Drums

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Last night we went to Recife Antiguo. We walked past the oldest Jewish synagogue in the New World and the church that smells horridly of urine and the super chique mall and the book store that makes me wish for an antebellum gown to sweep behind me as I ascend the stair cases. We've been before to see the snazzy lights on the old buildings and to hear the surf beat against the man-made reef. And we've tried to understand the lighted Christmas cow and the ugly fountain that looks like sprinkler heads and the plastic flower sales man that starts the conversation with "Ah, kissing with the tongue is good." But last night we were there for an entirely new reason.

Drums.
Great Big Booming Drums.
Not the kind that resets your heart beat and makes you wonder whether you are getting enough blood to your head.
Nor the kind that makes you put your house up for sale to get away from the garage band next door.
No, no.

Thirty drums booming together, changing rhythms together. Thirty drummers, swinging together, dancing together.

It is so tempting to dance along, but it is even more tempting to stand still... to feel the air vibrating in your throat and lungs, to see the uneven swinging of the drummers' arms, to taste a different rhythm of life.

Comments

slowlane said…
It's different than Taiko drumming. The drummers are all standing. The drums are hung around a shoulder, off to the left, and while the right hand beats with a fairly even up and down, the left hand does a strange swing inbetween beats. We only saw the drummers practicing, so they weren't in formation or moving down the street, but most of them were practicing a dance step of some sort while they drummed.
9:19 AM
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