For the Love

My three youngest siblings had their spring dance recital a few weeks ago. I absolutely love watching them dance. I love watching people dance in general. When I was younger, my mom took us to the Fox theater often. In December we would see The Nutcracker ballet (we would go to the pre-opening night dress rehearsal performance) and all of us would sit there and drink it all in. The lights, the stage, the costumes, the dancers. My very cool High School English teacher had all sorts of wonderful friends, one of whom was a modern dance choreographer. I went to one of the rehearsals with my brothers and sisters and my mom. The youngest at the time was only a toddler, but she sat quietly through the whole performance. We have always loved dance and music and art so my parents never worried about us being disruptive. My mom considered discontinuing the children's dance lessons, but I couldn't bear the idea. "Oh no, " I said, "You can't! They are so good and they love it!" I took dance lessons for a short time and violin lessons for a short time but lessons can be pricey. I could draw and paint for free, however, and so I taught myself years ago. I went to a figure drawing class recently and it was like a breath of fresh air. It had been so long since I had taken the time to do draw. And it was a pleasant surprise to look down at my paper and see that I had captured the model's pose and angles and shadows just right. Some of us in the family play instruments, some of us dance--the one thing we can all do is sing. My sisters and I used to sing together all of the time. We'd find a song and make it even better, coming up with intricate harmonies. Various people have tried to convince us to make a cd, get an agent, go big, but I don't know about that. I don't really want to be famous, I just want to sing. As a freshman in college I would sing in the shower at the top of my lungs--did I mention it was midnight?--and my RA would come in and say, "That really is beautiful, but it's late and people are trying to sleep, so..." Even now, when I'm at work I'll stand in the middle of the bathroom and sing. The acoustics are quite good and no one seems to mind :) I joined the choir at church and I am the youngest by at least 30 years. It's pretty fabulous. I can't practice with them as often as I'd like to but when I do we have a lovely time. Last Christmas I was assigned a solo. I was already assigned a much smaller part in a duet but some rather last minute switching left a major solo available and the choir director's wife asked me to do it. The Christmas production is always a big deal (the sanctuary seats at least 500 and is overflowing with people each time we do a Christmas musical) and we start practicing in August. I cannot tell I lie--I was excited. Nervous but excited. The song was beautiful and difficult and emotional. You know how you can just feel a song or a painting or a photograph or a dance and it pulls you in? I think that is one of the best feelings in the world. The baby in the family is only 4, so of course when her little class performs there's a lot of jumping and wiggling on stage. But just the other day, I was babysitting her and we took my dog out for a walk. After running down the hill, we discovered a puddle. Of course, she wanted to splash and I figured, why not, shoes and legs can be washed and dried. So she proceeded to tap dance in the puddle and I was honored to be asked to participate. We shuffle-stepped, tapped tapped tapped, and although the puddle wasn't large enough for us both to enjoy, I still managed to get wet. My 10 yr old sister is very graceful on stage when she's ballet dancing and she looks so elegant. What she really loves however is tap-dancing. And boy is she good. I watched her up there (she and my 7 yr. old brother can moonwalk which makes them super cool) and I could see on her face that she was in it.  My 7 yr old brother is the only boy in the class, but he has all the confidence in the world and enough natural talent to pull it off. And he's adorable :) After the last show, I was driving home and I told my mom, I love to watch them dance. She said "Me too! It's because they love it and you can't help but love to see people do what they're passionate about." Amen. So keep dancing and singing and painting and acting and kickboxing and writing and gardening and playing soccer and cooking and teaching and rock-climbing and building and stock-brokering and whatever else you love.