I’m getting ready for tap class when I see it, the green flier with black print in the changing room. It reminds me of trees, since that’s what it has in the middle, and in big, inky type, it advertises classes in Irish dancing at the Community House, wherever or whatever that is. I look it over for a moment, point it out to my mom. She checks her memory-schedule, and reminds me that Thursdays, I have saxophone lessons.

I sigh, and look at the flier longingly one last time, before leaving, the backs of my sneakers bent under my feet and tap shoes carried in a penguin-bag. It’s soon forgotten, silt in the river of life, lost in some bend or another. The flier, in a month, is gone. I haven’t seen it since.

Emily, my mother says, calling me over to where she’s sorting mail in the kitchen.

Qu’est-ce que c’est? I ask, because I’m feeling French, and because I can.

She shows me the sheet, which has, nestled between a blurb for a studio art class and one for metalworking, the little two-sentence advertisement for Irish dance classes. I’m immediately interested; they’re on Friday, and any kind of dance has interested me at some point or another.

So I’m signed up, and I show up on the first day of class, equipped with a pair of jazz shoes, and my socks, in high summer, in an air-conditioned gym. It’s a beginner class, and I find myself put with the little ones, learning the basics. It’s so easy I want to scream with frustration, but soon, I’m with the older group, the one that’s danced for three months longer than me. It feels good, and there’s nothing like dancing, the air just flowing past you as you move, and there’s a curious blend of restraint and freedom in Irish dance – you can’t move your arms, but everything else is so free you feel like you’re flying. Some of the professionals seem like they are.

J’aime la danse irlandaise, I say now, and smile, and dance a jig, because I can.

I’m scared. I’m so scared I’m shaking, and nervous, and talking at fourteen million miles-a-second so that I have to repeat everything I say. I’m scared, and brilliantly happy.

I sit outside a tent, listening to music, and shaking, feeling the heat of my dancing-dress as I wear it and my hair when it’s down. It feels strange, because I almost always wear it in a braid.

I watch the girls dance for a judge, and wish that I was already done, or that it didn’t take so long for my dance. This is a competition, a feis, for Irish dancing. Like fish, I remember thinking, the first time I heard the word spoken.

So now I’m up on the stage, and it’s my turn, and I do it well, I think. Better than normal, what with the adrenalin gushing through my bloodstream and all, and I get off the stage, and I dash over to another tent, another dance, because I’m doing three today. Some have it worse, with five or six, though. I’m lucky.

Second dance I do better than I ever have, and I can barely stand there in line afterwards. I’ll find out later it’s shin splints, but I don’t think about it now, because I’ve got the Gaelic Park feis going on, and it’s too important.

Third dance, I watch one of my good friends from my class forget her step in the middle of it, but she recovers admirably. She’ll get third, despite it, but she comes of the stage bemoaning her own clumsiness. I do fine.

So I sit outside the little tent for our dance school, and I talk, and wait for results. It’s hot, and I want to go home. The show is over, and it’s time to go play my saxophone.