A Different, Kind, of Swing

This last Thursday, June 28th, 2012, I decided to take a quick trip to Central Park in the early hours of the evening with the intent of taking some photos.  I arrived at Columbus Circle and took a short walk inside the park before my sense of photographic potential pressured me to reevaluate the plan.  It looked like not a lot of light was making it into the park past the trees and west side buildings as the sun was setting behind them.  The scenery looked dull and fading, so I decided to leave the park and follow the sun.  The path of cosmic distance landed me all the way at... Lincoln Center, immeasurable light years and five blocks away.

There was an event.  It had a sign - "Midsummer Night Swing."  To many people, I'm sure, this was planning, this was organizing, this was work.  To others who came there that day it was something they'd been looking forward to, an occasion, perhaps a good excuse for a date.  But to me it was just something I had stumbled upon, experienced, and now remember through my own perceptions and photos.

When I arrived at Lincoln Center I found myself instantly in the middle of good swing music and people dancing (or is it dancing people?).  I say "good swing music" like I know what I'm talking about, when in reality the only times I've ever even heard it was in the movies.  But an environment like this will make you know things about yourself you didn't know before.  Just look what it's done to this guy...

And bear in mind that no picture could accurately represent his oozing swagger - for that you had to be there!  I bet all he knew before was rock'n'roll, but look at him now, a transformed man.  Reborn and reconstructed into a solo swing dance phenomenon!  An envy of all men, like the guy in the blue shirt behind him whose melancholy expression could be accurately read as thinking "he gets all the girls..."

But enough of the mainstream reporting, I'll let the press sell the king of swing.  These words are reserved for the people without pseudonyms.  Truly it was a pretty remarkable thing to see so many people, strangers, meeting, sharing in the moment, dancing together.  Why do I say remarkable?  Because I know these people.  I see them every day on the trains of New York City's subway system.  System of abject misery.  Trust me, no one is dancing with strangers there.  The whole thing is totally analogous to plants.  Lifeless and unremarkable seeds underground, but once transcended have a serious potential to bloom in cool and exciting ways under the right nourishment of lights and rhythm.  So yes, people were dancing, and many of them, as though under strict orders from Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction, danced good.

I ran around trying to squeeze my way through the inconveniently arranged formations of onlookers to snap some of these clear frame (meaning without extraneous foreground body parts in confusing positions) shots of the dancing while there was still enough light.  The dancing continued well into the evening, but it was a school night after all and as the light started to seriously fade out I decided to put away my camera and go say hi to my subway friends.  Just a heads up, the rest of this post is very sentimental, so if you're not into that kind of kink, read the next line and believe it - otherwise, skip the next line.

And that was that.  The end.

On my way out of the square I decided to turn around and have a look, just in case there was a good shot I may have missed of the whole scene from the back.  What I saw on that turn stopped me.  It changed the course of my thoughts from then until... well, obviously it's still on my mind if I'm writing about it now.  It was a moment that I knew I was the only one witnessing.  An old woman crippled in a wheelchair, there, at what is very likely the last "Midsummer Night Swing" in her lifetime, accompanied by her caretaker.  What she really was was a care giver, unlike any I've ever seen.  I pulled the camera out of the bag.

I've seen caretakers before.  Miserable faces covering the shift countdown clock mechanisms ticking within.  Not that I can blame anyone for not acting chipper.  Taking care of an elderly person sounds like an incredibly difficult job that I couldn't imagine feeling upbeat about.  But this woman was different.  She had an amazing spirit, enthusiasm, and goodwill about her that yielded life to the elder woman's last days.  She locked hands and eyes with her.  She smiled at her earnestly.  She moved their arms in a rhythmic dancing motion to the music.  And it all looked so genuine, heartfelt, and sincere.  I knew that of all the wonderful things I saw that day, this by leaps and bounds was the most special.  It's easy to like good music and smile at friendly people who want to dance with you.  It's a million times harder when you have to do the dancing in her shoes.  I came around in front of them because I knew the significance of the facial expressions to portraying this scene.

My repositioning turned on the spotlight.  What's going on?  Why is the guy with the camera not facing the direction of the stage?  What is he photographing?  And then they saw it.  Once pointed to, it would be impossible for anyone not to recognize what was on display.  Heads turned.  A young family passed in front of me, amiably infused by the scene they stopped to say some friendly words.  A little boy in his father's hands at the other end of his lifeline looking, as if through a telescope of age, at what the ending is like.  Sad and scary by definition, but just this once, with the smoke and mirrors of someone's sheer kindness, made to look a little better, a little more bearable, a little more okay.