Old Friends

Old friends. When I’m swallowed up in the deepest depths of sorrow, nothing makes me feel better than seeing old friends; people who have treated me with kindness and affection and who I admire for that. It’s a reassurance that I’m not such a monster after all; that I’m not so impossible to love.

I drove down to the Minneapolis Convention Center this morning to watch my former students dance and compete. Former – what a funny word to use. I say former because I am no longer actively teaching at Fusion Dance, but I still feel intimately attached to them all. I think anybody that has spent any time teaching understands what I’m talking about; that you never really stop being interested in your students, their progress, how their lives are unfolding…and that somehow you are intimately and inescapably wrapped into their lives whether you are there or not. It’s a strange sensation.

One of the things I have always admired about Fusion Dance, the thing that kept me driving an hour each way at 1 AM to be apart of, is that the parents and families of the studio are some of the most decent, kind, and earnest people I have found. To be sure, they have their failings as all humans do, but their decency as a whole always impresses and moves me. I have never spent time with a group of people that have made me feel more welcome and admired, even after I was no longer teaching their children. It’s unreal.

I can’t really relate how much I’ve missed working at Fusion. Driving to Red Wing daily or weekly, realistically, is completely incompatible with my current life, which is why I gave up working there and focused on other endeavors But when I worked there, I always felt like I was apart of something good; like I was doing good work. Seeing them all today reminded me of all the good times I had working there, all the successes and failures, all the tough times and triumphs. Moreover, it reminded me of these parents’ unyielding commitment to their children and their young lives; all the long hours they spend working, driving, and watching and the affection they show the people who help them make their kids’ lives a bit better.

The parents and kids were deliriously happy to see me today, almost embarrassingly so, but it felt refreshing and reassuring to be around people that cared for me and how I was doing. All of their numbers and routines looked terrific, most of the kids have made pretty significant progress over the past year, but they continue to play the role of the small fish in the big pond. Granted, they are a very good small fish, but it’s amazing how uniformly high quality the Minneapolis dance scene has become.

Seeing everyone from Red Wing was remarkably refreshing and reminded me of everything I love about being involved with the dance community. It also reminded me how good it feels to be around old friends and how it can make it seem like everything is going to be alright, even if only for a little while.