By Beth
If anyone who knows either Lara or me is reading this, they are probably having a good laugh already. Neither Lara nor I are known for our grace. We fall down, a lot; bump into things/people, a lot; and generally trip over our own two feet. So the idea of us trying to belly dance is simply laughable.
I don't remember how it got on the list. Perhaps we are gluttons for punishment? We knew ahead of time that the items on the list would be well documented, why would either one of us choose to subject ourselves to that? I guess, in the end, we simply thought it would make US laugh so it would be fun to try. Neither one of us expected to be any good. Apart from a picture I vaguely remember seeing of Lara in a tutu, I don't know that we really can say we had any dance experience going into this. My daughter dances, has since she was 4. She is 13 now and let's just say that she can do things with her body that I could never do!
Our dear friend Kate joined us for this adventure, which took place at my house in PA. It was Kate's first time at my house and Ben (my then 8 year old, he is now 9) spent a lot of time posing for Kate and her camera. I think she may have used some of the shots of him for her photography class. I also have a sneaking suspicion Ben enjoyed the attention, being such a shy and reserved child. At one point during the weekend, my children tried to convince the 3 of us to play badminton with them, promising to "go easy on" Aunt Lara. Lara knows better though and does not play games with Kara at least. Kara likes to win and gets mean when she plays.
Back to the belly dancing. OK, not yet. While Kate was up, Lara and I decided to take her back to where we both grew up, Ambler/Blue Bell. It is about 30 minutes away and a LOT has changed (read my fireworks article) but we showed her our schools and my old house and church, the mall, the theater where I worked and then we went to Barnes and Noble, which was not there when I lived there. We were all browsing together when my phone rang. Kara was out with some friends back home seeing a movie and I was surprised to see her name pop up on my phone. I answered expecting a request to sleep over someone's house or do something else that night. What I heard was panicked crying, screaming, and incomprehensible speech in which I thought I heard the words "dead" and "shot." I could not see my own face at this point, but Lara and Kate assured me that they watched the color drain out of it. I tried to calm her down and make some sense out of what she was saying. Luckily, one of the other moms had gone with the group of girls to the movies and took the phone from Kara and explained the situation. Some sort of standoff between police and a guy with some sort of weapon, the parking lot was blocked off and police were everywhere. They were never in any danger but coming out of a theater to that would make anyone worry, and a 12 year old girl is more prone to the dramatics. Kara calmed down, I called my mom who was home with Ben to let her know what had happened. We browsed for a bit more then went home. I needed to be sure she was okay. All in a day's work of being a mom!
So, now back to belly dancing! The next morning was the day we would attempt to belly dance. Lara had some videos a friend had lent her and we headed to my room (that's where the only VCR in the house is, and the most space) and popped them in. The videos were from the 80s and we could tell. The woman was not what you would expect in a belly dancer, she was kind of old looking and well, weird. I think she changed outfits 23 times during the video. We started by stretching, the best part was lying on the floor with our feet in the air. Kate joined in so there we were, two 30 year old women (ok, Lara was still a couple weeks from being 30) and a 26 year old as well, laying on the floor with our feet in the air. Why did we want to do this again?
We tried to do the moves, the hip shaking and the rump shimmying and the leg twisting. By themselves, I have to say, we could all do them wonderfully when it was just one move at a time. It was when it came time to put them all together that we encountered difficulty. The single sessions had been nice and slow, now that we were putting things together, the tempo was increased significantly! How did we do? Let's just say that neither Lara nor I will be seducing any men with our exquisite belly dancing techniques anytime soon.
We had a laugh, which was, after all, what we set out to do. And we got some funny pictures and one video of Lara dancing and then rubbing her tummy and patting her head. Just to prove she could.