"She looked down at me and just smiled"

“With that, she gently sat me down on the floor. She looked down at me and just smiled. We walked through a big long hall with many doors and rows upon rows of shelves with books in them. At this door, with a pink heart on it, she stopped. And there stood a small house in this big room. A house that fit me as if it was made for me. It had a lovely bedroom, a room full of mirrors with a slick floor and hand bars on all the walls. And then there were several other rooms, I did not know what they were for until later.

“I lay down on that perfect bed, my thoughts were swimming. Dancing, what a foreign idea, I did not know what it was. I fell asleep right there in that beautiful house in a house. I had no way of knowing what was happening to me, I had nothing to relate this to. My life before was only a blur of just being there, without any action or coherent thought or goal. Only sugar every day counted as something that I had to do.”

When I woke up.

“When I woke up after a long refreshing sleep, soft singing drifted through the air. Some careful knocks, or rather pecks, made me get up and go to the door of “my” house. There, suspended in the air, singing, I saw all of these tiny metal birds. The most delightful you can imagine. They all greeted me with chirping and fluttering their wings in unison. “Good morning, pretty Pink Cotton Candy Tutu Girl, are you happy, are you glad, you live in the house of big learning, the most fun, the biggest imagination and the loveliest stories you have ever heard.”

“I did not understand. Half of the words floated by me without meaning. I smiled, I was happy, but I also did not know what else to do. Lady Rose came into the room where the small house stood, with me in front of it and all confused.

“Good new day to you, little Pink Tutu. Do you remember the name that I gave to you yesterday? It will do you proud later when you will dance and bring joy to many. You will be richly rewarded for all the learning that you will do in the coming years. First you have to learn words and their meaning. Then you have to learn to control your body and all of it will get complicated. You must promise yourself never to give up. I will just guide you, but you must do the understanding.”

“That was the first lesson, I am very certain, you did not understand what I said to you just now. But soon you will. Over time I will always keep the knowledge that you will crave just a step ahead of you. You must stretch your mind and your body. The richest of lives is there just for the taking. Learning is a reward in itself, everything you learn will make a block in the big castle of knowledge. You can not know everything, but I will teach you how to think. That way, you will be able to make a decision about the validity of ideas. This is enough for now, let's go and see all of my Story-Castle.”

“She took me by the hand”

“She took me by the hand, and we walked back along the shelves of books. We had to step down at the end of the long hall, a very large octagonal room with colorful murals lay before us. She pointed to them, saying she would tell me all about those stories, later.

“We crossed this huge space, thick carpets under our feet. My toes had never before been caressed by such softness. On the other side Lady Rose opened a wide velvet drape. The rotunda ahead glowed with the colorful light that slashed through the stained glass windows all the way around. Rows upon rows of benches, upholstered with purple velvet, rose up from the circular stage in the middle.”

“This is where I tell my stories to my audience, children and grown ups alike. You know, this place of mine is called Story-Castle. I became a story teller with words after I got to old to tell stories with my dance. See, that is why I know that you will be a dancer. I judged you.”

"What is dance?”

“Music often accompanies dance”

”Mostly you use your body and the space that you occupy, just left behind or are going into, as a means to tell thought and emotion. Music often accompanies dance, it underscores the meaning, it makes clearer what you try to convey. You must have total control over your body, your speed, your rhythm. But first you must know what you want to say, what is important to you. It can also just be for the beauty of it, which is also defined by certain laws. Or the music is the important element and the dancing becomes an embellishment, just there, to clarify the meaning of the music.

”It will take you many years to weave all those things together. I think now, after all these years of dancing and not having danced in decades, I understand it even more. And I would like to give this knowledge to you. You seem like the right little girl for this.”

“Can I stay with you, then?”

“I would be so delighted if you make that choice. You can stay in that little house that you slept in last night. It used to be my house, when I was a little girl. I loved it so much and still do, that is why I never had it taken away. You will be very happy there. Now let's go and have something to eat. I baked some fresh sugar cookies this morning, maybe you can eat those.”

“I always drank sugar water”

“I don't know, I always drank sugar water that Sam gave to me. He was all right, but he never talked to me, he just looked at me and shook his head and muttered something about what the world is coming to.”

Symbol of waves, stars, sun, seahorses. Divider.