”Mom’s dancing alone in the dark again!” my daughter tells her brother and looks my way in mock embarrassment. I realize there are lots of things my adult children don’t know about me.

“Your Grandma would have loved to dance,” I say, “but the Great Depression got in the way of her dream. Maybe that’s why I was given so many opportunities.”

I think back over the years and how my love of dance got packed away in the closet like a souvenir from the past. Then I read an article last winter in the Vancouver Sun (Dec.12/08) called, ‘Passion: it’s your key to a better life’ in which Dr. Susan Biali talked about wellness and how a decision to follow her passion for flamenco dancing literally saved her life. This really resonated and I realized that at age 58, I needed dance back in my life. I remember that wintry night. . .

Though quite ill with bronchitis, I found a favourite CD by Loreena McKennitt and put it on. Like a puppet on a string, I rose out of my chair and began to move. . . slowly, as my body was able. The music led me out of stiffness into fluid movement. Joy, like an elixir, coursed through my veins and for a time I forgot that I was sick. Tired but happy, I collapsed into the sofa, amazed that the act of dancing had awakened a stream of memories.

I remembered my lovely grade one teacher, Mrs. Girrard, who noticed my response to music and my inclination to dance. She sometimes put on a record and let the children move around the classroom. It was my favourite activity. That same year, my mother invited a dance instructor, Mrs. Kelsall, to give lessons to the local children in our large basement. We learned ballet, tap dance and movements with baton.

I thought about a photo in one of the family albums. I’m 8 years old, wearing a costume with a flared skirt. My hair is tied back in a ponytail that reaches to my waist, my face tilted upwards as my Mother paints red circles on my cheeks. I’m about to dance in a final recital at our Community Hall in Parksville. Unknown to her, I have a fever, my heated face unnoticed under the red makeup. I forget some of my dance steps and leave the stage in a fluster. Soon after I come down with pneumonia and end up in Port Alberni Hospital.

That same year brought intense longing and a fateful decision. I had my sights set on the beautiful Maypole dance. Like members of a secret society, selected grade three students were taught how to weave the red, white and blue ribbons to form intricate patterns. I knew the music by heart and had memorized all the dance steps. The anticipation, combined with the sweetness of Spring, was almost more than my young soul could bear.

But it was not to be. My mother said the dust stirred up by the dancers in the school yard would aggravate my asthma. (By year end, I had missed a total of 3 months of school due to illness). For the moment I was inconsolable. My cherished dream was buried in a storm of tears.

My dance studies continued. By grade six, I travelled to the neighbouring city of Nanaimo which meant I had to leave school five minutes early each Thursday in order to catch the bus. One day, my teacher stood me in front of the class. “Are your dance lessons really worth it?” Mr. Robertson asked sternly. “Do you think I can let you go 5 minutes early and not allow the others the same freedom?”

This humiliating incident, coupled with a growing difficulty to perform the ballet routines -- an inherent stiffness in my body, according to the specialist -- led me to abandon formal lessons.

Throughout my life, however, there were other dance opportunities at parties, weddings and such. Sometimes I put favourite music on at home and danced. If I confessed to anyone that I danced alone and especially with the lights turned low, it was as if I had revealed a dark secret.

When my husband retired, we stayed that first winter at an RV resort in California. Most of my time was spent convalescing from yet another bout of pneumonia. One evening while he was away, a piece came on the radio that stirred the blood in my tired veins. Beethoven’s 7th Symphony -- the beautiful 2nd movement -- pulled me out of bed like I was being led by the Pied Piper.

In the California desert thousands of miles from home, I moved in slow steps up and down the narrow aisle of our motor home. The heroic music built to a climax and I could feel my world expand beyond the walls of my small room and beyond the confines of my illness.

There was a drought of several years when, for one reason or another, I no longer danced. That is, until the day I read Dr. Biehl’s story which reminded me of what I had been missing. The gentle stretching to my favourite music was just what my aching body needed. And like water in the desert, dance fed my spirit and gave me joy.

“So you see,” I say to my children seated across the room, “There are lots of stories from my past. And dancing is not only about having a supple body, the right moves or an audience to impress. It’s about the pleasure of moving and enjoying each step on the way.” I sent a quiet thank you to Dr. Biali for reminding me of that.