let's dance

One of the things I used to doodle on my brown paper book covers when classes dulled my perception was ballet slippers. It’s funny because by the time I was covering books I had given up ballet and was dancing in my bare feet… but I still liked the arch of a pointe shoe and ribbons flowing. And I liked dance.

I was learning to dance before I learned to spell my name. My first recital was at age three. But I didn’t really need the tights and leotard to inspire me. I danced all the time, whenever my father played his Victory at Sea albums or my mother caved in to my pleadings for Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. And then eventually… showtunes… and Flashdance. 

I found dance space all over our house… the dining room, the surface of my bed, the front porch, the paved strip beneath our clothesline at the back of the house. And then, of course, we lived right next door to the eerily quiet transmitting station for WTAG, whose wide angular 1930’s steps were perfect for dancing to my most prized boom box.

When we moved, I made sure to claim a section of the basement where I could set up my stereo, put a well padded carpet on the floor, and choreograph all my favorite Madonna songs. Luckily I had friends who indulged and even fueled this fancy. I put a fair share of my babysitting money into lessons… and those silly sequined costumes for recitals. I was disciplined to practice every single day, to show up to every practice… giving up other opportunities so that I could dance. 

And then somewhere… as I entered that decade of my twenties, I no longer had a place for it.

I realized this as I was driving home Saturday night. After I spent an hour on the dance floor during a wedding reception. Dancing is my favorite part of most weddings. Because, sadly enough, that’s really the only time I indulge that part of me.

It is sad. Sad that my life is spent mostly seated in front of a computer these days. I run… and that is good. But dancing… even when it is following choreography… is something more. Something that lightens my soul. Something that connects my body to my mind and heart. Something that I wish I hadn’t given up when I ‘grew’ up.

It’s not that I became one of those people afraid of looking foolish or taking a mis-step. I just stopped making it a priority. I stopped… making a place for it in my life. I stopped drawing ballet slippers.

The conclusion here, of course, is not merely a bereavement of a bygone habit. Rather, it is an eye-opening that I don’t have to… wait for the next wedding. I don’t have to sit all the day long. Because… really… the fact is, I was happy when I drove home Saturday night. Happy and content with all that is in the world. And that is reason enough to get up and dance.