Torch confessions

I like to dance on tables

There is an activity that I love to do and trust me, it sounds really great on wood tables. The sounds are much more refined and accented on the wood, as opposed to carpet. 

Ever since I was little, my mom claims that I was walking around on the balls of my feet and my elementary school teachers complained that I couldn’t sit still in my seat. It turns out that I love to be creative—physically creative. My mom’s solution was to enroll me in dance classes. She asked me what style I wanted to do. 

Of course I wanted to take the style that was extremely loud and required extremely expensive shoes. 

I absolutely love to dance but my favorite style by far is tap dancing. I danced at a studio from kindergarten until my senior year of high school. My mom tried to get me to take classes when I was five but I didn’t listen to directions well enough, so I had to wait a year. 

She enrolled me in one class, which was tap. My first dance on stage was to “Hakuna Matata” from “The Lion King” and I hated my costume—it was bright pink and extremely itchy. 

Over the years, I took many more classes and eventually joined the competitive team at my studio when I was in seventh grade. We focused on other styles of dance such as contemporary and jazz more than my one true love—tap. 

The past two years, I have gone to the Motor City Tap Fest. There is so much positive energy there and attending it restores my will to live. 

I have become more and more obsessed with tap every year. It also makes me extremely frustrated but I adore doing things that make me want to yank my hair out. 

I also enjoy tapping early in the morning back home in my garage. The shape of the garage acts as a funnel amplifying the sounds all throughout my neighborhood. 

My new favorite place to tap is in the basement of Vandercook. The basement smells like cauliflower, which makes my stomach turn but my tap shoes stink just as bad, honestly. 

The place in the basement that sounds best to tap is on top of the wood coffee tables. I don’t know if I will break them in the near future but no regrets if I do.

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