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I have mentioned her previously here—ageless, gorgeous, a knock-out, smart, funny, perpetually a Kindle in her hand (she not only reads great books, she once owned a bookstore).  We dance Zumba together, when I'm very lucky.  She shows up all blonde and coiffed, I show up all frizzy haired and old eyelinered, and we do it up.  She goes crazy for the Charleston.  I'll give her that if she'll dance my tango.

Her name is Joy, and I flat out love her.  I refuse to believe the things she tells me about how old she is.  Not even close.  Not for a minute.

Today I barely got to Zumba on time.  I didn't think, in fact, that I'd make it, but I finished a client call with seconds to spare and made a mad dash for the gym.  Looking back, imagining myself a no-shower for Zumba, imagining that client call gone just five minutes longer, I feel bereft.  For I would never have seen Joy in her joyful frenzy, plastering Xeroxes of The New York Times review of Small Damages all over the club town.  When she saw me she ran for a hug, Xeroxes in hand, then orchestrated a round of applause among the gathered dancers, then went about telling all the ladies I Zumba with that I'm an author in disguise.

I watched her with awe.  I listened to what she said.  I caught a glimpse of the mess of me in the mirror and tried to reconcile my image of myself with the beauty of her.  Not possible.  She rushed by as the music was getting started and said,

"I'm as proud as if I were your own mother."

Genuine happiness is genuine gold.

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Maybe (technically speaking) going to the gym today was not the smartest move.  I'm still battling vestiges of this month-long flu and my balance is not, shall we say, terrific.  But I was missing Teresa and her Saturday morning Body Combat class at Club La Maison.  I was in need of some air-punching, knee-stomping, kick-slapping action.  And besides, it's St. Patty's Day.  Teresa is always good for a holiday.

So I went, and 45 minutes in I was breathing heavy and thinking of quitting when a woman who has been absent from among us for quite awhile appeared in the doorway, her pink cap on, her smile still bright, her fists still ready to knock some air.  She has been battling a real illness, we have been worried for her, and when we saw here there, ready to give Combat a few of her rounds, the room erupted with cheers, Teresa the loudest of all.

We go to the gym to stretch our muscles, to move our blood, to make room for an afternoon cookie—of course.  But mostly it's the camaraderie that keeps us returning.  It's Teresa in her Irish hat and tie, her stick-on tattoos, her insistence that we keep going, no matter what.

It's the courage that we find in others.

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I'm going to spend this beautiful day in the company of the students and faculty of the Country Day School of the Sacred Heart, which chose Dangerous Neighbors as its summer read. 

Before I head out, I wanted to share these few things:

First, readers of this blog know how moved I was by the Logan Schweiter Fundraiser, which took place at Club La Maison.  Today, at Generocity.org, in a story called "A Spectacular Act of Love," I report on the remarkable efforts of literally hundreds of people who together raised an extraordinary amount of money on behalf of a young local teen still recovering from a near drowning following a storm.

Second, yesterday morning I had a chance to read the Vanity Fair story "The Book on Publishing," which can also be found on Nook and Kindle reading apps at vfr.com/go/ebooks.  This extended essay by Keith Gessen takes an instructive look behind the scenes of one of the largest book auctions in recent history, which yielded Chad Harbach, a first-time author, a $665,000 advance from legendary editor Michael Pietsch for the novel (ten years in the making) called The Art of Fielding.  Anyone who ever wondered just how major parts of the industry work will have questions answered here.

Finally, a bouquet of gratitude to Medieval Bookworm, for her eloquent words about You Are My Only, and a thank you to Caribousmom for letting me know those words exist.  I am, as always, very grateful. 

To the Country Day School I now go.

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Her name is Joy, and, oh baby, does she earn it. Steps right in beside me at Brenda's Zumba class and works that floor (works it, works it). It would be preposterous to guess her age (there are grandchildren involved and perhaps great-grandchildren), but she's got all the glamour of a movie star and a running stream of Joan Rivers humor, though Joy is elegant, perpetually, in the delivery.

I've written of her here before. Written of Sarah, Betsy, Julia, of Brenda and (on other mornings) Andrea. They are my gym friends, my smack-the-air-down-with-me babes, my little bit of lift when I need lift, my salsa sweethearts, and I saw them today because I returned to Monday Zumba after a few too many weeks of worrying about the state of this house, this garden.

I belong here, I thought, when I was dancing with them. I belong beside Sarah, a former model, mind you, a knock out, who doesn't care one bit how her hair is flying or whether or not she's singing along in tune (though she is in tune, I swear it:  whooo hoooo). I belong beside Betsy (the beauty queen from my high school and still so gorgeous, a woman with whom time has not interfered) and I belong beside Joy, who basically split my ribs before I even started dancing with some story she was telling. I am far from the beauty these women are, but they have let me in, and I am standing proud beside them.

You want to know who I actually am? You come find me at the club. Being crazy and doing silly with the ladies of the gym

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I don't remember when this day began. Was it with the midnight text message from my son, or the one he sent at 1:08 AM? Was it when I heard him come him an hour later, or when I finally gave up on the possibility of sleep and got up to get client work done? Perhaps we'll call the beginning of this day Zumba at 5:45 AM (or the cha-cha Zumba around 6:10, or the Charleston jive twenty minutes on).

Or let us say, instead, that this day had no beginning.

But look: Just look at its spectacular end.

As if someone were painting the sky just for me.

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For many of us (and I am most assuredly part of that us), these past many months have changed the way we go about our business. With less to spend, we think harder when we spend. With fewer options, we "shop" in our own closets. We light candles at our meals, as if ambiance were itself a savory something. We find great joy in the simple things—in dreams shared over tea, in walks among the falling leaves, in books long in our possession.

This morning, at Club La Maison, I found that joy, again, in Brenda's Zumba class—in how the so many of us made room for the so many more, for those sisters and friends who had come from out of town and took the dancing risk. Sometimes we are gypsies in Zumba. Sometimes we are Mexican cowgirls. Sometimes we are dancing Bollywood, and sometimes African rhythms, and sometimes, yes, we wear boas around our necks, and heaven help anyone who has not joined in, but is only standing there watching. The thing about Brenda and Zumba is that it locks nobody out. The door is always open to this essential, simple joy.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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Today: Awakened at 1:35 AM, I come downstairs and do not sleep. A few lines make their way to a blank page; I do not know if the lines are good.

Morning, then, and at the gym, I find Ann, an old friend, long lost; I'd once thought forever. In the large group room Theresa, leading the Body Pump class, has chosen the music of men. She turns her barbell into a guitar and sings her Aerosmith loud; the rest of us abide her antics, need her antics, love them. We don't scream the pain we feel. Many times a week Theresa leads this class and yet on Saturday it is as if we are her only students, her passion just for us.

Mid-morning and in my in-box I find the first official review of The Heart is Not a Size. I am overcome. The reader has found within my work just precisely what I hoped a reader would. A faster plot. The smell of dust. The have-everythings who learn from those who possess little.

Noon, and while shopping for the small dinner party that I'm throwing Sunday, I find my father at the Farmer's Market, sit with him while he eats his lunch. Then there is the frenzy of deciding and shopping. Yes, the serrano ham and the lavash, the strange apples from the Lancaster trees, the fatter berries and the insanely rotund scallions, and why not those tomatoes, which cannot decide what size they wish to be.

Mid afternoon, and I sit with the work of my fantastic Penn students, who move me to tears with the way that they think; I sit with Patricia Hampl. And then time alone with the Horace Kephart segments of the Ken Burns film, "America's Best Idea" (go to episode four, plays segments five and eleven). I don't care what you want to say about my great-grandfather. He did this country good. He saved what remained of the Great Smoky Mountains from the avaricious loggers, all the while knowing that once the park was made, it would not be his homeland anymore.

Later, a conversation with Andra. An email exchange with my friend Buzz. A note from Alyson Hagy, perhaps the grandest writing teacher of all.

Later, dinner.

Later, now.

Myself.

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