Dancing
Some of my friends have been posting old photos on Facebook for Throw-Back Thursday. It’s really cool to see those old pictures. I especially enjoy the photos of my newer friends – so sweet to see them as the teenagers I didn’t know. Like a flashback in a movie. A time machine that gives you just a peek at the past you missed.
So I decided that this week I would post a TBT photo. And looking through my desk drawers, I found this:
Printed on the back: May 1976.
I was 25.
At first, I didn’t even recognize me. Then all of a sudden I remembered. I remembered my mother taking this photo. I was doing some stretches before my ballet class.
Ballet class.
At 25.
I wrote a while back that I never got the dance lessons I wanted when I was a kid. So when I got my first job, I took a ballet class for adults.
I remember the leotard I was wearing in the photo.
And that’s it.
I don’t remember where the class was, what the room or the building looked like, who the teacher was, any of the other students, and not one dance or even one single position. I can’t picture myself at the barre. Or at the bar, afterwards, for that matter.
I have a really fantastic memory, and I have been sitting with this photo, just waiting for it to all come back to me.
Nothing.
Granted it is much more recent, but I remember every little move, every piece of music, everybody who has stood next to me, everything everybody has worn, every bounce of my teacher’s ponytail – EVERY SINGLE THING – from my Zumba classes. And I think I always will.
Who knew?
Who knew that the earnest, studious, careful woman trying to learn ballet at twenty-five would –
at sixty-three –
prefer Pitbull to Pas De Deux?
- Posted in: Aging ♦ Humor ♦ Memories
- Tagged: ballet, ballet lessons, Dance, TBT, Throw-back Thursday, Zumba
notquiteold 
You were a might cute 25!
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Not really, but thanks for thinking so.
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My daughter is 47 and she takes ballet classes! Why not, I say. But Zumba sounds like REAL fun!
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Zumba is amazingly fun! I can pretend I’m a sexy young thing – and burn calories at the same time. One day I wore my pedometer to class and I danced for four miles!
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At 19 I signed up for ballet class. The next day I absolutely had to crawl down the stairs to get out of my apartment. SCREAMING muscles. I cannot ever remembering being that sore before or since.
I learned that ballet uses muscles that don’t normally get used.
And I also learned that ballet is not my forte.
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I don’t remember being sore. I don’t remember a single thing. I didn’t even remember that I took the class until I saw the photo. Maybe I took the class while I was in a coma.
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You DO kill me. Your sense of humor is unique and I love it. 😀 ❤
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Thanks!. I love making people laugh!
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~(~_*)~~
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I took ballet (free, at the Bristol Girls Club) for a few weeks. Even when I was in grade school, it didn’t take long to figure out that being graceful was not my thing. Maybe your amnesia is due to a similar disappointment. I don’t remember you taking ballet either, but I know the exact spot in Mom’s house where that picture was taken.
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The whitish blob in the upper left corner: Sarge’s butt.
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Women, you tell them their cute, its deflected even if from another woman, will baffle me forever. I think all five of my sister at one point in 80’s had the Shirley Temple look too. Funny, the thing’s we remember, more perplexing the one’s don’t. I recall throwing a stick down the dirt road, picking it up and throwing again, it was the way, I marked my goal to keep going. The other day had to ask my mama, when did we get hot water in the old block house I grew up in, wow no hot water for a good year, plus no tub inside or shower for that year too. Six years of no toilet inside, well I remember that a lot, my skinny butt was sure one day, I would slip into the mess in the outhouse, my mama said I be ok, I would float, such encourage she supplied at times.
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I like the stick-down-the-road memory. I can just picture it. But I won’t picture you floating in the outhouse, if you don’t mind. As far as cute at 25 – I really wasn’t. However, I have turned into a very cute 63 year old. I really like how I look now. Took me long enough.
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Fine, don’t blame you one bit. I am sure, I will write a post one night on my methods of passing time, as I did walk everywhere growing up. I grew into my face too, that the way I think and put it, I sure get more flirts with my snowy hair then my days of dark brown hair.
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I’m totally with you here. There are major events in my teenage life (like going to Expo 67 in Montreal) that I don’t remember the details of, yet other things that were far less significant that are as clear as if they happened yesterday. Weird! BTW: did you realize how much your ‘younger self’ photo resembles the cover image on your book?!?!?!? Coincidence? I think not!
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Funny… I was at a book signing this weekend and a few people insisted the photo on the cover was me. And I was standing right there! I just don’t see it.
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Some of my classmates that I’ve recently been reunited with remember all these details from school…not me, I was totally focused on graduation day and getting out of there!
And I’m pretty sure my ex and I had that same exact braided rug when we were first married….1976.
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I was never into ballet, but I love swing and jitterbug! Not only did I take lessons as an adult (that are still with me), I met my husband there (who is also still with me). We still love to dance whenever we have the opportunity.
I guess you remember what is significant to you (like clothes and Zumba) and reinforced (like clothes and Zumba).
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You have inspired me to try Zumba. I took ballet as an adult to squelch those pangs of longing I developed as a child when we couldn’t afford it. I actually really enjoyed it and even had a ballet bar installed in my home. I would be embarrassed to show you my leotard. But I loved it. For a short period of time. Then for some reason that, I can not remember, I stopped. Probably a money thing. Anyway Zumba sounds like more fun.
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