Last night was my performance in New York.  I was at least 20 years older than anyone else in the program.  I like that.  At one point, one of the young dancers sharing my dressing room looked up from the floor and said, “How long have you been doing this?”  I laughed and said, “My whole life.”

I spoke to Rebecca Stenn, another soloist who danced just before me.  We both said that we felt more in our bodies, more present, richer and more seasoned than ever.  Ripe.  It was a little surprising and then delicious to both of us.  What I noticed as I waited to go on, and then as I danced, was that all of the old fears, the anxieties were not there.  In their place was this fierce pleasure in the dancing, in reaching across the space of the stage to say, “This is for you.  And it is also for me.”