JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

The word that comes to mind when I watch my daughter dance in her ballet class. Abigail is slender in her black leotard, wearing a fluffy white tutu around her waist. She has more flexibility than strength, giving her movements a light and graceful quality. I don’t know any other word for it, except that it brings to mind the sound of pizzicato, the gentle plucking of strings.

Yesterday Ted and I enjoyed going to the Bremerton Symphony Home for the Holidays performance, which included many excerpts from the Nutcracker, and plenty of pizzicato. Of course the Tschaikovsky itself reminded me of my own childhood dancing. Not that I ever performed in the ballet, but I did get to practice a bit, during my few years of classes, learning a little about the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies.

I thought about myself as a little girl dancing. And I thought about Abigail. How I sit on the gym floor during her class and watch her dance up on the balcony, there in her black and white, springing on her tiptoes. My little girl growing up, released into the world, like a string plucked and resonating with pizzicato joy.