Wednesdays

I wish I could put into words, what it feels like to be dancing (again).

photo credit-  The Straits Times, Singapore

Wednesdays, Fridays, I take the Jubilee line north to West Hampstead. 

***

"Mom, you're a great dancer!"  She encourages me.

No, no, Mom is so out of shape for dance!

"It's ok!"  She declares.  "Dance is not just about being in shape, but more about what you are expressing and how it makes you feel!  Off to do math now!  I love you!"

***

Week 15, post-operation, living with the metallic arm, I am dancing for rehabilitation and to save myself.  I have a second therapist working collaboratively with my other London therapist RM, to address an atrophied shoulder. The objective is to get back on a horse in the summer, and I am going to need my strength back.

***

Something about the music.  It's like water, or the ocean, enveloping me.

photo credit-  The Esplanade Theatres by The Bay
choreography-  Tammy L Wong

Submerged, I hear longing, and pain, and joy, and hope, pulsating, pushing, pressing along.

photo credit-  The Arts House

  The movement phrases the teacher assigns, become like the alphabet.  How liberating, how delicious!  For I get to choose how I want to arrange the letters, form words, string sentences together.

The teacher says- demi pile, chasse on counts 1 and 2, arms and legs move to 2nd arabesque, hold on count 3.

But I do- demi-plie before count 1, so that on count 1, my demi pile has more depth, and then between count 1 and 2, I can extend the expression of the chasse, to arrive in 2nd arabesque on count 3.  And although I am abiding by the instruction of not moving anywhere else on count 3, the internal moving, my breathing pattern, the flow of my arms do not stop- my arms keep reaching, furthering that arabesque line, and my face, my eyes, follow, and then look beyond the arrived arm, because where I look, and what I see, is how I communicate to you, the audience, what the music is saying, what my heart holds, and oh, don't we all inevitably meet somewhere, in this one precious, funny, life?

photo credit-  Ethos Books
choreography-  Tammy L Wong

When 2 hours have passed, everyone else rushes out of the room.  I stay on to stretch and cool my limbs down- an old habit from a previous life.

Dancing makes me feel so calm and so happy.

Photo credit- University of California, Irvine
choreography-  Tammy L Wong

I wish I could put into words, what it feels like to be dancing, again.