Dance, dance wherever you may be

As far as I know, Noah’s viewing of Disney’s animated The Jungle Book more than a year ago was not a defining moment. I was barely able to get him to sit through part of the jazzed out temple bacchanalia. Now he’s doing what he calls the ‘monkey dance’ complete with simian sound effects as he careens around the front room. Had I not known better I would have thought he was Mowgli’s understudy. He has some boppin’ riffs that even King Louis would have loved to claim as his own choreography.

Our boy is a dancer. His first joyful steps were to the accompaniment of Diogal’s Sore performed in this video at the Satellit Café in Paris. Not long after he stabilized upright he locked the rhythm down simmering sweet. He’s got a groove and it’s good to the see the mostly unihibited moves as he shakes, extends, bends and spins on the ground. Diogal, thanks for the initial inspiration, his first gift of dance.

With so much dance in the air, it’s à propos that we read It’s a George Thing. George is a zebra who serendipitously discovers that dance is his thing. It gives him a newfound confidence and a means to express himself. Dance is a passion he can share. Great story by David Bedford and illustrations by Russell Julian. The book has a tongue in cheek dedication to John Travolta. Sure to bring bedtime smiles and giggles for the three to six-year-old crowd.

Music and dance are soul mates and Noah loves them both. He’s relaying his passion to Nellie-Rose. She’s a welcome recipient experimenting in her own right with sound and movement. In fact, we’ve taken to riding with a small drum in the back seat of the car. I saw it sitting there between the car seats on a recent solo drive and thought, “This is going to be trouble.” It’s surprising though how just the one, a small one it must be emphasized, can have a soothing effect and provide great accompaniment to la ferme à Maturin, Old MacDonald’s. So far, it’s a great car toy but I wouldn’t want to contend with this while driving…

After the jam session, Nellie and I go out for our own pas de deux where rolling waves meet the beach at Rainbow Haven. It starts calamitously. I lose sight of her walking to the car. As I swing open my door I hear a soft thud and a wail of disbelief. Nellie is on her back in the driveway sobbing, tears streaming down her face. Fortunately a neighbour is walking by with a small puppy. She comes over and the distraction gradually dispels the tears.

Out at water’s edge, the foaming sea snakes up the beach, slithering in, whispering out. Nellie has her puddle hoppers on, unsure at first if she should retreat from the advancing water. She looks up into my face for a cue. With a big smile and a couple of words I encourage the fun and frolic option. I let her know that she’s safe and that I will stay close. It’s not long before a hesitant toe dip is a full fledged assault and Nellie becomes an island in the midst of shifting eddies.

This is all great fun, a salt tinged breeze on a mild October day, fine rocks to collect on the almost abandoned beach, the calming sound of breaking surf and time to be with my baby passing in an unhurried ebb and flow tempo. Her next move jags me out of my pastoral. She’s horizontal again looking up at the sky and getting wet as the last traces of water on the piece of beach she’s occupying gets sucked back into the sea. Into my arms for a cuddle. She’s a bit damp but none the worse for wear. Wet enough though for us to start making tracks home but not quite so bad that there can’t be a detour for some contemplative freestyle puddle exploration. It’s not as tricky as the run and dash water at the beach.

Sunday we’re on the road for Windsor – home of the giant pumpkins and the world’s first pumpkin regatta. Linus lovers of the world unite. This is the pumpkin patch gone out of its gourd. It’s a great pumpkin happening like no other and an inventive solution to stretching the tourist season.

Thousands of people are taking in the Childen’s Wish Foundation parade. First we hang out under the sign of the Tim”s where we get a pretty good view of some of the floats. We venture into the crowds on Water Street and one of the bystanders quips, “Look a double decker. And one in the oven.” The parade is almost over but these curbside bon mots as we roll by on the street make us feel like we’re part of it all.

We stroll down to waterside in search of those fabled pumpkin bateaux. This is Lake Pezaquid where the real action takes place. All eyes are drawn to the expanse of chilly water. Every 30 seconds or so, Noah wants to know, “Did it start yet?”. The crowds are getting denser and there’s a real carnival atmosphere along the downtown shore. Noah, Nellie and another young girl are adding to the merriment with their game of run-dance-tag. Vendors from Amherst, Halifax and Hants County make sure there’s greasy food par excellence and fresh produce to go the rounds. The real find is the stand selling giant home-baked cookies decorated with liberal amounts of Hallowe’en icing motifs. They’re so big that eating an entire cookie brings me to the brink of nausea but I just can’t pull back.

Noah’s perched on my shoulders to watch the first heat. It’s the motorized class. One of the three contestants is stranded not even halfway across the lake, dead in the water. The other two chug along toward our shore. There’s not much of a wake behind either vessel. Speed is relative in this event. In second place is is an 11-year-old boy. He’ll have some great bragging rights at school.

We’ve been standing around for over two hours and the chill is starting to penetrate our clothes. We’re all feeling a little dog-eared and ready to roll for home. If the weather’s nice next year we’ll time it differently so we can take in the paddlers. They’re the biggest contingent in the event as they cross the lake like an undisciplined, bobbing armada.

As proud as it is of its pumpkins, Windsor has a lot more to offer. It’s the Birthplace of Hockey as the highway sign proudly proclaims. There are pretenders to the throne but the Town maintains that it has near irrefutable evidence to make good it claim.

Windsor is also home to Mermaid Theatre, an internationally renowned children’s touring troupe. The company purchased the old Imperial Theatre in 2003 and now presents a series of cultural events throughout the year. In 2010 stay tuned for the return of The Very Hungry Caterpillar an award winning theatrical adaptation of Eric Carle’s children’s book.

We finish up the holiday weekend on an overdose of turkey and chocolate pie topped with hand whipped cream brought over by daughter Alexa and boyfriend Jordan. It’s good to see them both and we tune in for some art school, university tales. It’s a wonderful unrushed afternoon and I’m glad they are able to make the time for an Eastern Passage trip.

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À la carte morning

We’re out of the house and skirting the harbour, early morning after the school rush. Noah asks, “Where is Avignon, papa?” as he bursts into a chorus of Sur le pont d’Avignon. This is our standard musical accompaniment when crossing bridges everywhere. It’s been in vogue now for about two years and shows no sign of slowing down. This is the first time Noah is questioning the where of Avignon. He quickly decides that he wants to go there, in a plane. It’s an adventure that I’d like to take too but it’s going to have to wait for another day.

Two cruise liners – Norwegian Dawn and Explorer of the Seas – are snugged up to the piers at the south end of the harbour, stern to bow right at the end of the boardwalk. We can’t get too close – it’s a restricted area. The gangplank is full. As they disembark, passengers start flowing to the waterfront. We follow the sauntering, mostly elderly crowd.

There’s a man with a sax blowing catchy snaps of music that wail along the autumn breeze. He gently lowers his horn into its case and starts singing to the backdrop of some recorded tunes. There are some off key vocal moments. Noah and Nellie are dancing up a storm, round and round and round. There are lots of onlookers remarking on how cute and wonderful they are. Their spontaneity and lightness of being are firing up joyful moments in the hearts of many passersby.

It’s a job in itself to bring the dance to a halt. They are having great fun. The Noah and Nellie Dance Ensemble is inadvertently stealing the show from the sax man and picking up on all the good vibes from the boat passengers as they walk past. Their dance is a spontaneous response to the music and now they are under the additional influence of that heady, centre of attention intoxication.

The promise of a peek at some construction on a waterfront site is sufficient enticement for Noah. The site is just beside us but as we get up close there’s not much in the way of large, big machinery activity. It’s remarkably quiet and orderly. This former generating station is being demolished in an eco-friendly manner to make way for new office buildings. Live webcams and background on this project can be found on Nova Scotia Power’s site.

As we turn away from the construction site fence, there are two young men pulling empty rickshaws coming toward us. On a whim we hop on for a ride back to the car in the parking lot. Nellie is snuggled in my lap and Noah is nestled close to me with my arm wrapped around him. The ride is less than five minutes. It’s an incessant giggle, laugh, squeal. Noah declares that he wants to do this everyday that we come to the waterfront. I have to deflate his expectations and let him know that this will be an occasional special treat. Regardless of the short duration, it’s a ride to remember.

We round out the morning with a first time visit to the Isleville Park Playground. At this age, playgrounds are better than candy stores. Letting them loose to run and climb and slide is developing motor skills, social skills and is building a foundation for healthy lifestyles.

One more stop before we head home. It’s a domestic bliss trip to the grocery store. Noah and Nellie are side-by-side in the cart as I wheel inexpertly through the store in search of the items on my list. It’s like a treasure hunt – can I find it, is it the right product?

The kids have been great all morning. They are eager to get home to see maman. She isn’t feeling well today and this is one of the reasons we’ve made ourselves scarce – to give her a needed and well deserved rest.

As they bound through the front door it’s a chorus of maman, maman. Maman hears all about the fine adventure and sees that we’re all glad to be home.

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It’s The Journey

Saturday morning early and Noah is still snuggling with his maman. I start talking about our adventure for the day, a flip over to the Halifax waterfront to take in Tall Ships ’09. It’s only when I mention how we’re getting there, the bus-ferry combo with a stroller jaunt on the side that he starts to stir. That’s an understatement. He bursts out of his snuggle, leaps to the floor and with arms aloft starts a twisting gyration to the deities of public transit while chanting autobus, autobus peppered with the occasional traversier.

There is no slowing the surge of energy. Chop, chop – clothes on, face washed, belly filled and we’re out the front door into the morning’s dripping, foggy dew. It’s a quick paced walk pushing the Phil and Ted stroller down Cow Bay Rd. We want to catch the 8h45 bus at the Oceanlea Blvd. crossroads. It’s been awhile since I’ve pushed Noah any distance. He’s heavier. I’m breaking a sweat in the cool air and thinking – out of shape – and then, couldn’t this have the makings of a future olympic event, stroller fast walk freestyle. There could be a medley of paired parent-child events – the diaper change dash, the toddler into snowsuit marathon

The brisk walk pays off. We’re a little early for the bus. When it arrives, the driver engages the pneumatics to kneel the bus beside the curb. The descent of a few inches is barely underway before Noah leaps aboard. He’s ready for some forward movement. We sit just behind the front doors on the opposite of the driver. These are the seats that run parallel to the windows. At three-years-old looking out positioned on your knees, it’s the perfect vantage point to remark on the world streaming by.

He watches the people as they come on at each stop, calls out as we pass the salt water pond opposite Fisherman’s Wharf and proudly shouts out, “We live up there” as we come to a stop at the Cow Bay Rd. traffic lights. Driving north along Pleasant St. his nose is pressed up against the window looking, looking as we hurtle toward our destination. This is la rue des camions citernes et du train, Tanker Truck Train St. for Noah. There are always four or five parked at the refineries and train wagons loading up at the Autoport. They are among his favourite things on this stretch of road.

This is a special treat. Noah has never been on the Woodside Ferry, dad’s going to work ferry, because it only runs on peak hours during weekdays. On this occasion there is weekend service for the Tall Ships. He loves the escalator – the longest one I’ve come across in Halifax. We hold hands as we glide effortlessly down 75 or more metres to the platform where there are floor to ceiling windows looking out on the harbour. Tug moorings, and deep sea derrick construction is just to the left of the ferry’s docking area and a rail line skirts the shore leading back toward the Passage, ending at the Autoport. Down one more escalator and as we round the corner we see the ferry as it pokes through the fog and sails smoothly into dock.

There is a fine drizzle in the air and the smoky fog curling up from the water reaches as high as the cloud cover. June and July have been so wet that I’m thinking we must be on the threshold of enriching our vocabulary with a much more colourful palette of rain related words. There is a bellowing blast that slams our ear drums as we begin the trip. Noah is a little startled. Visibility is not at its finest but this doesn’t deter our lad from sticking close to the windows and peering into the murky soup. He sees a couple of gulls and cormorants bobbing on the dark water’s surface. The Halifax shore only starts to become visible as we’re nearly upon it. Noah picks out the headlights of a harbour cruise vessel as we slowly slip into dock.

Crowds are sparse on the waterfront. It makes manoeuvring our orange Phil-and-Ted-for-two much easier. The wet, cool temperatures and fog are keeping people away in droves. We pass by the USS Coast Guard Eagle tied up at Murphy’s wharf nosing out of the shrouding mist. It’s too early for tunes from Los Chaskis, the festival’s itinerant Ecuadorean musicians. When they take to the stage the Andean quena, zampona and charranga music soars skyward creating a lightness of being under the overweight clouds.

It’s off to the Halifax Boat Playground immediately south of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. There are not many kids about in the damp weather. Noah runs about – up the gangway, onto the boat, out the back. There’s not a lot going on. His play is compromised by the wetness. We move on.

The GlowParties gang is all set up for the kids – inflatable octopus, treasure chest and a jumping palace. But the pièce de resistance for us is the train. Noah must have an all aboard moment. This is a milestone for him. It’s the first time that he goes on a ride by himself. He doesn’t let on that anything special is underway – maybe the milestone is only for maman and papa. He is thrilled to be tooting around the lot seated comfortably in his wagon. He’s got a gigantic smile pasted on his face as he chugs past me. When the train comes to a halt, he unbuckles himself and nonchalantly hops down to the ground like this was a daily commute. The next day we do two train rides. On the second he is sitting by himself waving to all who walk by. It’s a disciplined wave, almost royal in its economy and accompanied by a beatific, this is the life, smile.

We push on to see more ships and just as we begin to head back north the Crew Parade bears down on us. This is Noah’s cue to dance and dance he does until the parade is almost finished. Many of the parade participants are looking to their right as they pass by us to take in Noah’s exuberance. He’s got some hip action moves going like a carnival bacchanal.

Before heading to our special rendez-vous with maman and Nellie-Rose uptown we pause for a few borrowed bars of altiplano music that rockets from the Ecuadorian peaks to the stars beyond. Los Chaskis are a four piece group heavy on wind instruments and a little guitar and charrango. There are two older and two younger men. Cristiano has been playing with his father for eight years. His young friend has been with the group for the past two years. They are tight and the tunes are wonderful. Nearly 20 years ago, an earlier incarnation of the group had a gold record in Ecuador. At this point they do not have a web presence but Cristiano is working on creating a digital imprint. They are from a place where it is spring year round. The citizens of Otavalo travel the world as itinerant musicians, artists and craftspeople. For Los Chaskis this is their second stop in Halifax since June. We’re fortunate to hear their soaring airs. It reminds me of my first South American concert starring Quilapayun nearly 30 years ago as they toured the world from their Parisian exile base working from afar in opposition to the Allende dictatorship.

Noah and I have to shake our butts into high gear to ensure that we’re on time to meet maman and Nellie. Our timing is off to grab a bus. Noah is disappointed. I get a good workout jaunty-gaiting it along Barrington, up Sackville, along Argyle, up Blowers and finally up Spring Garden to Robie. It’s a hearty push and we arrive with a few minutes to spare.

There’s been lots to see and do all along the morning’s sweep of the hour hand. For Noah it’s transportation heaven – bus, ferry, amusement grounds train ride and of course the papa propelled stroller. Noah is happy and enthusiastic to see his maman and sister again.

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