Everything is beautiful...

...at the ballet...

And it was, last night, at the opening of Smuin Ballet's spring season. They're a wonderful smaller company whose works encompass many different styles of music and dance. I just love 'em. They're so innovative. They make me wish I'd never stopped dancing.

I took ballet classes as a little girl, like many women my age, and have oh-so-many pictures of myself in little tutus and such. I stopped after a few years. I can't really remember why. I think we moved, and my parents didn't like something about the studio in our new neighborhood.

I started up again as a teenager, after seeing "The Turning Point," which introduced me to Mikhail Baryshnikov. HELLO. (I finally got to see him dance here in SF years later, and I still get chills thinking about it.) But it also reminded me how beautiful ballet really is.

But it didn't take long for me to realize that I wasn't disciplined enough for serious ballet study, and that I preferred a freer style of dance. So I switched to jazz and modern, which I absolutely loved. I became so obsessed that I was constantly choreographing in my head whenever I listened to music.

I even had a little fantasy for awhile about dancing professionally, but the practical side of me won out, and I took a different path. And eventually, I couldn't fit dance classes into my schedule anymore.

I miss it.