“Up the steep and very narrow stairway. To the voice like a metronome. Up the steep and very narrow stairway. It wasn’t paradise, it wasn’t paradise, it wasn’t paradise, but it was home.”

                                         “At the Ballet” from “A Chorus Line”

I missed International Dance Day (April 29) and National Tap Dance Day (May 25), so … happy National Dance Day!

Ballet Nova is offering free classes and there’s a big event at the Kennedy Center. But I’ll stay home, practice my buffaloes and think about the dance classes I’ve taken through the years: the very first when I was five, then adult beginning ballet at 18, folk dance and modern dance in college, and a series of classes as a young adult.

At Joy of Motion in Chicago the teacher actually advanced us to pointe work. For a few precious, foot-cramped weeks I felt like a real ballerina. Later, in New York City, I took ballet uptown and midtown — once even in a studio above Carnegie Hall. I was earnest, tight, worried about my turn out.

Now … it’s all for fun. Tap is loose and joyful. It’s difficult to take myself seriously doing it. It’s a happy dance for happy National Dance Day.