A Step In The Right Direction

Dance has been my life.  My first memory is looking through the side of my playpen while my Mother taught tap lessons in our living room.  She kept a piece of old paneling behind our couch, pulled it out to the middle of our living room, cued up the 78 rpm records on the player, and taught time steps and off to buffalos.

I grew up taking every style of dance you can imagine.  My mother’s little living room dance class grew into one of the largest and most successful dance studios in Northern New York.  We traveled to cities and other states for workshops and conventions and competitions.

When I went off to college, I planned for my dancing to cease.  But, no.  I was President of the college dance company and found myself running off to the dance studio every chance I got.  I graduated in 1985 with an English Literature degree and a vow to NOT be a dancer.

After a few years in the “real world”, my mom called to say that the Army base, Fort Drum, was expanding back home.  Would I be interested in coming back and opening a studio?

Yes.  I would… for “ a little while”.

I got married, started a family.  My studio bloomed.  My mother’s studio continued to grow.  Looking back, I guess we were just dancing through life.

In early 2000, my mother began complaining of severe migraines.  She had suffered with headaches all her life, but these were different.  In February 2001, while she was babysitting my daughter, I got a call at my studio.  The ambulance was en route to her house.  She had carefully placed my 3 year old daughter on her bed, closed the door, and went to the opposite side of the house where she had a full blown seizure.

Within days, our world crumbled.  My beautiful, young mother had gioblastoma multi-form.  A rare and incurable brain tumor.

She battled for eight months.  In that time, I tried running her studios, my studios, taking care of my daughter, and I went through a divorce.  I was always tired, always sad, and feeling lost.

When my mother passed away in December of 2001, I didn’t know what to do or how to move forward.

Our dance studios were nationally competitive.  Trophies lined the walls and shelves.  Plaques were everywhere.  It was all hollow and empty and meaningless without her.  

In 2005, I decided to rework the studio concept.  My dance outreach company was born.  Our motto… Dance for others, Dance for self, Dance for life rings out on stage before every benefit show.  The dancers involved have raised over $40,000.00 for local people and groups in need.  To watch young dancers blossom before me, to see their faces when they raise $3,000.00 for a family with two blind sons or help a cancer patient warms my heart.

My dancers have become amazing teachers, performers, parents and have continued to take our spirit of giving and outreach with them and into the larger community of our world.  

My clogging company always dances in honor of my mother, who loved country clogging.  Their shirts say, “Dancing for Donna since 2001”... and I shed a tear every year at our final performance when I see them out on stage.

Starting an outreach company was more than a step in the right direction, it saved my soul.  It lightens my load.  It gives my art and my profession a purpose beyond any words.

In my mind, I can see my mom dancing along with us.  Her smile lights the entire stage.

The Back Story

When I was young, my parents used to constantly say I  brought home strays.
They didn't mean dogs or cats ... they meant people.
I was constantly befriending the girl who had no friends, the boy who got bullied.  I preferred to go visit our 80 year old neighbor after school, because I knew he was lonely after his wife died.
This may, in many ways, seem to be a glorious and wonderful trait.
Somedays, in many ways, it is indeed.
However, my ability to see The Back Story has often meant that the very same people whose story I embrace, turn around and hurt me or leave me stranded.
What is this back story?  I am a sucker for someone who cries poor or has less than me.  I want to help them, to fix them, to make it all better.
First off, it should be noted... many, many, many of them do not want me to fix anything.  It isn't, after all, my place.  Who says I am in someway "better" than them... who says my back story is a shining example of wondie-ness.
Note.  I don't.
I never have.  We were squarely  middle class when I was growing up.  Often, we faltered on the lower middle class end of the spectrum.  I never knew it then.  My parents never, ever shared this with me.  But, in retrospect, lunch boxes with a "mustard sandwich" or saltines and butter may have been a big hint.
My Mom watched for sales and clipped coupons.  Having $100.00 saved up to go to the Ames in Lowville and get new school clothes was a big deal.  Still, I always felt so lucky.  So rich.
I loved our home.  My mom, even though she ran her own business, always had an after school snack waiting and dinner planned.  I had two parents who adored me and listened to my stories.  I had a baby brother who I hung the moon on... he was (and still is) the Best Sibling Ever.  I had dogs and a yard with a big swing set.  I got to take piano lessons and dance lessons.  They hauled me to cheerleading practice and one of them was at every game I ever cheered at.
When I saw a child who didn't get to participate; who sat alone at lunch; who wore the same clothes every day; who never got asked to sleepovers or birthday parties, I was like a magnet attracted to a sheet of metal.  I was "on that project".
As an adult, this has continued.  I always see someone who seems sad or angry and the writer in me begins to create their Back Story.
Were they an abused child?  Are they facing unemployment?  Illness?  Is a family member dying?  I will surround them with love, shower them with Free Stuff, take them to lunch.... I will make up for their Back Story.
Will I?  No.  I won't.  I will attempt it.  Inevitably, I will fall short or they will take advantage of me.  Either way, it sure does sting.
In many ways, on most days, I am still that third grader who invites that shy kid home for dinner.  I am too bright and happy.  I try too hard to fix what is not my story to fix.... what someone may  not wish for me to fix.
I still beckon you to look at those around you who seem nasty or sad and wonder- What Is Their Back Story.  I know this- this faulty trait of mine makes me much less judgmental than most.  Even my daughter, at a young age, would caution me to stop letting people walk all over me or take advantage of me.  She is a better judge of character than her soft hearted Mama.
Nonetheless, if I ever meet you, you can bet I am wondering.... What Is Their Back Story.
Maybe you want to tell me, and maybe you don't.

Momentously Mundane

I am finding a quiet happiness in the mundane.
Who'd a thunk it?
The quiet comfort of folding laundry.  The sudsy warmth of hands in dishwasher, the swish of rinse, the click-clunk as the plate settles in to its slot in the drying rack.  I revel in the rhythm of my shoveling duties and relax to the hum of the vacuum cleaner.
Those of you out there who know me are  most likely falling off your chairs; either from raucous laughter or from shock.
It is true.  I find these moments to be... momentous.
I let my memories come to mind, I soften my heart and, often, my tongue.  I embrace the simple joy of a task well done.
It is a treasure to have the time to fold that shirt correctly.  It is a pleasure to delve my hands into soapy water.  I can take an hour to bathe the dog.
We get confused.  Misled.  Way-laid.  Life, my friends, is not the big rush; the huge party; the gigantic event.  Life is not the fancy restaurant.  It is the making of a huge salad with your child chopping veggies at your side.  It is the ease of conversation that flows from small chores shared.  It is, indeed, the mundane.
Try.  Just breathe and slow down and try.  Try to lose yourself in the creases of a king size bed sheet.  Look out the window and take in the details of your yard or street as you rinse dishes.  Put away the food processor and take out the knife.  Start chopping away at your stress and your worry and your fears.
It is a gloriously simple thing, this embracing the every day tasks and finding joy in the mundane.  This task is yours; make the next thing you do, no matter how basic, momentous.

 

The Bee Who Was A Fly

They huddled in a small circle onstage.
It was not part of my choreography.
The 5-7 year olds squealed excitedly and pointed in an exaggerated dance of desperation at a dot on the stage.
"Bee. Bee!  Bumble Beeeeeee!!" they screamed mid-routine.

What else could I do?  I had the cassette stopped (yes, cassette, it was that long ago), and pranced on stage to see what the commotion was all about.

Small children hid behind me and clung to my panty hosed legs.  I gingerly peered into the circle to find... a floundering fly.

I had stopped my recital for a floundering, three quarters dead, fly.

I turned to the audience and smiled.  "No bee.   Just a fly.  The show can go on."
An Assistant carried broom and dustpan onstage, swept the now-dead fly into the pan, and exited stage left with a grand flourish.

The cassette was re-cued, the dancers set in their opening poses, and the show went on.

How many times in life do we panic and think we are encountering a burly bumble bee, when, in fact, it is only a floundering fly we must deal with?  I know, personally, that I am guilty of this.  I panic.   I worry.  I think the worst.  I prepare for it.  I succumb to it.  Then, when I actually have to have an encounter or deal with the "huge" problem, it is nothing more than an almost-dead fly.

What if, instead, we decided that every problem would be only a close to the end fly?  An issue we can handle with a soft slap, a swish of a broom, a squish of our toe?  What if we try that plan of attack?

Sure, it is still A Buzz... but there is no sting.