Dearest Pinkies, Please welcome Christine Reed, blogger, yogi, dancer, and ... well ... you'll see. We're thrilled to have her in the community, and to welcome her and her gorgeous words onto the Pink mainstage. Thank you, Christine, for giving us the opportunity to bear witness to your story. We love you!

Tiny Dancer

I have a very early memory of a small me, dancing in the kitchen of my Great Aunt. She was making us some dinner. I know it was dinner time because of the way the light was coming in the windows, making the dust motes flit like fire-lit fairies through the air.

The kitchen itself was golden and yellow and this added to the magic of the moment.

I was twirling and dancing to my own song, and I remember feeling utter peace and joy, and this was reflected back to me through my Great Aunt's silent witnessing and big smiles.

I danced, and then ...

Through a childhood that wrote large chapters of pain on my body, I danced.

Lost as I entered college, I danced.

Then, for a million reasons and for no reason at all, I stopped.

For the next many years, I struggled, trying to force my body into new containers of movement, experimenting with all forms of yoga until I found Kundalini and thought I was happy enough.

I danced again

Then, suddenly, in my 40th year of life, I went to a friend's wedding, and I found myself on the dance floor, twirling to ABBA's Dancing Queen.

"I don't know the last time I saw you that happy," my partner said to me later that night in our yellow living room. We talked for hours and then went to bed and got up and talked more.

Before the sobering effects of sleep, dancing felt alive and real to me, but by the next morning, I had an enthusiasm-hangover, and dance felt like a long ago dream, lost in the shadows of poor memory.

"But I am 40 years old!"

That number ...

Over the next few months, that sentence would come out of my mouth a lot.

As I ordered my first pair of Capezio ballet slippers since I was about 20. (But I am 40 years old!)

As I stopped spontaneously into a dance supply store and purchased my first pair of high heeled tap shoes. (But I am 40 years old!)

As I danced every single day and started to watch my body respond to this thing that it so obviously was made to do. (But I am 40 years old!)

As I signed up for YogaDance teacher training, imagining I would be the oldest person there. (But I am 40 years old!)

At that teacher training, there were women in their 70's and my voice of protestation began to shrink.

Validated

At that teacher training, women -- dancers, yoginis, and movers of all sorts -- women I respect, told me, "This is who you are."

They witnessed me like my Great Aunt, and I felt myself becoming that little girl again.

I danced in ways I did not know I could in the light pouring in through our practice room windows.

I danced with power.

"I thought the windows might just blow out of the building!" One of those beautiful women told me as I panted, out of breath, and cried, out of my mind with joy.

And now ...

Age has no power over me now. Yes, I am 40 years old, and I am a dancer and I am infinite.

What have you Pinkies discovered (or rediscovered) that positively sets you on fire?

Spinning with mojo,

Christine