Does Tu Plus Tu Equal Trouble?

Music coaxes them off the couch, smiles pulled from furrowed brows.

“Dance!” Dylan exclaims, making Abbey laugh with his now infamous “squat move”, deep knee bends with an ear-to-ear grin on his face.

Abbey’s movements are more erratic, soft and fluid one moment, frantic and silly the next.

“That’s a pirouette, Mommy,” she informs me, spinning on one leg, unbalanced and giggling, her pronunciation slightly more impressive than her technique.

Our dance parties spontaneously add life to our days, rainy mornings when we’re stuck in pajamas for too long, afternoons when Dylan’s nap crowds into the slight space between rest and the craziness of dinnertime.

We dance with abandon, spinning and shimmying and falling in laughter.

“I learned that at dance, Mommy,” Abbey confides every once in a while, and my heart sighs in happiness that she enjoys her classes, that she looks forward to them, that she walks into the dance studio comfortably and with only a slight hint of shyness.

Later, I settle down to watch a train wreck of a reality show I should be ashamed to admit watching. 

Dance Moms might be the first reality show that has actually induced nausea as I watched, and I watched the entire first season of Jersey Shore. 

Something about the combination of the overbearing dance teacher, the competitive moms, the little girls in full make-up and earrings at their dance classes, not competitions or performances,brings tears to my eyes.

And while I realize this show is an exaggerated version of some crazy reality designed to invoke strong reactions, a sliver of doubt pushes into my consciousness.

I loved my dance classes as a child and teenager, but despite dancing at a non-competitive studio, there were jealousies and body image issues, hurt feelings and worries of inadequacy.

I can remember fervently wishing I could reverse my body’s earlier-than-average development, uncomfortable in a body that wasn’t the sleek and lithe ideal of my dance teacher.

Thinking of Abbey ever feeling that way makes me cringe in pain.

But she expressed an interest in dance, and I thought it would be a perfect activity for her to ease into socializing with other kids without me present. 

At dance, she can work alongside other students, quietly getting comfortable with the other girls.  She can smile shyly and link hands and dance around the room without saying more than a word or two.

She always asks to go to class and always reiterates how much fun she has with her beloved teacher and her friends.

For now, I will choose to turn off Dance Moms.

I will focus on this season’s dancers on So You Think You Can Dance, young women with powerful legs and unbelievable extension and the ability to transform music into something tangible and magical.

I will focus on my own positive memories of my first pointe shoes and going to dance camp on a college campus and the way I still remember little bits and pieces of music and body positions and the feeling of a swirling skirt on stage.

I will focus on our afternoon dance parties, when music twists impatience into laughter.

For now, we will dance.

dance moves 

my first dance recital

I'm on the far right

the girl on the far left?

that's my roommate, both at dance camp and our freshman year of college

we never went to school together and wouldn't have met without dance

and I never would have traded her friendship, not even for slower developing breasts