This is how my memory works

Attended online Texa-Kolo Balkan dance and music festival this weekend. Michael Ginsburg taught the dance Kotlenkso Horo from Bulgaria, and started out by singing the melody to us without words.

( It sounded familiar )

I sometimes wonder if people say indulgently about my singing, "Well, she works so hard..." (but she'll never be any good). But I have *something*, to be able to do that with a song that I haven't heard or worked on since 2007. Realistically, I think I have that common artist problem of my ear being better than my skill level.

Also about my associative memory, I've posted before about my minor superpower of knowing what folk dance someone is requesting from minimal clues. Last night at my little zoom dance group, someone dropped in whom I've danced with a lot in the past, but not in the last few years. She said, "What's that Dwight-dance that starts with a lift, that's happy." (Dwight leads a lot of great dances.) It helped that she physically showed a big starting lift. I paused to let that floating-up process happen, and got it in one try. Strumička Petorka.

The dancer in that video is Bora Gajički, the man who introduced the dance. As a side note, I have dance shoes just like his, because he made and sold opanci (pointed toe leather shoes) out of his home in LA for many years. In the dance group when I was a kid, one of the best dancers had opanci. I had always wanted some, and jumped at the chance to get a pair at my first Balkanalia. A rare experience, to want something for 30 years, and like it just as much as I thought I would when I get it. Over time, I danced right through the leather bottoms. A dance friend John Sharp glued thicker leather to the bottoms for me, and I'm still dancing in them.

Stories: Friendship and warmth

These two stories make me cry because of the warm connections they show.

The Tale of the White Lady of Iffish by raspberryhunter via melannen. "It is not told in the Deed of Seren how Tenar of the Ring became the White Lady of Iffish. This is that story." I had read (and recced) this one before, and it's even better than I remembered.

Wholly to Be a Fool by bluestocking79 via beatrice_otter on fancake for the Going Home theme. "At the age of 65, Eileen Prince Snape is as surprised as anyone to find that she's finally developed an interest in being anybody's wife or mother."