Me, My Dad, and Margot Fonteyn

When I was around 14, I mostly just wanted to read. Every week I went to the library and checked out 10 or 15 books, and then I read them every moment I could. Oh, I went to school and did well in my classes, and I had friends, but all I really wanted to do was read. And exercise was not my fri

end. Once for PE we had to do a 600 yard (yes, that is yards) run/walk, and I was so uncoordinated I fell and dislocated my knee.

Then one day my dad told me I was going to take a dance class. There was no discussion. My dad, a busy business executive, had just decided. When my dad decided something--that was that.

So on a Saturday morning I found myself in Dad’s car, sitting in some lady’s driveway, sobbing my eyes out. “I don’t WANT to take a dance class!” I wailed, “I can’t do this! Don’t make me!” Dad just waited for my crying to subside, handed me my bag filled with new tap shoes and ballet shoes, and nudged me out the door.

Miss Audrey’s school of ballet and tap was in her basement. We did ballet at the barre, tap in the middle of the floor, and something called rhythmic gymnastics using hula hoops and big rubber balls. I hated it. I could hardly do a plie, and my shuffle-hop-ball-change was more of a shuffle-shuffle-trip-stumble. I never did quite get the hang of what we did with the hula hoops. I complained and cried every week. And every week my dad drove me to Miss Audrey’s and left me there.

Dad must have got to thinking again, because next thing I knew he arranged for Mom to take me to downtown Minneapolis to see a new film: the ballet Romeo and Juliet featuring Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev. I don’t know if I realized what he was up to, but I liked Shakespeare. No tears were involved in this outing.

I walked into the theater, a big old fashioned one with gilt cherubs and crystal chandeliers, feeling a little thrill of curiosity. But I floated out. In my heart I was dancing as Fonteyn did, dancing with Nureyev. I was hooked.

Soon I was getting up early to practice plies holding onto the back of the wing chair and begging my parents to send me to the real ballet school in town. At the Andahazy School of Ballet, my enthusiasm grew, and when I left Minnesota to attend Brigham Young University, the first class I registered for was ballet. In college I divided my time between English literature and ballet, taking English classes in the morning and dance in the afternoon.

I never became Margot Fonteyn, but dance became my joy. I also learned that I could do hard things. I learned discipline, diligence, perseverance, and how to work as a team. I learned the delight of being physically fit.

And all because my dad forced me into Miss Audrey’s school of dance.

Sometimes what is best for us doesn’t seem so at first. Sometimes we need to just keep going, until we become converted. Then we can continue, not because we know it is good for us, but because we love it.

“Hard can be good. Christ invites us to do many hard things because He knows we will be blessed as a result of our efforts.” (Devin G. Durrant, First Counselor in the Sunday School General Presidency,“My Heart Pondereth Them Continually,” October 2015LDS Conference)

 “Let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power” (D&C 123:17).