She's picked up a wicked "you have to know something obscure to know what I'm laughing at" sense of humor. Half the fun is watching her watching whoever it is that she's talking to. Her eyes kinda twinkle and you can see the smile on the corner of her mouth begin to twitch as the other person mulls over the obscure thought connection puzzle she's laid in front of them. She lets it go if they don't get it, but her voice dances when they do; they're in the club. They've figured out the secret handshake and cared enough to play along. I've taught her well.
Her inhibitions leave when she's on the dance floor. She owns it. She knows it. She talks to it. Barefoot, she caresses the wooden floor, whispering with each pirouette. With her toes, she digs in and shouts a chassé, knowing the air accepts her, loves her, and the floor regains her when she's done.
The floor is the foundation of all her muscle, all her moves. It never leaves, never fails, always accepts her efforts to leave and pushes back, with equal force, to help her gain new heights in what she loves. Just enough resistance to make her strong, a trust earned since she was three. I hope I've done the same.
She notices everything, physical and emotional. Windshield wipers that go faster than ours. The movie that showed an obscure shot of the Central Park Zoo trying to pass it off as somewhere else. Seeing others bullied afflicts her physically with pain and hardens her to action. My own inner facial flinch when she does something I don't approve of makes her crumble when I leave the room. She knows me so well it scares me.
She's so much like me that it scares me. Not that I'm afraid she'll do something stupid, she will. Not that she won't be brilliant, she is. No, her burden will be an internal one, a constant struggle between introversion and the excitement of the crowd, the shy subtlety of "will you join my club" and the pure joy of performance. Her power is her weakness; her joy is high and her sorrow black, but tomorrow is always sunny. I think she'll navigate it well.
We can always hope. Mine sounds a lot like yours. Mine's twenty-nine, and yes, her power is her weakness... and I try not to worry. But I do, it's my job. I'm a a parent. And you know, they'll turn out all right, because we kept them and didn't thrown them back... because we saw a long time ago that they would make it, and probably in better ways than we have done, because that's their job. They're progeny... and the good ones always exceed their teachers.
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