With a title like that I could go a million directions. What didn't my parent's give me? They gave me life, the abundant life. They showed me how to work hard and how to enjoy the beauty in the world. They taught me the gospel and showed me how to live it. They gave me physical necessities, patience beyond imagination from colic to speeding tickets, and love. What I am grateful for tonight, as I have been for so many nights since I was ten years old, are my dance lessons.
My parents gave me dance lessons for ten years and, after getting my heart broken one too many times, some professional counseling. I can tell you, the dance was much more valuable. I still get lost in dance no matter where I am. My kitchen, a garage, the car. The bigger the space the better, but turn on some music and I can move. My current favorites are "Vogue" "Viva La Vida" and Jim Brickman's Disney Songbook album. I enjoy the challenge of classical ballet but the lyrical and modern dance are the ones that allow the emotions to flow - out - where they belong instead of bottled up inside my tense neck muscles. It's just like the little girls I teach. They wait 35 minutes of class for the 10 minutes of the end when they can get up and twirl and jump and get those endorphins coming!
When I dance my mood instantly lifts and the sun is shining on whatever problem I thought I had. After those broken hearts the thing that got the final tears out and summoned the resolve to move on was dancing violently to the Miss Saigon soundtrack on the stage of the vacant stake center. But, dance can also be an expression of joy and it is more and more often that I turn to dance as an expression of gratitude and joy for the blessings that have come into my life.
That's why it hurts so badly when I cannot dance. Being pregnant, recovering from pregnancy, six months of physical therapy for my sprained ankle. All of these things restrict my dancing and it's so hard to regain strength in those tiny muscles in all the hidden places that only dancers know about. It has been such a blessing to be teaching dance theses last few months. We are thinking of buying a house. All these years we've been renting and it's time to settle into a nice school district somewhere. All I keep thinking about is whether there will be enough room in the garages to teach dance. If we live somewhere where the parents would rather send their girls to a professional studio, I might only use it myself, but I know that I want dance to be a part of my life. I just bought a portable barre because I have so many girls in my class now we needed the extra space, but it's also a kind of promise to myself that no matter where I live, I will be able to dance. And that, is a happy thought indeed.
I love that so many in my family love dance. On my side and Josh's. I love that Anna calls my porcelain Ballerina music box "Nina." I wonder if that's how I named myself "Nina" when I was her age. Anna can plie and turn in a circle with her arms up in 5th position. She grabs my hand and says Dance! when music comes on. I think I've got another soul mate in her. Is it possible to have four soul mates? All three of my children and my husband feel like soul mates, in different ways. I guess that's just family. We're made to be together and to love being together. That's why I hate, HATE all the disintegration of families today. It's like ripping people's souls apart. I creeps into our minds and homes and works its poison. If we don't realize it for what it is and where it comes from, it can poison our relationships.
Families that dance together stay together!
My parents also gave me the love of dance. I think it probably began as a toddler in Sweden dancing to ABBA. Then I clearly remember dancing my heart out in the living room and entry hall to Rogers and Hammerstein. My dad taught me the box step, swing, and watched Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies with me when I should have been in bed. After I started dancing my mom would sit on the basement stairs and watch me show her what I had learned that night. They always came to watch me perform from the most sparsely attended performance of the pom squad at JV soccer games on Tuesday afternoons to the three performances of my dance studio with hundreds of dollars in costume changes. They rented a dance floor to cover the patio at my wedding reception.
My sister-in-law in Seattle, see previous post, and I were talking about dance during our visit. We were watching a Swan Lake DVD, of course, and wondered why girls are so drawn to ballet. Men hate it. She wisely said she thinks it's because it's the perfect expression of elegance and beauty, yet it takes incredible strength and discipline. It is symbolic of womanhood, the understated determination that makes a life appear calm and beautiful amid the storms and trials that strengthen us. I thought she was profound.
5 comments:
I had it in my mind that it was you who made such a beautiful connection to dance and womanhood:) Our minds must have been fused as one during that blissful day:) I loved everything you wrote!
How did you get such good dancing genes, and how did it completely skip me in this family? Don't ever stop. I love it.
Now I want to get up and dance. I will be sure to put my baby in lessons as soon as she is potty trained. I think I can afford the cost compared to the cost of therapy. :)
That was such beautiful post, it made me cry! I love you and I love it that you dance...and that you LOVE to dance!
That was so beautifully articulated! I feel like the dance ability skipped me completely, like Emily said--it's a sad realization because I appreciate dance so much. Don't all girls secretly [or not] long to be a ballerina when they grow up? I still do. And for what it's worth, in my childhood memory, you are forever in dance attire of some sort, even the tie-dyed tops with no bottoms (?) from that Claymont performance...that wasn't a dream, right?
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