The Dance

Five dark plum callas float high above a tall white vase, each at the end of a long, thin stem that curves out into the air, and none of them seems to touch anything at all.

The vase is calm and pale and very still, its small mouth closed almost to nothing. Everything above it is movement: stems arching the way arms arch in a dance, flowers turned at every angle like faces caught mid-step. You can almost hear where the music is. And yet the stems are so fine. They carry the colour without seeming to carry anything.

We tend to think of strength as weight: something that pushes, holds, endures. But there is another kind, the kind a dancer has, or a person who meets hard years lightly. It takes great control to look this effortless. What floats has usually worked hardest to be able to.

Perhaps lightness is its own kind of strength.