Lemme Just Go Ahead And Lead This Clas

Hadley and Harper go to a Zumbatomic class at a local yoga/pilates/zumba studio every week.  I’m not sure how it differs from regular Zumba but I’ll tell you what: it’s 60 minutes of pure F-U-N and I have a very difficult time not joining in.  Hadley would absolutely kill me if I even so much as bop my head, however.  This is her turf. She walks in the door, shrugs off her jacket, and step touches her way onto the dance floor.  Her hands are in the air, she shakes her hips and puts herself front and center of the group.

During one class, the teachers asked if any of the kids wanted to lead the routine and Hadley’s hand shot right up.  She, Harper, and another girl climbed onto a table (Please, Lord, don’t let this be foreshadowing of things to come) and the teacher hit play.

“But the music is strong. It shoots into my toes and swims up my legs, arms, stomach, neck, until I am so filled that there is no room in me for fear, or second guessing, or not good enough. There is only room for joy.

In my youth group, we are encouraged to raise our hands when we sing. I hate it. I lose track of the words I am singing and can only think about how stupid I feel raising my hands. Why can’t the words be enough? Today though, I want to show I am thankful for the sweat sliding down my back, for the bruise that I know I’ll have from landing on the ground in the splits. I want to show that I am thankful for the crowd screaming, for the loud music, for the smile I don’t have to remember to paste on my face. Today, I am thankful that I have been created to dance. So I reach my arms a little higher, in praise.”

-taken from the essay, “Molting: Snapshots in Lapsed Time” by, me.