dance dance revolution

This evening was so beautiful.

After Colt and I traded off screaming rounds with our son and finally lulled him to sleep, we both spent some time in the backyard.  Last week he dug up a huge stump and tonight he spent time chopping it up and cleaning it to prepare it for sanding.  I asked him what he was planning to do with it and he said, "Spend some time with it".

So I changed into shorts and danced all over the yard.

My out of shape body, my post-baby body with legs that were meaty trunks a few months ago and have now traded in their dancers-muscle for a softness, my shoulders that stay permanently tense, the back that used to hold it all together weakened after so much time of not truly moving.  Nothing compares to the physicality of wild dance.

((Aside: my body remarks are not of a visual nature.  In high-school my friends would get angry with me for being self conscious about my body because I maintained a healthy weight and still looked nice in clothes, but when you're used to a certain level of fitness that you then stop achieving for whatever reason, the way you look can stay the same while the way you FEEL can truly be affected in a real way.  I love the way my body looks now more than I ever have before.  It looks more womanly and feminine and beautiful, but my muscles and my stance feel different in an unnatural way.))

I danced around the tomato plants, I danced through the ivy.  I can't get as high off the ground anymore.  And when I was panting and sweaty and mosquitos were swarming around my neck, I set my mind to making an 8 count the way we used to do in school ten years ago to Bach Partitas.

As I was switching 1-4 arms with 5-8 legs and creating a traveling phrase, I remembered right before I went onstage at showings with my real Partita so long ago, how good it felt to be able to show what I could do.  I'm not sure I was ever a great dancer, but I know I'm a good performer and that can trick anyone into believing you are great.

Look where I've come, ten years after that moment!  The home, the baby, the kind of strange job.  I love being on stage, but this is the life I imagined for myself even then.  I am just as happy dancing wildly in my backyard as I am in front of people.  I don't feel like I'm missing something by being Lane's mom.

But as long as I can move, I'll be dancing somewhere.

old body: ((you can skip to about 3:33 for my favorite parts))