When I was in fourth grade, our Catholic school hired a down-on-her luck ballet teacher to instill in us girls some semblance of gracefulness. I say down-on-her-luck because this teacher was clearly an unhappy person, less cheerful than most of the nuns. She was young and strikingly beautiful with a ramrod back and tight-bunned hair. I wonder now if she were a fallen prima ballerina, sidelined from her dreams by an injury or some other tragedy.

She was strict and unsmiling with us. Our butt-out plies seemed to disgust her. One day she had each of us come to the front of the class to do some sort of interpretive dance. I found out later she was using this test to assess whether any of us should be invited to join her private dance studio. She stared at me as I awkwardly, self-consciously stretched and bent. I saw her mark something on a clipboard. Probably a big red X.

I did NOT want to be a sissified ballerina. I wanted to be a baseball player. Ballet was for girly girls and I was a card-carrying tomboy.

But now I think, what a gift I threw away. I watch my nieces dance on stage and they are so graceful, so joyful. What must it feel like to move like that? And I look at the little one curled in my lap, watching the show. Should I enroll her? Is she ready? Does she want to?

Dancing is a big business in Fort Bend County. Many of Girl’s friends take dance lessons once a week, and the recitals are massive affairs. But when I think about taking her to the lessons, I think of waiting for her in the car for an hour in the evenings, after I get home for work. It’s hard to want to sign the enrollment forms.

But today I was thinking, what if they offered mother/daughter dance lessons? No, I don’t want to dance with Girl, but with other moms who never danced when they were little. Or with moms who used to dance and now never get the chance.

We wouldn’t have to perform. Believe me, no one wants to see my fat butt in tights. But just to move to music, to learn something new, to laugh and have fun like our daughters do. That would be magic.