Seaweed

At the moment, I’m wearing an ancient bathrobe, bad bed hair, and smudges of yesterday’s eyeliner. A soup kitchen would admit me without question.

Just three weeks from now, however, I’ll be adorned in unspeakably expensive crystals, fringe and fabric, enough makeup to resemble a drag queen, hurricane-proof tresses, and bronzer so deep as to rival the Tan Mom.  

I’ll also be a nervous wreck.

In other words, it’s show time. The United States Dance Championships, or, as referenced by professional/amateur (pro-am) ballroom dance couples, “Nationals” are right around the corner.

After my 2^nd place finish last summer (each year’s winners must move up to the next level), the competition is mine to lose.

No pressure or anything.

For now, however, the luxury of time has my head floating with inspiration that once tortured my child: seaweed.  

When my son was 8, I forced him into a coastal junior lifeguard program. He hated it. And me.

Mostly, he hated the kelp beds.

So great were his resentments, after a two-year enlistment, Santa gifted him a reprieve. Mention junior guards to this day and he invokes the man in the big red suit (along with a strong dose of motherhood guilt).

To have spent the past few days inspired by seaweed would be improbable under normal circumstances. But nothing about the dancing I do is conventional. 

I’m 46 years old and, after a nasty bump on the head 3 years ago (read: concussion), I began competing with my ballroom dance teacher, Jeremy, in American Rhythm (Cha Cha, Rhumba, Swing, Bolero and Mambo).

This probably means I’m still concussed. 

Nevertheless, it takes a village, as they say, and the number of professionals I’ve collected to support my amateur craft is beginning to rival the size of an incorporated city.

  

One of them is Zak, my ballet teacher.

Actually, nothing I do passes for ballet, but intrepid Zak insists I’m making progress. To be clear, I’ve mastered pointing and flexing my feet. Moving cleanly from one foot to another is my next goal.

And understanding what she occasionally mutters to herself in French.

After seeing me perform Bolero at a recent competition, Zak assigned an improvisational exercise she uses with her peewee class. On the dancer’s bell curve, I’m a toddler in a tutu sans the promising trajectory.

My challenge? To stand with my feet rooted to the floor allowing my body to be impacted by imaginary waves. Sometimes only my knees could bend. Other times, my ribs and hips. Eventually, everything could flow freely to the music, except my feet.

I rather hated her for making me do this in a public place, so I closed my eyes. You know—to keep people from seeing me.

As the music concluded, she instructed me to try a crossover (a Bolero movement). Having already lost my pride, I went for it.

She gasped.

Not sure this was a good thing, I opened my eyes. In a rare moment, Zak wasn’t cocking her head from side to side trying to figure out what the hell I was doing. Instead, she gasped again.

And showed me her goose bumps.

Unable to admit it then, I sensed a twinge myself. Yielding like seaweed brought movement without beginning and end. I was abandoned. Dancing.

Still enchanted by what it felt like to be fluid aquatic plant life (as opposed to stagnant algae), I wonder whether my body memory will be able to integrate such quality in time.

That and a hundred other cold water-splashing basics Jeremy would like me to accomplish.

I’m a work in progress with three weeks to go (a comfortable cushion at the moment, but soon to be a colonic panic button). This can only mean one thing:

Time to make an appointment with the most important professional of all—my psychologist.