Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

This thing happened yesterday that made me grin broadly. I mean, I’m a pretty happy person, so smiling isn’t a unique event, but I smiled so much that the hairs on my arms stood up. It yanked some little bit of nostalgia – for what, I don’t know.

I was at the gym, and I’d just spent about half an hour on the elliptical machine. I went into the room where they usually hold exercise classes. When it’s empty, it’s a great place to stretch. It has these gorgeous hardwood floors with tons of light streaming in.

I was over in the corner doing my little yoga stretches, and another woman (probably around 50ish) came in to stretch. After a few minutes, I noticed she was wearing character shoes (at least what the theatre/opera people call them). I asked her if she was going to be dancing. She said she was. We chatted a little more as we stretched.

A younger latino man came in, they chatted, and then the dancing lesson began (I offered to leave, but they said I was welcome to stay). It turned out that he was her dancing instructor. They had a brief discussion of what they would do in that lesson, and he said he really felt like she needed more waltz work. She agreed. He headed over to the stereo and cued up a song I know well. It’s in three. If you’d asked me to think of a perfect song for a waltz, I could have never come up with this, but something about it was just so joyful to me. I hadn’t heard the song in years.

I loitered, did more stretches than I had planned, did some ab exercises I hadn’t planned to do, just so I could stay through the song.

It was one of those little moments I would just hate to forget.