no heartbeat

actually...there was one. mine. and that's pretty important.

So it's time to tell you about the miscarriage...
let me read you a letter...and tell you a story...or two.

"Hello parents,
I'm afraid I have some sad news, but I'm determined to turn it into a learning experience. I began having some difficulties with my pregnancy this past week and on Wednesday had to get my first substitute for dance class (thank you Rachelle!) so I could go in for a dr. appoinment. We could not find the heartbeat and a later ultrasound confirmed that I was in the early stages of a miscarriage. Gratefully the miscarriage completed itself yesterday (this past Saturday), although I am tired I would like to continue with our dance classes this week.

I want you to know how I am going to present this news to them. I will talk to them in the middle of class so all the dancers are there and they still have time to dance after the news...I'm hoping they can process it thru movement. I'm not worried about the children under 5yrs, some of the 3 yr olds still tell me they are growing a baby too, and their concept of when a baby comes is very vague.

But the after school classes...although they are resilient, it's going to stick with them a bit. I want to talk to the girls about how our bodies are amazing creations and forming a baby is a miracle...and it is also a miracle that our body knows what to do when things aren't forming right. Tell them how blessed I am that my body recognized right away that something was wrong and stopped it. Tell them how wonderful it is to have each of them with their perfect beautiful bodies that can do so much. Focus on the miracles that they are. I want them to know it is ok to be sad, that it is a sad thing, but it is also a blessing. "Imagine if I told my husband to paint the studio pink and I meant the inside, but he started painting the outside walls and on the windows...we would need to stop him right away. we would say "stop, that's not right" then we would need to clean it up and start over. I am very blessed and lucky that my body said "stop, that's not right."

now here is the story...it happened yesterday...in dance class.

with these 7 girls...plus 5 more [yes, it's a big class.]

Ten little familiar faces line up against the wall, listening to my every word as I tell them what we will be doing at barre today "two demi plies. one grande. releve. balance..."and little Maddie comes in a little late with a bouquet of flowers and a huge bag of cinnamon bears (i love those)...she doesn't say anything. she gives me her sweet smile and takes her place at the barre. I try to go on...and in comes Miranda with a big envelope...handwritten "I am sorry you lost your baby" and she holds on to me tight. I was undone. Every girl left her spot at the barre and surrounded me...almost knocked me over actually.

It's pretty amazing...children know how to wrap you up and make it all better. They don't need to know if it is their job.
They just follow how they feel.
Somewhere along the way, they learn how to be guarded and hold back...
fear I suppose. of rejection perhaps. they reach out at one point and are turned away...so they stop reaching.

I reminded them how amazing and beautiful our bodies are. I reminded them of the light that spreads thru our heart and out our fingers and all the way thru our pointed toes. I told them that it was a miracle to create a body inside of us...it is amazing because we don't tell it what to do. Our body just knows. And our body knows when it's not going right and it stops it. I told them that I was not going to have a baby right now. that it is sad. but it's ok. Miranda raises her hand and I let her tell the kids about her little brother Adam that could not breathe when he was born and died. Suddenly, every hand went up. Everyone had a loss. Alexa actually said it Allie...she raised her hand and said "my grandpa died Miss Amber and I was sad too." She knew she was not alone. We were together. Everyone had been touched with death. I wasn't meaning to go there, but soon everyone was hugging everyone else. no tears. but smiles.

We all needed to be held. just a little bit. and then we danced.

that, my friends, is called...'mourning with those that mourn'

moments like this make my studio sacred. you can feel it.
it is a safe place.

It has never been about the dance steps...It is always about the experience.

When I built this place I said I wanted it to be "a safe place for expression".

A place where these girls would learn about their bodies...

where they would love themselves and learn to love the differences of others.

It would be a place where they would teach each other more than I could teach them.

Where they would learn to deal with every emotion...I didn't realize what I was creating.

But it has happened. It has become bigger than myself...a creation of its own.

It is invisible to the eye...but you can feel it.

There was a point in the miscarriage, at the end, when I finally got to lay down on my bed...and my big sister Brittney came and laid next to me. I saw The Little Prince by my bed and I read to her...about the rose garden. and the fox. and being responsible for what we tame. how it is the time we devote that makes each other so important. I have devoted a lot of time to these girls...almost every week [besides summers] for four years...they have come and danced with me. I have held them when they fall down or just bonk into each other...and also when their parents get divorced and they don't know who is coming to pick them up.

It is the time you devote to taking care of someone...listening to them, yes, even sitting and watching them...just being there...that's what establishes such a strong tie between people. Antoine De Saint-Exupery is right, it takes time...and it is the only way we understand anything at all. We only understand what we have tamed.

And I have spent a great deal of my time taming children...

and being tamed by them.

I know most of you will not go out and read this book...

so I'll do you the favor of posting this part.

THE LITTLE PRINCE, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."
"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed." "Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince. But, after some thought, he added:
"What does that mean...'tame'?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties."
"To me, you are nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ."

"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince.
"There is a flower . . . I think that she has tamed me . . . "

"It is possible," said the fox. "On the Earth one sees all sorts of things."
"Oh, but this is not on the Earth!" said the little prince.
The fox seemed perplexed, and very curious.
"On another planet?"
"Yes."
"Are there hunters on that planet?"
"No."
"Ah, that is interesting! Are there chickens?"
"No."
"Nothing is perfect," sighed the fox.
But he came back to his idea.

"My life is very monotonous," he said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . . "

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.
"Please! tame me!" he said.

"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time.
I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand."

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox.

So The Little Prince tamed the fox.
And when the hour of his departure drew near . . .
"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."
"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm;
but you wanted me to tame you . . ."
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"Then it has done you no good at all!"
"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added: "Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back and say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."

The Little Prince went away, to look again at the roses.

"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world." And the roses were very much embarrassed.

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you. But in herself alone she is more than all the hundreds of you other roses; because it is she that I have watered; because it is she I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies): because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing.
Because she is my rose."

And then he went back to meet the fox.
Goodbye," he said.
Goodbye," said the fox.
"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated,
so that he would be sure to remember.
"It is the time you have devoted to your rose that makes your rose so important."
"It is the time I have devoted to my rose" said the little prince,
so that he would be sure to remember.
"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it.
You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.
You are responsible for your rose . . ."
"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated,
so that he would be sure to remember.

the bunny brought bubbles

Easter is about dresses and eggs and lots of chocolate and kites and golf
and bubbles and green grass and oh yes...all about hope.


i'm not really a fan of the bunny.
i'm not sure what it's purpose is . . . and it's nice to get credit for the basket and goodies. i really wanted church to be about the resurrection . . . or the atonement . . . and i tried really hard not to be so bothered when they talked about provident living.

when i went to nursery. . . shauna brought out her magic toys and somehow came up with a cave with a stone that rolled in front. the twelve little faces stared at her and gathered so close as they watched the little mary figure come and cry at the tomb. and we learned that Jesus came back to life after all. nursery is a very magic place.

my mom and sister were in town and that made my house the easter gathering place. britt brought her family down from idaho and colby and ash came too...that's about half the fam! it was heaven sent for me and posting these pictures makes me want to rewind time a bit . . .
i will let the photos do the telling . . .

Hip Hop Hunt

better just tell you

it's a bit early...but I feel like I had better just say it

yes. I'm pregnant. Surprised? me too.