Joyce Marcel: 'A dance of death'

Joyce Marcel

"Want a little warm-up?" asks the waitress as she splashes more coffee into
my cup. "Need more milk?"

We're sitting in front of huge plates of eggs, bacon, home fries, and toast,
my mother and I, in a diner in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. It's our annual
immersion in the New York City Ballet - 11 ballets in three days - and we're
still in a state of bedazzlement and wonder.

The diner is packed, maybe because there's a downpour outside. Waitresses
and busgirls hustle by us, going in all directions, while people crowd into
booths and jam themselves around large tables.

Everyone is eating large amounts of food off larger plates. Massive
hamburgers, piles of fries, stacks of pancakes with ice cream scoops of
butter melting on them, bacon and sausages piled on big fluffy omelets, all
the coffee we can drink, individual servings of cream, toothpicks that come
in their own plastic wrappers.

In the background, on a large television screen, terrified people are
fleeing Lebanon.

Looking around, I see slender women with long nails, fat women with lost
necks, big-bellied men in polo shirts, older men in bonding groups, and lots
of extended families.

It's hard not to wonder what these well-fed Americans think about this
newest war. Do they think about it at all? Do they know? Do they care?

Bountiful America, land of comfort and plenty. A place where living is high
and credit is easy.

A place where most people have cars and not even $3 a gallon gas can stop
mother and I from traveling to another state to enjoy a ballet company in
which gifted men and women live their lives devoted to the ancient art of
making beauty out of movement.

Bountiful America, where entertainment is a God-given right.

Bountiful America, where we are not called upon to make sacrifices for our
wars, but are called upon to shop, instead.

Bountiful America, where no one has ever cowered from a bomb.

My mother talks about a ballet we saw the night before, "Vienna Waltzes"
choreographed by George Balanchine in 1977 to a series of waltzes by Franz
Lehar and the Strausses. Five waltzes, played by a live orchestra, and
elegant couples in gowns, jewels and formal wear - from several eras -
waltzing romantically and gracefully in lush forests, gardens and ballrooms.

Mom is puzzled, she says, because she has seen this ballet many times, and
it is not as she remembers it. It seems she is confusing it with a similar
ballroom ballet by Balanchine, La Valse. In that one, Death crashes the ball
and carries off one of the guests.

To both of us, it seems an appropriate metaphor for the times.

It has been a splendid series of balls, hasn't it? We have dressed in our
finest - to suit our individual eras and tastes - and whirled around the
world, taking gold from here, diamonds from there, perfume and Champagne
from France, oil from everywhere.

We have invaded countries at will, claiming to promote democracy but in
reality pushing a particularly virulent form of unfettered American
capitalism.

We have taken over whole countries to suit our needs - Panama when we needed
a canal, Central America and Hawaii for fruit, Iraq for the possibility of
controlling its oil.

We have become the richest nation on earth, and as a corollary, the fattest.
We have become lazy, greedy, selfish and brutal. We have stopped caring
about - or even acknowledging - our fellow human beings around the world.

News of this outer world is crammed into 22 minutes on television in the
evening, or ever-changing headlines on the Internet. We barely turn around
to see people running from bombs. We can't hear their screams over the
clatter of our dishes.

Untold millions are dying from AIDS and it barely scratches the surface of
our happy, bountiful world. Polar bears are drowning and the planet is
choking on our fumes. Darfur is dying of starvation while butter melts on
our pancakes. The Israelis are bombing the Lebanese while we enjoy our eggs.
Iraq has fallen into civil war for no good reason except that our president
likes to play at being a man.

With our toothpicks individually wrapped in plastic, we swirl around the
dance floor, hardly noticing that Death has crashed our ball, or that it is
dancing with us all.

Joyce Marcel is a free-lance journalist from southern Vermont. A collection
of her columns, "A Thousand Words or Less," is available through
joycemarcel.com. Email to: joycemarcel@yahoo.com.

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson