Kitchen Waltz

by Kate Power ©1994
Kitchen Waltz is often requested, written one Sunday afternoon after watching an old couple amble down Broadway the day before in downtown Portland. I had a ticket for the Dress Circle and was headed to the Arlene Schnitzner concert hall to hear Itzhak Perlman play his violin with his old friend, a Romanian pianist. I gazed at the old man and woman as they passed me on the sidewalk hand-in-hand and sighed a little with wonder if I would ever know a love like that. At the time, it didn't seem likely. I pictured these two old ones as I went to sleep that night guessing they must have been together for seventy years at least. Guitar in hand at my kitchen table the next day, I lazily imagined those two in my kitchen in the Sunday afternoon light - she baking something so good in the oven while her old man snoozed away in the rocker. This song came drifting out and galvanized in one version of love with a few simple words. Many years later, I know that this unnamed sweet couple had crossed my line of vision with a gift of inspiration that augured what is possible. Since then, Steve and I have danced in our kitchen together, with our children and grandchildren - knowing that this is where it all comes together - just when you're trying to get all those other things done - and beckons us to dance and know (we know) never (not ever) to say anything but yes (YES) at the whim of one you love. So we dance!