What Should I Do with the Rest of My Life_ - Bruce Frankel [65]
Thomas’s emotional and creative growth have been breathtaking, says his daughter Susan. “It’s as if there was a small bud inside that lay closed for years but has burst forth and radiates a new being. I now see my father as someone who is artistic and creative. It is who he truly is. He is much happier than he used to be—happier with himself, happier with his life.”
That is a good thing because Thomas’s commitment to dance for the last twenty years has not made him richer. By 2008, he had worked his way up to a salary of $26,000 a year. But because of recession and the financial consequences it has had on the Dance Exchange, Thomas volunteered to cut his pay in half in mid-2009 to help the company. In addition to cutting his income, it means that he will not bed down as often in the monkish apartment he keeps near the Dance Exchange studio—with its bare walls, bed, bureau, and preacher’s dais, which holds a bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin, his favorite drink.
No doubt, he will continue to rise early, read half a dozen newspapers, and send out a bevy of e-mails, with ribald jokes and conservative or contrarian opinion pieces to noodge his liberal friends and colleagues. He will continue to arrive before the other dancers at the Dance Exchange, tend to maintenance issues, change lightbulbs, and tighten screws. “Thomas loves in practical ways,” Dance Exchange artistic director Elizabeth Johnson said.
Yes, he can be flirtatious. And he can be sardonic. And Thomas, who has been known to introduce himself to newcomers in the company as “Thomas the Great and Unforgiving,” can be tough on fellow dancers who don’t give maximum effort. When that happens, he can go stonily silent, looking down his nose in a frosty manner. But just like that, he can declare an end to a one-sided cold war, as he almost always does, with a handwritten greeting card or a gift of his own homemade biscotti.
A long way from his childhood in Providence and from his secretive work for the government, Thomas found his truest tribe in dance. It is a tribe filled with artists, young and old, he admires, for the qualities of their art as for the sacrifice they make to be dancers. “It’s a very hard decision for their families to understand. What’s the future in it? They take hundreds of hours of classes to perfect their techniques and movement. But it’s a passion for them. It’s not just about being up onstage and showing people how they dance. Ultimately, it’s just that they want to dance. That’s their passion,” he said. “That they like dancing with me befuddles me.”
As far as Liz Lerman is concerned, Thomas may continue dancing for her company as long as he is willing and able. And he is willing to, he says, as long as Lerman is happy with his work and remains the guiding force of the company she founded. He had no other timetable, unless the day comes when he has to care full-time for his wife.
Thomas has accomplished much of what he set out to do. A few years ago, he even got to dance with two of his granddaughters when the Dance Exchange performed at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, where twin sisters Joy and Anna Frimmel were in school. The piece referenced nearby Grandfather Mountain, the sharply profiled and tallest peak of the Blue Ridge range. “Grandpa’s movements were sturdy like the mountain, legs spread wide as if nothing could move him,” said Anna. “He stood tall above us as we leaned against his strong frame, a place of shelter and support. We held on to his arms and leaned away from him and knew he would never