FINDING DANCE

I began piano lessons when I was four years old. I hated practicing. Practicing meant that I was readying myself for a recital. For a grand performance where I would show my hard earned accomplishments and labored efforts to an audience of music lovers. But there was no audience. There was no recital or concert. There wasn’t even a music lover. Just myself, week after week at the piano. After procrastinating the week away, I would sit down to the keyboard with piano lessons a couple hours away. I would hammer out a few exercises before attending the lesson where my teacher would scold me. "You didn’t practice this week. Did you?" I never bothered denying it. My fingers had betrayed me. After the scolding, I was given the assignment to repeat and another week of procrastination followed. Months passed like this into years and I continued my practiced procrastination. I never could help but wonder, "For what am I doing this?" After two years, I lost all interest in the piano, for I harbored another desire. My mother looked befuddled when I told her at six, I didn’t want to play anymore. She didn’t protest, but simply told my teacher I had lost interest in the pianoforte. It was behind closed doors that I then began to indulge in my new lover. I called him Dance. It was in Dance that I wanted to express myself and – immediately following the end of my piano lessons – I began begging my parents for ballet lessons. The church condemned dancing and my parents agreed. I was kept from my lover and soon began my liaison with Dance. Behind locked doors, I danced. I escaped into the forest behind the house and once I was out of sight, I danced. I snuck out at night, where I danced free from watchful eyes. Underneath the merciful moon and in his light, I danced. When the skies opened and the rains washed the earth, I ran into the forest and danced. My pleas never ceased, nor did my parent’s stand against my passion. The years passed quickly and I had grown accustomed to the moonlight dances. The gods smiled on me when they brought to me, my best friend who studied ballet. During sleep overs I would slip on her toe shoes. I slid my foot into the wooden toes wrapped in soft pink satin and despite the pain caused by pinched toes crammed into the wooden toes, I longed for that shoe of satin and ribbon enveloping my tiny foot. How I ached to dance in the sun. How I wanted nothing more. Forbidden from Dance, I embraced his brother, Music, and decided to take up the piano again. Now twelve, I returned to the loathsome practicing once more. At that time, I saw Dance in all I did. It was at this time, one afternoon, while my fingers flew across the ivory, that I looked upon my limber fingers and saw Dance there before me. A graceful, complicated dance. Instantly, the hammering of keys and the drone sounds of the music melted away to my fingers which danced effortlessly across the keys to the music I played. The C’s and A’s no longer were notes, but choreographed markings for my fingers to follow. The sounds of chords, triads, and scales became grand jetes, grand plies, and round de jambs. The Arpeggio transformed into the Arabesque. Before me, I saw a dance. An excitement overwhelmed me and my fingers fired on. I took on The Tarantella where my fingers flew with the allegretto. I danced through my fingers to Adagios and Andantes. Finally, there, was I permitted to dance. For the next several years, I would dance like this. My fingers would do what my feet were forbidden. Through my fingers, my dreams were lived. The moment I moved out of my parent’s home, I sought out a studio and immediately realized my life-long dream. I was dancing! After years of pleading and secrets, after years of dancing on the ivories, I was free to dance on my toes. I never was too tired to dance. After working eight hours, I would come home and dance for two. After a two hour ballet lesson, I would come home and dance for three. Through a full time job, I danced. Through finding my husband, I danced. I danced while carrying our daughter, until I could dance no more. As quickly as it had come, my Dance was taken away as motherhood forced its priorities. Dance had fallen to the way side and, once more, I began to pine. But this time, there was no pianoforte. Through a year of early motherhood, surgeries, and a second pregnancy, Dance was forgotten. I felt him drifting away until the likelihood of him returning would never come again. The demands of motherhood pressed hard on me as I carried the burden of a new husband and two toddlers. I felt the weight of the diapers, the inaudible cries, and sleepless nights tearing me down. If Dance saw me then, he would not have known me. I was tattered and worn. The luster from my hair was gone. My eyes were blackened and deep from lack of sleep. My feet were no longer blistered with toe shoes and pirouettes. My hands now smelled of Johnson and Johnson and Desitin. It was one night – I had nearly forgotten the life before – when I was compelled to remember the faint smell of wet trees and damp earth when I would dance in the rain. I had recalled the moon light as I stretched my arms and felt my body pull towards my dance. Terrified that one day, I would forget the smell of rain while I danced, I sat down to my computer. I heard the baby stir. Oh, not now. Please. I have to remember one last time, before I forever forget. I pulled up my word perfect and placed my fingers upon the keyboard. My memory took me away. my fingers fired away across the letters, the rhythmic clicking filled my ears. But it was the old grace in my fingers that I at once recognized. I looked down at my hands and there was Dance before me. An excitement overwhelmed me and my fingers flew on. I took on the essays and stories, the articles, novels, and e-mails I had to write. Before me, through writing, was Dance. The tears blinded my eyes as my old lover carried my fingers across the keys as I danced like never before. As my fingers flew with the Dance I had longed for, a new passion stirred in my breast. It wasn’t the dance I had pined for. It was the need to express.