As is my wont, I got a bit confused, and showed up at Ron Cisneros Dance Studio on a day when I thought a dance class was scheduled (but apparently not). So, instead, I started watching the Galena dance group go through their tap routines in rehearsal for what is probably their upcoming Christmas show.
The tweens and teens in Galena are pretty clean-cut. My understanding is that the group is pretty-heavily Mormon. The bond of faith helps provide another bond of cohesion for the group.
The kids' parents were pretty young: perhaps expected, given the Mormon emphasis on family, and starting families early. Indeed, the lobby was full of young parents, likely from a suburban background that L. once referred to, with a combination of condescension and foreboding, as "the normals".
One young woman smiled and shook her head wistfully. Referring to the dancers she said, "I wish I had their energy," and then added, as her voice trailed off, "but that was before the babies."
I looked at her with disbelief. I doubted she was much older than 27 years old.
Perhaps that was unfair. We tend to associate energy with youth, but a sense of energy depends mostly on other factors, like general good health, amount of sleep, proper diet, and proper exercise. I've been borderline anemic for portions of my life, and I remember episodes in my twenties of feeling desperately sluggish for no apparent reason.
Still, age is no excuse. I know there are older tap dancers who can dance rings around these upstarts.
"I know you have it in you," I replied.
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