Cut Loose

My hips don't lie.  They whine and cry.   It's been two days since my last bellydance class, and I'm aching more than yesterday.  I started learning bellydance last fall, so you'd think my body would be used to it, but I guess in the month between classes, my hips and thighs decided to go on strike.

What does any of this have to do with writing?  Very little.  I'm not learning to dance as background research for a bellydancing character.  I'm not planning an essay on the history and development of the dance.  In short, by learning to dance, I'm not necessarily doing anything useful.  I'm simply having fun.

As a writer, I feed my time, my thoughts, my memories into my work until sometimes it seems there's nothing left of my life undevoured.  I've lived that way since I was a kid, notebook in hand, always ready to capture the moment for future use.  But I've learned moments are elusive.  Sometimes you have to live them and let them go. 

Video by American Mutoscope & Biograph Co.; 3June1904; H46819.  Camera, A.E. Weed. Performer: Princess Rajah.