Authentically you––to the music of your life––dance.
For many years Dagma and I have enjoyed creating and maintaining treasured rituals of loving one another to ensure that the intimacy, bond and good humor between us is sustained. Our resilience shines through our willingness to accept and utilize the changes and challenges that come our way: and so, we dance...and laugh...and feed each other...the best of us. We've created rituals of intimacy that keeps our marriage alive and vital.
Each day, I enjoy a morning ritual of making myself coffee then waking Dagma, often on my knees along her bedside, with whispers of "Good Morning," and selected music I consider suitable for starting her day. Then I serve her tea and massage her hands. Then I ceremoniously hold her robe for her before she leaves for the bathroom, often to find a love note and a flower.
We enjoy our ritual of creating foods and memorable dining experiences and the ritual of sharing our respective daily discoveries together. Most important is to finish each day expressing our appreciation for one another in gratitude. "Thanks for today, Dagma, it was the best of days."
One of our rituals of connection most protected and enjoyed is saving every Sunday afternoon and evening for enriching our connection and freeing us from whatever wants to limit our experience of loving one another.
For many years we've let our children know that on Sunday afternoons we are unavailable, unless there's an emergency, of course. We disconnect our phones and shelter ourselves from the cares and wants of the outside world. We set a time to meet by completing our garden and business chores by noon. We shower off the garden dirt and we dress for another: she may find something sexy to wear, I may dress down casual and comfortable, or on occasion dress up in my tux for dinner. Sometimes I dress stupid-just for the fun of it. We like to surprise one another. Then, we meet in the kitchen for a toast of chilled Champagne. Our humble home turns into that most valued of romantic destinations.
Generally, I design a menu of delicious foods and activities since I take responsibility to invite her away from the drier netherworld toward a juicy Sunday adventure. Good foreplay includes the right music, soft touches, and showing up generously. Since I no longer smoke cannabis, I'm often encouraged by Dagma to take a couple cannabis gummies to separate me from the chronic pains from the assorted illnesses that have become a part of my daily life. "Gary, it's time for a gummy." Within an hour my grimacing has changed to good humor, creativity and an inclination to dance.
Authentically you--to the music of your life—dance.
"Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin.
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in.
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove.
Dance me to the end of love.
Dance me to the end of love." - Leonard Cohen
Have I not been a dancer the whole of my life?
To the music of love within my mother's womb
To the music of my own heart beating.
I danced ballet as a teen at Carnegie Hall,
I danced as a teen at Carnegie Hall "Ballet Arts."
Danced dodging yellow cabs on Broadway
to songs of "West Side Story," in my head.
Danced myself out of wheelchairs and illnesses aplenty.
Danced with my children around castles of sand,
with barefoot giggling granddaughters
to the tempo of breathing surf and birdsong.
I danced in black-tie with 'Mrs. Robinson' at The Academy Awards 'Governors' Ball,'
with lovers, goddesses- descending angels all.
I danced through the 70s and 80s in Colorado and California
under sway of mushrooms or cannabis with no intentions.
I danced in blue jeans or silk, along wild western rivers, on rooftop ballrooms
of San Francisco—danced naked in the snow on snowy peaks above Aspen—
danced on the bed of a beat-up pick-up truck on the Fourth of July—
In celebration of independence.
I danced with you:
On tropical beaches;
Under wrought-iron skirts of Eifel Tower reaches;
Danced in St. Mark's Square in Venice as waters rose to our feet,
with violins playing Strauss along the fringe in three-quarter time.
I've danced with you shoeless, in high heels and sandals...
In the moonlight, under streetlamps in the rain.
In the jungle, on desert sands, in fields of tomatoes at dawn and howling
under harvest moons.
I danced with you on springtime grasses of Carmel Valley
to Tony Bennett and Diana Krall singing us love songs...swoon.
And now, still, most every Sunday,
we blissfully dance me out of pain and into pleasure on our kitchen floor,
wrapped in laughing kisses, whirls, and pleas of, "dance with me
more...because I love you."
We have limited space in our home of 1100 square feet. The only open space for dancing is the 100 square feet in our kitchen. Perfect! We may glide affectionately around the room with Tony Bennett singing to us (again), or some rock & roll may insert itself into her soul and she lets go of me and allows herself to be possessed by the music and the thrill of her own dance. I love this photo of Dagma lost and found again in her own ebullient and joyful dancing.
I remember well the time when Tony Bennett and Diana Krall performed on stage for an afternoon benefit gathering of a couple hundred friends on the lawn at Quail Lodge Resort in Carmel Valley, California. Dagma and I were seated a couple rows from the stage captivated by their song. I stood up, reached my hand out to Dagma and escorted her to the lawn adjacent to the stage and we danced together in close embrace as some other couples soon decided to join us. We bring this experience back into our present lives often.
Note: Spontaneity is as important as planning an adventure.
Food, music, dance, intimate conversation and sex are important to our Sunday ritual. We are believers in the power of the emotional, physical and relationship benefits of regular sex...even more important as we have aged...to offset the more frequent inclination to 'forget-about-it.' A vital sex life has proven to provide us better physical fitness, brain function and pain relief. Sometimes I can just look into Dagma's eyes and notice that she's in need for some re-orientation to get her youthful spark back.
Our valuable sex-play has changed radically since my second bout of cancer is now upon me with my treatments of hormonal injections. WTF! There went the testosterone-leaving us the advantage to find so many other forms of experiencing our intimacy. Often, Ya' just gotta laugh about it! And dance. I kid her that I'm probably enjoying a better life now as one of her 'sisters.' HA!
For many years, Dagma and I have enjoyed with one another an active, adventurous and sometimes wild sex life. Active and adventurous continue.
I've been in love many times in my younger life, with more than a few incredible, powerful and wise women. Sex was a powerful influence in my choices and relationships. Sex was foundational to my self-image, likely due to lingering insecurities borne from the early abandonment of my mother. During much of my adult life it seems like I never got enough cuddling or pussy. Testosterone seemed to manage my thinking and fueled much of my creativity and zeal.
And then there was Dagma, who knew who I was beneath personality, and who I could be as LOVE rediscovered...beyond being tethered by past experience. My relationship with Dagma identified the 'demons' that ran me and introduced to me a ritual of transformation.
Copyright Gary Ibsen All rights reserved.