dreaming (not of california today)

My friend Suzi (now Susan) has a wonderful blog (www.trouttowers.blogspot.com). It makes my day to read it. Her latest is that she's taking ballet classes as an adult after taking them as a kid. I did that, and I'm SO excited for her!

When I was 27 (which now isn't yesterday) I went back and took ballet lessons after 17 years. I loved, loved, LOVED it! Even when my muscles remembered what to do, my limbs didn't react in the same way they used to, but it was just wonderful to Be There, to have the piano playing the same types of tunes and flit around the room.

There were two things that really made it worthwhile for me, though. First, I had lots of flashes of being 5 years old. Anytime you can flash back to an actual second of five-year-oldness is wonderful, isn't it? mmmmmm. Second, I would have split seconds of being graceful (a piroutte right on center or holding a scale just a little extra because center is whole). If I had one such moment in a class, the whole class was wonderful to me.

I danced again for several years, and then quit in my early 30s. Before I left, my teacher even took a friend and me to buy pointe shoes! She had said if we worked really hard she would give us little pointe lessons at the end of class. When I had quit as a kid, I was too young for pointe (ten), so this was a dream come true!

I'm definitely putting that on my list of things to do (again). Just thinking about it makes me happy!