Cue the confetti! I just took my first ballet class in years… YEARS.

Okay, seriously, there was nothing miraculous. I was slow and pokey and some things felt downright jankey (that is so not a real word, anyway). But I made it through an hour class… and even though it was just an hour, you know that an hour ballet class is one hour of straight movement. I remembered (mostly) what to do and my body remembered (kind of) what to do and for the most part, I did alright. I have to say, that was so much better than I kind of anticipated. The miraculous part is how I feel today! Sure I’m a bit sore, I re-discovered tushy muscles, but I’m feeling good. I mean, I’m feeling more limber and energetic than I’ve felt in a long time. I fully remember why I loved this. To be honest, I was afraid that would be a problem, why had I started this whole thing in the first place? Would I enjoy it again or would I have discovered that my period of dancing was over. You know, we all go through cycles and periods in life, some things persist and some things fade away. I danced a lot going through my PhD program. I needed it, it sustained me, it renewed me, it distracted me, it inspired me, it comforted me. Dance was, at the risk of heresy, my church. But I finished that. I have other things now, other distractions, other inspirations, I’ve move on from where I was three years ago and six years before that when I started my program. That was a long long time ago, so many little me’s ago. I’m so happy and a bit more than relieved that the me that has emerged still loves the feel of the barre under my fingers, the brush of soft shoes on the sprung floor, the sound of ballet class music fingering through my brain, and the unmistakable and so hard to describe feeling of just moving in, around, inside ballet.