I can remember being four, attending dress rehearsal for my first major recital. I was lying on the floor with my chin in my hand, pink tights sagging at the knees, hair in pigtails on top of my head, and dialing a telephone that was a prop in a dance number. I kept looking in the mirror and I loved what I saw, and even more how I felt.

From a young age I loved to dance.

I danced as a teenager with hopes of getting the hell out of the small town that I grew up in just like my dance teacher had. The biggest problem was that I wasn’t good enough.

I got a biology degree instead and continued to dance as a hobby, even “starring” in a ballet recital in college. When I moved to San Francisco, I rode the Hip-Hop dance craze because it didn’t require the same kind of skill or dedication as ballet. I danced on weeknights and weekends when I wasn’t busy being a scientist.

As life progressed and I got married, pregnant and moved to Marin, my Hip-Hop class availability evaporated. Additionally, I wasn’t one of those pregnant ladies who continued to dance with a baby in my belly, flashing a smile and striking a pose.

I was more the exhausted pregnant lady spread out on the couch with a bowl of ice cream. Honestly, I did not enjoy being pregnant because I let it stop me from doing the things that I loved.

In fact, with both pregnancies (one due to high blood pressure, the other to early and constant contractions) it was recommended that I just sit on my ass at some point or other for multiple weeks that I was with child.

After the first baby arrived, I was transformed into a full-on mom and I didn’t have the time, or the energy to keep dancing. In fact, after my little one was six months old, I had just begun to contemplate getting back into dance and, wham -- I was pregnant again. Then, like the movie “Groundhog Day,” I was doing the constant mom thing again, but with an additional toddler in tow.

Another couple of years passed painfully, slowly and I still wasn’t dancing.

I was losing a part of myself that I had loved. The freedom, the movement, the music, the skill, the smile…all missing from my life…all missing from me. I finally realized that it was time to rescue my sanity and I would start with something I loved.

I would return to dance.

But you cannot just be absent from Hip-Hop for five years and expect to look even mildly coordinated when you jump back in.

Trying to dissuade my extreme nervousness, I dug out my old clothes and tried to make my un-hip Marin Mom look a little more “street” and tied a bandanna around my head. I was ready, psyched, looking good, and I trotted out to the living room.

“You look like a pirate.”

My heart sank.

Although this was a great thing to my four-year old, it was not really the kind of feedback involving terms like “fly” or “cool” or “hip” that I sought. I looked in the mirror and saw that my son was right. I could no longer carry this look off and I removed the inappropriate headwear.

Actually, he saved me from mortification. All those teens would have been staring at the old lady wearing the Halloween costume. In fact, what used to be “fly” isn't even called fly anymore.

I'm not giving up. I've decided to incorporate the old and current me. I have my “Gap” girl Hip-Hop look going strong.

When I spontaneously dance now -- I feel free and I feel me.

By Jennifer O’Shaughnessy

Labels: Jennifer O'Shaughnessy

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