Dancing Days

 It happens to all of us: one minute we're in the air, executing some sort of leap or jump, and the next you're flat on the ground.   I'm lucky enough to have experienced few injuries in my dance career. The occasional this hurts or that feels funny occasionally plagued me but outside of that, nothing. I've had many friends get surgeries, break bones and sometimes have to quit dance all together from too bad of an injury. Dance isn't for the faint of heart.  So at the end of winter break when I was practicing in the studio I didn't expect to be leaving it unable to walk. I was recording am audition video for a summer dance job (fingers crossed) that would be the coolest opportunity ever, but thirty seconds into my audition tape, BAM. I landed on the floor, hard. I jumped into my firebird like I had done a million times before but this time I landed on my ankle, the outside circular bone going right while my toes went left. Ouch. At first I thought nothing of it,...

When we were first assigned a weekly blog post in my Social Media Marketing class I thought, no way. No way will I be able to write something interesting enough about myself for sixteen week that wouldn't make other people want to poke their eyes out with pencils. (Do people even use pencils anymore? Make those Apple Pencils instead.) Regardless, I was daunted to say the least. I'd like to say I took some time having thought provoking, inner self-reflection, writing in a dream journal with a fragrant candle lit nearby but instead all it took was my toe soaking my white sock with blood. Glamorous, I know. And that's when my topic hit me over the head as if to chastise me for not realizing it sooner: dance.  For me, dance seems to be synonymous with with my own name. Before student, daughter, sister or friend, I am a dancer.  There is no Izzy without it. My ties with dance are deeply rooted in me, perhaps even woven into my DNA. Before me, my mom was a professional ballerina....