Friday Nights

Can't paint my way out of a paper bag:)

This photo is here because I  can't stand to do a post without one.  I'm sitting with a scraped out oil painting of, yes, a paper bag.   My good friend and award-winning photographer,  Carol Henry, took the photo.  I like it.  I look a little... mischievous.  hmm,  I must be thinking of some new dance moves.  

As a young girl I had two friends who were amazing dancers, Barb Seery and Patty Behm.  Barb teaches dance forty years (yikes!) later.  I didn't  take dance lessons.  With four kids in my family it just wasn't in the budget.  So, while Patty and Barb showed me the step ball change and we made up routines to Sammy Davis Jr.'s "Candy Man" I didn't think of myself as a dancer.  It was one of those things that seemed to belong to someone else.  I didn't claim dance as my own until my yoga studio (yes) decided to sponsor dance classes.  I gave it a whirl and loved it.  It's good to go back and live those childhood dreams.

Now I go dancing on Friday nights.  You wouldn't know it to see my moves, but I've taken lessons for the last three or four years.  My favorites are the East Coast Swing, the Foxtrot and the Texas Two Step.  I also love Salsa but just can't get that hip action goin'!  With a partner who (I'm sorry guys) knows what he's doing I'm actually pretty good once I loosen up.  

I wish I had pictures of our Christmas party performance.  It was so much fun and very special.  We had a routine that rotated the extra women on  and off  the dance floor.  We practiced for weeks and the time we spent right before our performance in the dress rehearsal was magical.  We practiced on the sidewalk in a little alcove of the strip mall where the yoga center is.  It was dark and the music was piped in on an ipod; we were amazing.  I just swirled in my big swishy pantsuit living inside of the music completely in the moment.  Perfection.