At every gathering in my family—Christenings, birthdays, weddings, even wakes—people danced. There were seven of us as I was growing up, not counting my parents, so a party quorum wasn’t hard to reach. Everyone learned to dance. No exceptions. My mom was the dance instructor. Foxtrot, Lindy, tap, jig. She could show you how.
Over the centuries, dance has played a role in everything from religious ceremonies to healing rituals, but in our family it was just plain fun. Still, my mom took it seriously and shared with us not only a love for the joy of it but a respect for precision.
So when my sister wanted to perform in our high school variety show, my mom was the perfect choreographer and artistic director for our chorus line. In this mini-memoir of what that experience was like, I try to recapture how Mom coped with a hoofer whose talents were less than advanced. It’s a creative nonfiction piece called “Practice Made Perfect” and you can read it in The Write Launch.
