How To Find What You Came Here For

Welcome to the worlds that populate my brain!
The short stories you find here are the product
of a vastly overactive imagination
powered by coffee and M&Ms.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Let's Dance!

My Personal Fantasy
When I was very little - about four - my mom enrolled me in dance classes.

I was excited about becoming a dancing princess.  My mom was excited about me developing some coordination.

We were both doomed to disappointment.
A significant number of my very early memories involve falling: falling down the basement stairs, falling out of my bed, falling off the front porch, falling from the top of the biggest slide in the playground, falling for no apparent reason at all except that gravity hated me.

My mom was starting to worry that I'd actually hurt myself sooner or later.  When she brought her concern to our family doctor (the week after I nearly severed my arm by sticking it through a plate glass door), he suggested either gymnastics or dance lessons.  One look at the apparatus in the gymnasium had my mom calling our local dance instructor.

I was so excited on the first night of class I could hardly be still - not that anyone would have noticed since being still wasn't part of my repertoire!  I bopped from foot to foot while my mom talked with the instructor.

"Mrs. Brown, my daughter is…well…a little clumsy."

"Don't worry, I've had plenty of experience with clumsy girls.  Dance will do wonders for her!"  The instructor spoke with all the confidence of a woman who'd never seen me fall out of my chair at dinner.

"I hope so."  My mom gave me a hug and hurried out to wait in the station wagon - mothers were not allowed in the basement dance studio.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first class, even though my shoes (the smallest the store carried) were several sizes too big.  Mrs. Brown recommended to my mom that I not wear shoes to class…at least until my feet grew a little.  She didn't mention the blonde girl with the ice bag pressed to a rapidly bruising eye - the one who'd been standing across the room when an enthusiastic kick had launched my shoe directly at her head.

I danced in bare feet for our second class, but my fellow princesses-in-training still gave me a wide berth.  Despite their caution, one girl went home with my hand print on her cheek as the result of a catastrophic loss of balance during a spin. 

"How is she doing, Mrs. Brown?" my mother asked warily - she'd seen the looks I was getting from the other students.

Mrs. Brown was struggling to maintain her confidence.  "She's making progress…she's trying very hard!"  She turned in time to see me tumble headfirst off the bench from where I'd been tying my shoes.  "No child is hopeless!" she declared.

My Personal Reality
A little wrinkle of doubt pleated my mom's forehead as we left the basement.

I could barely wait for the third night of class.  I raced for the stairs and before I realized what was happening, I was tumbling down them.  Experience had taught me to relax into the fall…unfortunately the three girls I took with me weren't as accustomed to bouncing down wooden stairs.  We landed in a tangle of arms and legs on the braided rug at the bottom of the stairs.

In the shocked silence that preceded the wails and sobs of the three casualties of my ongoing war with gravity, I heard Mrs. Brown call my mother's name.

A few days later I was bopping from foot to foot on the deck of a swimming pool while my mom spoke to the coach of the swim team, "My daughter's a little clumsy, Coach."



This post is a response to a prompt from The Red Dress Club to write about RHYTHM.  My lack of coordination (and rhythm) comes as no surprise to those who know me, love me, and make sure they aren't below me on the stairs.  In college, my friends had a game they called "Geri Tipping."  Although this sounds like a drinking game, no alcohol was actually involved - I simply have NO sense of balance at all!  Comments and crit are welcome as always!


20 comments:

  1. There are so many sports that aren't "Geri Friendly"...I remember the concern in the voice of a woman in the next lane after a particularly spectacular bowling accident, wondering if you'd broken your leg.

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  2. Dan - Yeah, and I don't think the fact that I was visibly pregnant at the time helped!

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  3. Ah... Geri tipping... those were the days...

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  4. Amybeth - one of my personal favorites was coming out of Jesus Christ Superstar. Walking along and all of a sudden... BAM! Blamed it on a supersonic turtle. Fast little suckers! LOL

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  5. Oh girl, you made me laugh with this post. Just picturing the little girl you were, creating that much havoc in the dance studio... what a fireball you were!

    I'm not so good at balance and coordination either... so I was to chickensh*t to basically try any sports or dance lessons. I often tripped just because my legs somehow refuse to coordinate while walking.

    So... which sports club do you belong to ? LOL

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  6. Oh my goodness, you poor thing and your poor mom. This was precious. I hope you did eventually grown out of this. How many broken bones?

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  7. Oh man, hilarious!
    I love how casual and understated the tone of this is, and how you were so darn optimistic despite the fact you were a walking battering ram. Adorable.
    That was fun! Came from TRDC linkup.

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  8. I laughed out loud in my stuffy lawyer office over this one. I was fired from ballet too--for the same reason. I loved your pacing and use of sentence length variation to impart humor here. Great work. -Amy (visiting from TRDC)

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  9. Dosweat - I ended up swimming competitively all the way through high school. My mom still tells people I was kicked out of ballet!

    Terry - Nope, still as clumsy as ever (on land at least)! I've never broken any bones, or had stitches - although my mom kept a supply of butterfly bandages on hand just for me!

    Letmestart - I always had PLENTY of enthusiasm...but I was a stumbling, bumbling disaster area whenever I was in motion!

    Honest - thank you! I still think it's hilarious that something that requires a great deal of coordination was somehow supposed to impart coordination. How was that supposed to work? LOL

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  10. Loved the way you put this together. Very nice piece of writing.

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  11. Water is a great substitute for land. It seems it worked well for you! This was such a funny read. You made it funny without making feel like I'm laughing at you.

    Even through your battle with gravity, you had a great bit of positivity & belief in yourself.

    I have to mention, my niece was very clumsy, she still is. She is also in gymnastics & she is a stellar gymnast. It's weird how that worked out for her.

    I was never accident or fall prone (clumsy), I don't have an ounce of coordination, though.

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  12. Comingeast - thank you very much!

    Lex - I love the water. I'd live there if it didn't make me have to pee and turn all pruny. In the water I am grace personified (if I do say so myself!) but somehow on land I can't get everything going the right way.

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  13. Oh this is such a sweet post! I, too, have the clumsy thing going on more often than not!

    This sentence - The instructor spoke with all the confidence of a woman who'd never seen me fall out of my chair at dinner - absolutely slayed me!

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  14. Galit - Thanks! I have actually fallen out of my chair at work. Chair with wheels aren't good things for people with a poor sense of balance!

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  15. hahahahha! The other 3 girls werent as accustomed! LOL... great read!

    new follower from trdc

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  16. I am having trouble typing since the screen is blurry from the tears in my eyes. I laughed so many times throughout the piece. This was the highlight for me.....Experience had taught me to relax into the fall…unfortunately the three girls I took with me weren't as accustomed to bouncing down wooden stairs.

    Then the ending sent me out with a final howl. So funny!

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  17. For some I just kept thinking of Mary Catherine Gallagher from SNL. I loved this post!

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  18. Paula - Thank you and welcome to the insanity that is the inside of my head!

    May - thanks! I fell the starting block that first night of swim practice; water is a much better place to land than a concrete floor!

    Sara - I remember when those skits started! My hubby looked at me and said, "This is exactly how I picture you in high school, but without the armpit thing."

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  19. Ha! Loved reading this. While I always felt at home in the ballet room, my bike riding and ball-catching skills fell way short. I was a terrible swimmer, too.

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