To the Editor,
Maybe you have seen a few people, outside the library, every Thursday morning, moving their bodies slowly following some unseen script. What you see is Tai Chi practice. Manchester resident Susan Halpern has been teaching a few of us for nearly a year now. The Manchester Public Library and Susan teamed up last year when we were in one of the darkest days of the pandemic and offered this course free of charge to anyone who expressed interest. We started on Zoom where we learned the basics - all of us in our bedrooms, kitchens or living rooms, watching Susan demonstrate the moves, breaking them into small steps until we got the whole sequence, not perfect but on the road to perfection. At first we thought this was for a few months, and now here we are, still working on perfection every Thursday on the library lawn when it is not raining or sleeting or snowing. And if it does, you will find us in the Community Center.
Susan has welcomed newcomers, always with open arms, patient with our stumbling and forgetting, wherever we were in our learning journey. Thank you, Susan, for your generosity and the countless hours of your time you gave to us, and thank you Sara Collins, Director of the Public Library, to have come up with this brilliant idea, the initial Zoom link and now the lawn. All our joints and muscles and bones are grateful too.
Sylvia Vriesendorp
Isabella Bates
Susan Kean Young
Sara Collins
Matt Kurdt
Sarah Parker
Michele Kulick
