Sometimes we walk in a specific direction and need to turn around and take a different route. The skills and lessons we learn along the way are never wasted. The lessons we learn follow us when we discover other roads untraveled. We can apply any application that we learn from a  skill or an experience that we either achieve or fail at.

I stand on our hot concrete and stare at the monarch butterfly floating through our yard. It carelessly floats through the sky. Its wings are reddish orange with bold black lines running through it. It flutters through the summer air without making a sound. It lands on the large white rock in the middle of our yard and I run to try and catch it and hold it in my hand. It takes flight from the rock and continues to pollinate our flowers and plants. I run after the butterfly and jump in the air when it flies high. I mimic its strong wings by hopping up on one foot and moving my own imaginary wings in succession. The butterfly is quiet yet powerful and bold. It travels thousands of miles and carries pollen to plants and it helps cultivate seeds, food, and beauty in my little world. I watch it for a while knowing that I will never be able to catch this butterfly. Not today anyway but I can try again tomorrow. I sense that I am like this butterfly in a way. I am quiet and I want to fly away when people get too close. I know that God created me for a purpose and for something great but I am still small. This butterfly has a very specific purpose in its life. I have years to figure out who I am and what my specific purpose is. I have not yet traveled to places that the butterfly has seen and experienced. I know that through my own exposure to elements I will one day be able to spread my wings and fly high like this beautiful monarch that came to visit today. The monarch flies off to find another milkweed plant in the heat of the afternoon. Mom calls through the kitchen screen window, “it’s time to come in for lunch.” I forget about the butterfly and run into the cool kitchen to eat. 

The following week I start dance lessons. I am excited to try something new. Maybe this will be my big moment and I will be amazing at dancing. I have never had dance lessons before. I start the first dance with excitement. My dads sister is the dance teacher. I know everyone in my class. My neighbor down the road is sitting on the bench putting her shoes on and getting ready for the class. My cousin and my other friends from school are also in this class. I feel a little superior because I am the teacher’s niece and I am sure my dancing ability will be impeccable because of my family relation. I am placed on the dusty wooden dance floor to the left of my Aunt. I try to catch her eye and have her pay special attention to me. Our eyes never connect because she is concentrating on teaching the steps to a dozen of other seven year old children. 

I continue to go to dance lessons and I start to realize every step is named something. Today we learned about ‘shuffle ball change’. During lessons I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to shuffle the ball and then change or bounce the ball and then shuffle? What was Patty talking about? We repeatedly work on different dance steps. I finally understand what she is saying but I am constantly getting the timing wrong. She counts out loud, “Dari, one, two, three, four and again one, two, three, four.” She audibly counts while holding my attention and trying to help me listen to the music and move my feet correctly. I am struggling to feel the rhythm of the music. The one, two, three, four, does not transfer from my brain to my toes. I think maybe God took out my timing belt when I was born or he possibly tightened it too tight. I feel like my ‘dancing’ engine keeps misfiring and there are times when I can’t even fire up my own engine. Yikes! I am not the dance prized pupil I thought I would be. I try over and over again and I still am not able to get the counting in sync with the steps. Maybe I should just slink back into the far corner where I can make up my own choreography. You know one of those kids who beat to their own drum. Well I probably couldn’t stay on beat but I could definitely hit the drum.  

The next lesson I start to feel uncomfortable in my own body and I am questioning my ability to dance. Maybe I am not in shape enough or maybe I need to be more flexible. I have always wanted a pair of leg warmers that scrunch up around my ankles. It is possible that I don’t have the right clothing and that is why things aren’t clicking for me. I look up at the picture hung high on the other side of the dance room and there is a framed ballerina. She is wearing a pink tutu bent over tying her ribbons around her left leg on her pointe shoes. She looks so beautiful with her hair pulled up and so graceful as she bends her body forward to knot her pink ribbons high around her ankle. I don’t think I could ever be as refined as the girl in the picture is. After class I am going to check to see if I can even touch my toes. I wonder why I am taking this class? I feel like I am the ugly duckling amongst the elegant dancing swans.  

My friend’s mom brings in a pile of costumes into one of the bedrooms adjacent to the dance floor. Today we get to try on our costumes for the upcoming performance. Maybe my costume will help me be a more poised dancer. I take my turn in the bedroom trying on my black, white, and yellow contraption. I pull on my black tights first and my legs are too long for the size someone purchased for me. I can barely pull the itchy tights half way up my thighs. I pull and tug and I am careful not to rip a hole in the constricting nylons. I finally get them to barely hold on to my waist as I shimmy into the costume. The costume is tight on my ribs and my upper thighs are squeezing out of the leg holes. At least it is holding my tights up that are barely hanging around my mid thighs. I bend to the left and then to the right to get my shoulders under the white starched lace that is supposed to sit daintily over my shoulders. I jump up and down pulling hard while the lace scrapes my skin and moves grudgingly into place. I don’t want to come out of this room and show anyone what I look like. I resemble a lady of the night stuffed in a bee costume. 

Finally it is picture week and our performance is next week so we need to be in our costumes and have our hair fixed nicely. I am grateful for a mom who is a beautician. She can at least make my hair and face look stylish and elegant. We lined up in the corner of the dance floor. I am placed in the back because of my height. I itch all over and I am pulling at my costume for over an hour. I could not wait to take the stupid bee costume off. I complain to my mom, “I can’t pull the front up high enough. I think I might be showing something I shouldn’t show.” My mom said, “Maybe we can tuck some lace down the front of your costume.” I complain, “Oh no, mom, no more rough lace.” She directs me over to the corner to get my picture taken. I stand in the back with my left leg stretched out and my right arm pointing to the back corner. The photographer looks at me and says you need to have long limber arms. I tried hard to stretch my arms out so I could perfectly frame the other dancers. The picture taker comes over and adjusts my long leg just how she wants it. Every time someone positions me to lengthen my arm or my leg a stitch pops in my costume. 

At last it was time for our performance. I still don’t know the timing very well and the steps are almost there in my mind and in my feet. If only I had six more months to practice or some private tutoring I could have possibly mastered the dance. Flailing around in the back row under the bright lights is a perfect place to hide my long bee body. I can easily mimic the person in front of me. Step, ball change, heel toe, heel toe, turn, clap. One and two and…. Oops, no “and” it is just a simple one, two, three, four. Eeek! Oh well. I have about 40 more seconds on this grand stage and they are going to close those heavy red curtains. I can hold out a few more seconds.

Although I was not the next ‘Ginger Rogers’ I could still probably teach anyone the “step-ball-change dance move”. I learned valuable lessons because I made mistakes and failed. One of the lessons that I can apply today is to have a growth mindset. I am able to pick up things that I did/did not like about my dancing and experience and grow. It also taught me to change my perspective. I will never be a professional clogger but I could possibly take lessons in freestyle or contemporary dance and be successful. This experience taught me to change my perspective. I also learned to conquer hard things and to be a finisher. Here are a few things that I learned to apply in my own life.   

1. I have tried multiple things to find out what is right for me. I am not going to be good at everything. It took me a lot of wrong directions to find the right direction. Once I found my passion and talents I moved in those directions. 
2. I have learned to change my perspective. I still struggle with timing. That’s okay- Maybe contemporary dance would’ve been more my thing if it was available to me. 
3. Sometimes it’s not who you know…It’s who God intended me to be. Just because I was blood related to someone does not mean that I am going to be good at what they’re good at. I had to find my own path. 
4. I had to be willing to make changes in my life. It has taken me a lifetime to learn that if something doesn’t work out, I need to realize that God is trying to move me in another direction. I’ve learned to let go of some things and have a little faith in Heavenly Father’s plan. 
5. I learned to pray for talents that I would be good at. Dancing was never an answer to any of those prayers. (haha)    

I didn’t dance very much longer. It’s a possibility that my mom and dad got together because of sheer embarrassment and banned me from the sport. There could have possibly been a family counsel and they decided that I was shaming the family name. Overall I am glad I had the experience because it helped guide me to where I needed to be. The skills and applications I learned over and over in my youth have helped me to build the person I am today. 

Here are three things you can try: 

1. Be disciplined: I finished what I started. I could have hid in my aunt’s basement and never shown my face in the dance class again. I chose to stay and complete all the classes and also dance at the spring concert. I chose to finish something even when I knew at a young age that this was not the talent for me. 
2. Failure is an essential part of life: I felt like I failed every week in class. That was okay because it was a soft place to land. I was in a basement of a home that I was very familiar with. I learned at an early age that I had weaknesses and strengths. I crossed dancing off the list early and moved onto something that brought me more joy and fulfillment.
3. Be resilient: I am continuing to learn how to be resilient and bounce back. I am understanding more and more how God is shaping and molding me.   

Resources:

https://www.nature.org/en-us/what-we-do/our-priorities/tackle-climate-change/climate-change-stories/monarch-butterflies-us-mexico/#:~:text=As%20pollinators%2C%20the%20monarch%20butterfly,enjoy%2C%20like%20squash%20and%20blueberries.

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/life-skills

https://www.betterup.com/blog/learning-from-failure#:~:text=Failures%20teach%20us%20flexibility%2C%20adaptability,us%20adopt%20that%20growth%20mindset.