I receive this email the 19th May 2010
“Hi Kate My name is Brian and I work at the reception at 5 Atlantic Quay (the building across the road from where you dance) along with my other workmates and we all love to see the dancing girl every morning as it brings us all a wee ray of sunshine into our otherwise dull morning. So a big thank you from all of us here at Atlantic Quay 
”
One of the things I LOVE about dancing down at the Broomielaw (or anywhere outside) is the community it creates in its’ creation. The people who walk by me are no longer part of an unknown mass, but individuals with ideas, hopes, dreams, smiles, rhythms and I come to know them in name, or by their ‘vibe’. But in this instance the repercussions are even greater….
When I took a break from the Broomielaw in the Autumn/Winter time Brian wrote to me again wishing I’d return to that dancing space…
“I watch people watching you and after a while I see them smile and just know that they are dancing with you in their minds. Keep on shining”
And then in December I got this message…
“I have given the best the best present I have ever given anyone for Christmas and it was all thanks to you!!!
Let me explain.
I have always written poetry of as long as I can recall but I never ever let people read the things that I wrote because I have dislexse delexcia delex!!!!!!! I couldn’t read or write when I was at school and went through a lot of heart ache because of it and thought that if someone read the verse then they would laugh at my attempts at trying to write again and all the pain from that time would come back to haunt me. Yet the verse would keep coming and I would write and then hide it away for no one to see or read.
And then I saw you dancing on the Broomielaw letting it shine and being alive you didn’t mind if people laughed at what you where doing you just lived for the moment and I love that.
So I gave a lot of thought of how I felt hell if Kate can do it so can I.
So I eat the peach and show some of the guy’s in the work some of the comic verse that I had written and they loved it and took copies away to show to their friends… Spurred on with this good reception I showed a couple of the romantic poems to the girls at the work and one poem in particular made them cry it was called The sweetest smile, and they said “who did you write that for” and I told them that I had written it when myself and Marie* when we first got together and they said that she must read it.
So I bought some hand made paper and a fountain pen and wrote it down as best I could and gave it to her on Christmas day.
We have been apart now for about five years although we are still good friends so I did not know how she would take it but as she read the poem the tears came and when she finished she said ” Now I know that I was loved ” and gave me the biggest hug you could imagine.
And so you see the ripples you give out to the world if it was not for your dancing the poem would never of found the heart it was meant for.”
Brian’s support, praise and talent are immense, and yet it leads me to wonder, how many more out there… with poems to share, dances to dance, bridges to be built, waves to be surfed and so it goes and goes and goes….
I’d like to share one of Brian’s poems he sent along- this one is my favourite. Long may you write Brian, long may you write…. Thanking you for all you are and all you are yet to be… Still waters indeed….
STILL WATERS
By Brian Kelly
