GOLDEN

Hard to shake, this habit of counting… Up… Down… Counting as a yearning; reaching for the ‘was’, the ‘maybe’, and all the while missing while staring into the glare, hardly sensing an injury… ‘T/here, th/here’...

An uneasy shift as the counter clicks – an inaudible tick (we don’t like clocks in this house), then, fire is worked to shock out the old and shake in the new, shaking the screen. Resolutions, aspirations… 3 weeks on and another chance looms, to re-start, re-fresh, re-kindle, re-turn, with dragons.

On New Year’s Day (Gregorian), no.9 filled briefly with L.C’s old ballroom tunes, thanks to the recent purchase of a cheap record player, and we waltzed and cha-cha’d badly in the cramped living room. L.C showed off his various amateur ballroom dancer’s awards and certificates from the late 1960s, and I made a couple of connections:

1. M.-with-the-beehive and G. – L.C’s friends in Southend – were his one-time dance teachers (or was it just Beehive-M?).

2. L.C also danced in Leicestershire for a while – and I may have acquired footage of the dancehall he frequented.