There are lots of talents I wish I had, and the only one that seems to bring me any consistent joy is writing, which is great and fine, but it’s such a sedentary talent.

My boyfriend used to run marathons and my fatass bad influence has rubbed off on him and now he barely walks a few times a week and has gained weight and I blame it all on myself even though he swears, you know, he’s an adult and makes his own choices.

But still, I feel like such a bad influence, because I don’t move like I should.

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I used to dance when I was a kid – ballet and tap and jazz, all those things before modern expressive dance became the norm.

I excelled at ballet for a while and loved it, loved the way my body felt when it moved and the way it looked before I let it go.

Now, when I think about things I wish I could do with my body but can’t because it’s currently a weak, cumbersome flesh bag, I think about dancing again, moving my body around a room and not caring if anyone is watching…

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Last weekend I went out to dinner with my boyfriend, and my best friend, Suzy.

Suzy’s older sister Rickie used to be a stripper.

She stripped at a clubs in Providence, RI when she lived in our small Connecticut town, and then she moved out to Las Vegas to strip professionally and pay her way through nursing school, which she did, and now she’s an executive of a hospice facility.

Now, Rickie’s 22 year old daughter is also a stripper in Vegas, paying her way through college.

It runs in the family, but it also seems to get better as the generations go on.

You see, Rickie never had great pole skills.

She had no upper body strength, no strength at all really, except the core strength it takes to dance in four to six inch heels.

But her daughter, Violet, can work the pole.

At one point after dinner, Suzy slid her cell phone across the table and started playing a video for me, a long, lengthly dance that Violet performed at the club where she works, and my jaw dropped at her talent.

She could climb the pole to the top, wrap her thighs around it and hang upside down while spinning around, only to flip over into ass shaking drop splits in the blink of an eye.

She has a talent that I can only ever aspire to have, but one I greatly, greatly admire.

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First of all, it takes strength to pole dance, strength in the upper and lower body, plus your core, not to mention your ass and I hope you’ve been doing some kegels to flex those muscles up close, but it takes inner strength, too.

I’ve only gotten as far as taking nude photos for my boyfriend and sending those off for approval, I can’t imagine the gumption it takes to take your clothes off in front of a crowd and dance and work a pole – even if it means having money thrown at you, which is what you’re after at least in part if not primarily.

Props to the pole dancers out there who have a talent I admire and respect so much.

I wish I had strength to pole dance, to pull myself up and swing myself around and feel like I’m flying as I spin, but alas, I barely take walks, and need to get on that when the weather is warmer.

One pole, er, step, at a time.

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I’m linking up with the Wicked Wednesday prompt, which was “Talent Show” this week – this is my loosely based response.

Thank you for reading!

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