As I’ve got older I have a few regrets, most of them are about opening my mouth at the wrong time, and not opening it at others. I could go on and on but why depress myself. Life’s too short to dwell on the things you can’t change – I prefer to use my energy to think of all the fun I can have and all the fun I can share.
However, there are two things I regret giving up when I was a child: Piano lessons and tap dancing.
Well, you know what they say – it’s never too late. I’m hanging fire on the piano lessons for a while. I spend a lot of my day on my bottom, although I have now got a standing desk – which is making a difference to my productivity if not the size of my rear end. But tap dancing is another matter entirely.
I have no idea where the urge to start tapping again came from – maybe it’s 50% due to my current work in progress ( a novel), maybe 50% a desire to get fit and have fun at the same time. I used to go to dance classes when I was around 8 or 9 but gave it up when I felt I should have made more progress. I wasn’t one of those girls that started lessons as a three year old, I didn’t take into account that the other kids in the class may have had hours and hours more practise than I did. I thought that because I was older I should have learned quicker and know what to do straight away to catch up. So when someone younger and cleverer than I was came along, I felt a failure and quit.
It’s the same with writing – the same with many things really. We only see the finished product when we read a book – not the hours of edits and revision that went into it – all the rejections and failures that preceded it. We don’t see the hours that a golfer, tennis player or athlete put in before they perform. Or the musician or artist. We just wish we could do that. In a way we can – if we want to put in the hours, the passion and the dedication.
I didn’t want to do that with tap dancing this time around. I want to have fun.
I went to a class last week and it was brilliant – I couldn’t sleep for a week afterwards. The class was about twenty in number – many younger than me, a few older. Some had been going a while, many had not. But it didn’t matter and I didn’t feel the need to measure myself against anyone else but my own reflection in the mirror that ran the length of one wall. Gosh, that was an eye opener – I hope I lose weight. Otherwise, I’m just going to keep my eyes shut and hope for the best!
I’m tapping for pure pleasure. It’ll never go any further than the kitchen but I feel so much joy when I’m tap, tap, tapping my troubles away.
It was the best fun: a little bit of warm up and then straight into learning steps and putting them into a routine. Nothing like the hours of repetition long ago. I wasn’t perfect. I was trying and failing but I WAS making progress, and I WAS having fun. I wish I’d known that it was all about the fun when I was a kid.
In time I may very well seek out a piano teacher and go for the Liberace experience. Watch this space!
And by the way. Those shoes are six and a half, not nine!
The very first short story I ever wrote I sent to Woman’s Weekly. Not long after I received a lovely rejection letter from the Fiction Editor, Gaynor Davies saying that I hadn’t quite made it with this one but encouraging me to send more stories. One of her comments was ‘Not a very happy ending’. I thought it was. The girl had a horrible boyfriend and in the end she dumped him. But it didn’t fit the market and that’s what I had to learn.
It’s our anniversary today, not that we ever make a note of it. We never exchange cards, flowers, or go out. I’ve always been of the mind that we should treat each other kindly every day and not just one. Well, in theory anyway, and mostly it works.
