Her arms dance into slow-flapping wings
The parents bring us here every Monday, after school but before dinner. The parents are in a hurry. We quickly take off our coats and change into our dance shoes. Our teacher opens the door, spreads one of her arms out to us, and invites us in. We leap and skip through the door and into the room with mirrors. All of the walls are mirrors except for one. That wall is made of glass. The teacher puts the parents in the room on the other side of the glass so that we can keep an eye on them.
We dance. We watch our teacher, a grown up dancer dressed just like us, only a lot taller. She moves in ways that we can and want and learn to move our bodies. She spins, we spin. She skips, we skip. She tippy-tippy-toes around the room and we follow. Her arms dance into slow-flapping wings and we become birds hovering over a meadow. Now we are crabs. Now we are kangaroos.
We look at one wall and surprise ourselves. Oh, there we are! We look at the same wall but a bit further beyond us and oh, there we are again, even further away! We remember ourselves when we look at the mirror, and then we go back to dancing and not looking and we forget ourselves all over again. We are birds. We are blooming tulips.
We look at the glass wall, the one where the parents are lined up in a row on the other side. Some of them are watching through the glass, watching all of us move together, or perhaps watching only one of us, the one they brought. Some of them, it seems like they are looking all the way over our heads across the room at the mirror. What are they looking at? Do they see themselves?
Other parents are looking away or down. Some are talking to each other. Some are reading books. Some are staring down at screens. One of them is starting at a screen and laughing. He looks like he is having fun. It must be more fun than watching us dance, whatever it is. Another has a big screen on his lap and she is typing. It does not look like she is having much fun. None of them are dancing. Probably none of them would spend much time watching themselves if they were on this side of that wall. We wonder: Why are none of them dancing?
We don’t need them to watch us all of the time. We know they have other things to do. We know they enjoy chatting with each other, or reading their books, or looking at screens, or pretending like they’re not falling sleep. And anyway, to them a lot of what we are doing probably looks the same. It’s not like they remember how it feels to be a crab one moment and a leaping dolphin the next. Maybe some of them do. Maybe some of them know what it feels like to be a frog ribbiting near a brook and then, suddenly, turning into a fire-breathing dragon.
Do they ever forget themselves?
Our time is almost over. We always end with a follow-the-leader dance around the room. The teacher has set up cones and blocks and rope and lily pads. She shows us first how to dance through each stage, how to move our bodies over or around each obstacle. And then, one at a time, we take our turns dancing around the room. The glass wall of parents—the ones talking to each other, the ones watching the entire time, the ones on their screens—they all stop what they are doing now and for the last few minutes watch us. It’s hard to not notice them now in this last moment. All of us flitting and fleeting right in front of their eyes. Their beaming faces.
The teacher tries to line us up at the door. But we all crowd together and rush toward the door as she opens it. We burst out of the room. We split off from one another like dandelions seeds scattering in the breeze. We all have an unspoken agreement to run toward them now. We throw ourselves at them. We know in this moment we give them such a thrill. We dance in their arms.
What I’m currently listening to: Radiohead’s OK Computer, Bonny Light Horseman’s Rolling Golden Holy, Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind
Peace and grace,
Andrew
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