Toes
My nine-year-old son has a bad case of chicken pox. The ones between his toes bother him the most. They're angry, flaming red, swollen, and the calamine lotion doesn't make a difference. Angry toes, oh so mad with itch and unrelenting and moving, constantly moving, and my toes move too, move for different reasons, because I'm learning tap dance and found out last week I'm performing with the other students in a solo recital ten weeks from today.
So my day today looks like this: Tap, tap, tap, tap through the kitchen, heel toe, heel toe, shuffle, toe, tap tap tap to my son, 9, apply more lotion, refresh his ginger-ale mixed with spiced cider, change the movie from Star Trek to Japanese anime, then tap tap tap shuffle, toe, heel, shuffle, back to the kitchen, mix melted dark chocolate with butter and sugar and eggs and a splash of that good Mexican vanilla, flour, pinch of salt, handful of macadamia nuts from my backyard, shove it in the oven for a sweet treat, then tap tap tap to the computer to check on my son, 7, where he plays a marble game. And, dammit, just dammit to heck and back, my dance skills need serious improvement, and 9 keeps scratching, and the radio sputtering in the front room keeps spitting numbers, eighty-thousand, one-hundred thousand, four-hundred thousand tsunami dead. All the while I have a soundtrack to my day, a dumb song, probably the dumbest song I ever heard. It thumps through my headphones from the CD player stuffed in the pocket of my black cooking apron, such a dorky disco song.
Four days before Christmas I stood in maroon sweatpants and tap shoes and my pink t-shirt with the grinning kitty surrounded by sliver glittering words that say "It's hard work being this purrrrrrrfect!" Man, my kids all hate that shirt. I stood under those ugly stark lights on that scarred wooden floor and watched my teacher pass out CDs to each of us, some popular song by an artist named Nelly to the girl with the eyebrow piercing, some song by Eminem to the chubby brown-haired girl with the satin belly shirt, some song by Beyonce to the best student in the class, the girl I silently call Ice Queen, all long white hair and steady blue eyes. While my teacher passed around the music, she explained that in eleven weeks we'd dance for our parents - Oh Sorry, she said glancing in my direction - each of us, one by one, with our own choreography, our own song. Oh great, I thought, who am I gonna get? Britney Spears?
"Ms. Jaworksi? I picked something old-fashioned for you. I thought you'd be more comfortable with that." No matter how many times I asked my young teacher to call me Birdie, she refused. Well no matter, I thought. At least I'm getting something classic! Maybe the Maple Leaf Rag! Or maybe the Chattanooga Choo Choo! I reached my hand out with a maniacal smile across my face, gimme, gimme, gimme! I stared at the disk, my smile plastered on chilling skin. Donna Summer?! Hot Stuff?! Oh. Lord. Have. Mercy.
So I shuffle to Hot Stuff, pick easy moves, imagine a few twists of the wrist, arms, trunk, all above tapping toes, all for the parents of Tap One, all for myself, just keep those toes moving, keep them moving. My gramma used to tell me there was no greater glory you could give to God than dancing, especially when you didn't feel like it, when the sun didn't shine and the money didn't arrive and the furnace broke down.
"You have to dance, Birdie, as long as your body works, and don't give a shit what anyone else says." And Gramma would sweep one arm around her old kitchen, point at her coffee percolator, twirl on one foot, let her big belly follow, and we'd laugh, laugh and twirl, just laugh.
3:31:58 PM 
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