… and danced and danced some more.
I love, absolutely love, to dance. When I am dancing, I am free, without limitations. I am in control of my body, not my Parkinson. Sometimes, when I arrive at dance class, I am stiff and slow, and have tremendous difficulty moving. But then, the music starts, rhythmic, powerful; I become one with the music. My movements become fluid, and graceful.
This Sunday, one of the women in the class (who does not know I have Parkinson) commented, ” I love the way you dance. You’re completely one with the music.”
I felt like hugging her. Instead, the music resumed, and once again, I was Cinderella at the ball.
Someone once explained the strange phenomena to me, that dance comes from a different part of the brain than the part that controls walking. It makes sense. When my Mom was in the last stages of Alzheimer’s, she couldn’t speak, but she could sing, and although she couldn’t remember who she was or who we were, she could sing the words to all her favorite songs. Her voice was clear, like a nightingale. It sounded almost like a prayer.
The class ends, I leave the magic ball, and turn into a person with Parkinson. My gait is stiff and slow. My movements are no longer fluid and graceful. The clock has struck midnight, but there is no prince with a golden slipper to redeem me.
