As dancers, we know the importance of grace. Even in a “grounded” dance form like tap or hip-hop, there’s still an element of grace. I’m coming from a ballet background and it’s all about grace (and strength and control), but I love that it permeates all styles of dance.

This week is one of the busiest weeks in my photographic year. Sunday I took pictures at Dance Central. That means that I had hundreds of pictures to sift through, edit, and print. Tomorrow I start taking all the proofs to the dance studio and showing the parents and students and collecting orders.

Last year I realized that I needed help on the next part (showing myself grace, level 1.0). I hired a friend who was better with details than I am, and she helped me get all the pictures cropped and uploaded to the printer. This year I’m doing the same, so that part will stay sane.

But there’s an added twist this year.

I got sick.

It’s not a bad one. Just a head cold. And seriously colds-wise a super-basic one.

But with it: a nasty cough. The kind that keeps waking me (and my poor husband) up all night long. All. night. long.

So I’m tired. Fuzzy. Touchy. And I still have to get normal life done in addition to getting everything ready for the big reveal.

It’s the end of the school year. It’s time for recitals. Not only is it a celebration of all we’ve learned in the past year, it’s also a time to re-evaluate. My kids are talking about what classes they want to take next year, trying to decide which ones they want to take while I hope we can spend fewer nights driving to the studio.

It’s also a time when we evaluate if we like where we’re headed. This is the time when most people change dance studios if they decide their current one isn’t working anymore.

But even bigger than that, it’s also the time when we evaluate if it’s time to take a break from dance entirely.

I taught ballet for a semester at the school where I was teaching music in Istanbul. It was a wonderful experience and it rekindled my love for the grace and precision of the dance form. I remember a panicked email to my ballet teacher: “How do you teach pas de bourre?” It was so ingrained in me that I didn’t know how to go about explaining it to my class full of eager dancers.

I came back to the States and took a ballet class at the same studio I’d grown up at. It was a level harder than my sister or I had gotten to before so it was a stretch, but we loved it.

When I put my daughters in ballet class, I had no intention of getting back into it myself. I loved it, and hearing the music made my heart leap, but it wasn’t the right time. Nor was it the right time last year, when I decided to give tap a try.

But this year, I took a chance and tried ballet. And I’ve loved it. It’s been a challenge (my body does NOT always think I can do the things that my muscle memory wants to do again), but it’s been completely worth it.

I’d love to hear your story or thoughts. Join the conversation on Facebook or Instagram! (or email me if you want to share but feel it’s too personal to post on social media!)

Remember your very first pointe class? How perfect the pointe shoes looked…how excited you were to finally get to stand on your toes?

how relieved you were to be done sewing ribbons on the shoes…

I chose to forget just how painful that first class was. It was decades ago, so it wasn’t too hard to do.

(and no, I hate to say I’m not exaggerating on that timeline).

But yesterday, I bought new pointe shoes again, spent two hours getting as much sewing done as I could, and headed into my first pointe class in 25 years.

And boy, did it hurt!! My toes were already sensitive from having tried on about 14 pairs of shoes that weren’t good fits, so that was a bad way to start. But I don’t think it can all be blamed on that.

The fun thing, though, was just how completely amazing it felt to do echappe and only have my hands lightly on the barre. To stand in sous sus and realize I still remembered how to get up into position properly. (after doing it the wrong way once, but we’ll choose to forget that part).

It made me wish I could tell my first ballet teacher about it. Unfortunately she passed away about ten years ago, so she doesn’t know that my love of dancing has permeated every part of my life the way it did when I was twelve.

Can you do me a favor? If you don’t still see your first dance teacher but have a way to get in touch with him/her, could you send a note to tell them how much those first lessons mean to you now?

And if you want to make it into a birthday present for me, let me know on Facebook or Instagram that you did it. Because then it’s almost like I can tell Mary Kay about how I’m getting back onto pointe.

Seriously, could she be any cuter?

All my training gives me an advantage in shooting; I can anticipate a jump or a turn, and I know when to throw out a picture because the dancer hadn’t quite gotten their toes pointed when I got the shot, which means dancers know they can trust me to only put out the pictures that truly show their ability.

Who knows where this is going in the future…I have dreams of being a photographer for Disney, of getting pictures of professional dancers (particularly ballerinas, but I’m falling in love with dance in all forms)…it’s going to be fun to see what’s next!

So I got a picture of two of them playing “Life” together as dancers.

And they spent the whole time complaining about how much it hurt to sit there in their stretch, wondering when I was done with the shot.

I think I’ll stick with bringing in other dancers for awhile.