus stops everywhere. The girls dancing on broken asphalt for nothing more than their own pleasure.
I will write and fight to the teeth for the dancing girls.
With everything in me, I will clear the dancefloor for them—over, and over, and over again.
Do you care
to dance?
With gratitude,
MERKAT
FODDER
Looking to counteract the mechanization of the universe, even just a little bit, even just your own little corner? There are books for that!
Here are a couple of my most recent wonderful encounters:
Fiction
On the recommendation of a couple of pals, I watched the film version of The Summer Book a couple of months back. Holy. Watch it just for the cinematography!
After that catharsis, I had to read the original novel by Tove Jansson. I don’t think I’ve ever picked up a book blurbed on the back by both Ali Smith and Philip Pullman—The Summer Book is that book! If that doesn’t spark your curiosity—check it out:
“An elderly artist and her six-year-old granddaughter spend the summer together on a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland. As the two learn to adjust to each other’s fears, whims, and yearnings, a fierce yet understated love emerges – one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the very island itself.”
Nonfiction
If you have a kid, are a kid, or work with kids—I highly recommend The Amazing Generation: Your Guide to Fun and Freedom in a Screen Filled World, by Jonathan Haidt, author of the acclaimed Anxious Generation. If I were back teaching in a traditional classroom, I would absolutely make this part of my curriculum.
MY ART/EVENTS/POETRY
I’ve been all sketch, no scribble for the most part this year, both by necessity and desire.
I’m working on two projects—paintings based on the Great Lakes Watershed and pen and ink illustrations of small animals reading big books, with an eye for a future project linking the illustrations.
You can see a couple of these illustrations below, or better yet, go on and check out my online visual art portfolio (click here! & hosted right here on my main Substack page!
I’ve been updating it on the regular, and am always happy to talk prints of all kinds—art prints, wood prints, greeting cards, tote bags, posters and more—made from my original (and ENTIRELY AI-FREE NOW AND ALWAYS!!!! may I add) artwork. Ideas?
Just message me!
Finally, my perennially creative, competent and collaborative dear pal Shannon Linton is at it again, this time with a podcast!
Check out her newest project, Make Like a Mother, a podcast that explores what it means to be both an artist and a mother from myriad angles and across multiple genres of art-making.
The show launched last weekend with a live taping and interviews, and boy howdy was it fun! I had a great time contributing my piece, and I am chomping at the bit to listen to each interview—I’d binge the whole dang thing if I could, but for now—a new episode each week!
Until next time!
With gratitude,
MERKAT
You have too been writing! Enjoyed this. I was a little girl dancer way back when. Dancing was one of my happy places. Still is! And I enjoyed "The Summer Book" movie version. Curious about the book. Watch "Tove" next, if you have time. Very excellent biopic!
Thank you for the joyful girls dancing their freedom, their maiden hood, their corona, their scarlet. I know we are on the same wavelength about protecting them, and their choices.