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      I had a direction, a focus, and perhaps even a sense of purpose. Once enrolled again in college, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to take an undergraduate art therapy class. The semester I took this course, I consistently created more artwork than I had since I was a child when my inner critic was barely present. Art was fun and free again, while also almost a daily experience.

     From the intention to heal through art making I was inspired to explore abstract painting using a method similar to my father’s. His death when I was a child was another weight on my heart and I hoped I might better understand who he was by employing his style of painting. I chose acrylic paint rather than oil as my medium. I began as I remembered from watching him paint, with a wash of color followed by blotting to remove areas of pigment. I then used a pallet knife, for the first time, to apply other colors in geometric strokes resembling his painting style. A whole new world opened up to me within minutes. Suddenly I wasn’t imitating my father’s painting style I was uncovering my own.

     In abstract painting, I had found a way to express my feelings and myself with a freedom and joy I had only experienced before in dance. Since the creation of my first abstract, my understanding of this and my painting style have evolved. Time had already somewhat healed the depth of the wound in my heart from the loss of my ballet dreams. The heartache I had continued to carry with me was not as much about this loss as it was about self-expression and having lost an outlet to freely express myself.

     During this discovery of a creative outlet for expressing my inner movements  and finding my creative voice, an epiphany came to me. In a moment of peaceful clarity and wonder, I saw that “All of life is a dance!” and how I move with it is what makes all the difference. I also came to recognize, through this perspective, that the end of my ballet career was really the beginning of my journey to fully dancing with life.

     Presently, some of my dance steps are with paint and pallet knife and sharing these creations. Other steps of my dance are my desire to be of service, through assisting other people to become wholehearted and fill their lives with dances of joy. I am in awe and wonder and deeply grateful for the opportunities to follow this dance, a continual work in progress.

I invite you to join “The Dance,” to celebrate your life in all of its movements, and to step into experiences that bring you
your greatest joy.

     I have grown to see life as a dance, one that is also full of many smaller dances. Dancing was a passion I arrived at very early in my life, practically from birth. When I was born, my feet were aligned in such a way that they were pointing out to either side of my body, like a ballerina in first position. Corrective measures were taken to align my feet facing forward while my young bones were the most malleable. Therefore, when I expressed a strong interest in taking ballet classes, at the age of four and loved it, the running family joke became that I “was born a dancer.”

     Not long after this, our family moved to New Orleans for my father to pursue his art and music. We lived in the heart of the city where art, music and creative passions were infused into daily living. While steeped in this artistic environment dance was the focal point I chose. I was enrolled in a classical ballet school, and for the next ten years devoted myself to my dream of becoming a Prima Ballerina.

     In the middle of high school, I was in a car accident that essentially ended my dream of having a professional dance career. Over time, my body healed but my life had been dramatically changed and my heart was broken by the loss of this dream. I didn’t have a focus anymore, no strong passion, or a life preserver to keep me afloat in the emotional storms that blew through my life. Yet, I still survived, I made do, I escaped, I stuffed my feelings in and got by the best way I knew how.

     What I didn’t know then was that I had been given a lifeline after all. This was something that had never been completely absent and it was something that I loved. I didn’t see it for what it was because I had never practiced it as consistently or with as much passion as I had my dancing. I also never thought to pursue it as a career path because I doubted my talent and skills.