Today Clarence and I walked.  Again.  I have taken a break from running because the pain from a chronic Achilles injury has been too bad to push, and until today, the weather has not inspired me to run.  But we reached a soaring 87 degrees in my part of Vermont today–lots of grumbling from locals about heat and humidity, but I am loving every sweltering moment of it.  Hard to believe I was using my pellet stove last weekend, and now this.  Finally.  The couple in the photo–together with their Weimaraner, who was off leash initially–made the first bit of our walk unpleasant for this human, and also made me realize we could benefit from an obedience refresher course.

This is theatre week for us at work; tomorrow we dig in and run dress rehearsals ’til we drop.  I am making hair ornaments for most of the girls in the Debussy piece, and also getting my music together for the sections where we will not dance to live accompaniment.  The director of the school has brought in her amazing ballet friend to help things go smoothly on Sunday; I really enjoyed meeting him today.  Plenty of nerves, lots of excitement.

Meanwhile Clarence and I have been watching this young family come of age.  Reassuring; spring has arrived to usher out the remnants of Still Winter, and very soon it will be summer.  We will continue to monitor this bunch until we move to our new digs in about a month.

I will say goodbye to this lovely house on my street, whose roof line I find so appealing.  And then I will be excited all over again, this time at the prospect of a beautiful space on 180 wooded acres, and so much that is promising about the future.

But first, three ballets, two performances.  Merde to all my young dancers, and the school director and staff, and the entire cast.  I plan to enjoy every second of the culmination of a long year of work in the ballet classroom.  And after a week’s break, we go at it again. Because this is not how the story ends.