I walk across the studio as music plays all around me, encircling me as the earth does to the sun.  I slip on a tutu and smile at the way it bounces with each step I take. I rise onto the tips of my pointe shoes and begin to warm up my feet, hopping up and down until my calves burn and ache. I begin to dance. I let go of the day’s troubles, my insecurities, and worries. It is the music and I, intertwined in a tango. We dance together, and colors flourish. Time is at a standstill, and I think of nothing but my movement and the music. All beautiful things must come to an end, though, and the studio grows quiet as the last note plays. I slow my dancing, sweat dripping down my body, my breathing heavy and rapid. I reminisce about my true love, the art of movement.

           I started ballet when I was six, taking a class once a week at a local dance studio. I hated it. I was a wildfire, impossible to tame. I wanted nothing more than to go home and play in the backyard with my brothers. My mom was adamant, though. “I’m doing this for you, you know,” she would always tell me. “I do not want to be a ballerina,” I would shout and storm away, my blue Skechers stomping on the floor. I applaud her for her perseverance, though, and how she wrestled my wriggling, younger self into a pink leotard every week. Her love for ballet eventually grew on me though, and it bloomed into something extraordinary.

           At around fourteen years old, I was taking classes six times a week. I still resented ballet and was only doing it for my mom’s enjoyment. She still had a small sliver of hope I would become a professional dancer someday. She did not know there was never something to drive me forward. There was no fire or passion. I never felt connected to my movement. It was just another action my brain told my body to do.

In the first week of December, my dance studio was preparing for our huge yearly performance that would occur later that week. A tiny part of me was somewhat excited, although I never would have admitted it to anyone, especially my mom. We spent hours rehearsing until everything was nearly perfect. My dancing in the studio was careless, and although I did everything technically correct, it always felt incomplete, like a puzzle missing its last piece.

          The first night of the performance came around, and dread coursed through my veins. I remember every detail vividly, the lights beating down on me, seemingly piercing my skin. My heart pounded against my chest, threatening to burst forth. Adrenaline rushed through me like a flood of water. When I stepped out on stage, though, it all drifted away. For the first time, I noticed the music, the lilt of the notes, the way the tune seemed to infuse with my body. It was the music and me. My mind was completely focused on the clear highs and deep lows. The music seemed to move with me. We were moving as one, I in the music, and the music within me. The last note floated through the air, and as I took my final bow, a small flame in my chest had burst forth that would be impossible to extinguish.

           As I sit alone in the studio now, I envision it as my stage. I slowly get up off the floor and walk over to the front corner of the room, stray pieces of hair falling into my eyes. The music begins once again, drifting from the speakers and swirling through the room. I inhale slowly and imagine the notes filling my body to the brim. I then release it all in a single exhale, the music carrying away my worry and fear. I begin to dance.

           The music swells, and my movement crescendos along with it. We are intertwined in the dance of life. Passion wells up inside of me, like an unwavering fire that grows as you feed it. I am the fire, and the music is my kindling. It feeds me and drives me forward, pushing me beyond my limits. Together we move as one, and everything else fades away.