The first dance of the evening I was a little nervous. I hadn’t dance a set in 6 months. The Clare Lancers Set was announced, a set I was confident in. But for the life of me I couldn’t have told you what the first move was. Thinking of it now it completely escapes me. Is it a lead around? Fortunately my dance memory is a kinisthetic one. The moment the music started and I had to do something, my body remembered what it was I had to do. And performed it flawlessly. I’m at the level of dance skill that merely making it through a figure without having to ponder my next move too hard give me profound pleasure.
A psychic once told me that I had several past lives in Ireland . I’m a skeptical agnostic on these matters. If all of us had past lives, and there’s so many more people alive now than have ever lived, there must have been a dozen of us sharing the same past life for the math to work out. If I’m so rational about this wuu-wuu stuff, why was I consulting a psychic in the first place, you might reasonably ask. Another story. But whether I’m visiting a place that a piece of me remembers, or just that something in it deeply soothes and touches me, I have an attachment to The West that is ultimately beyond explanation.
Doug Plummer
Ballyvourney, Co. Cork
