Fifteen

She is stretching after exercising on the stairs and one of the trainers tries talking to her. She is quite flexible and he keeps asking her if the positions hurt. She says no and politely comments about her past yoga practice and how that helped with her flexibility. She quietly slips into a backbend and feels each vertabra adjust. Some crack and pop. She loves feeling this happen and the rush of blood to her brain on the way up. She remembers from yoga how beneficial it is to flex the spine in this reverse direction.

She grabs hold of the metal railing to the stairs with both arms and straddles her legs to stretch her lower back, hamstrings, and calves. She swings slowly, her butt sticking out into the sidewalk. Grabbing the bar at about hips height, she remembers taking ballet as a girl. She loved to dance and tried hard to be the best in her classes. But her favorite ballet memory is of her father converting one of the rooms in their basement into a dance studio. He installed mirrored sliding closet doors, cleared out the entire room, bought a boombox, and even fixed a ballet bar to the wall. She never watched television or played video games. She sang and danced in her studio alone and with her sister and friends she invited over. They had a bin filled with leotards, ballet slippers, past recital outfits, and they would play for hours. She is thankful for this memory and circles her arms around her head, finishing her stretch with a random plie.