Today I was humbled. Humbled by the first day of my ballroom dance P.E. class.

A part of me wants to attribute my seeming inability to perform even the most rudimentary dance step to poor instruction or poor choice of music. But something tells me I have only myself to blame.

To be sure, I didn't expect to walk out the first class with the ability to do much of anything. At the same time, though, I didn't expect that the first class would be so totally disorienting. The dance du jour, a simple swing, comprised a whole four steps, yet, at least for the first fifteen minutes, I was wholly incapable of placing my feet where they needed to be in time with the music. Something about that seemed particularly embarrassing, given that I'm a reasonably good at playing the piano. It was like finding myself suddenly unable to play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" or add seven and seven.

Close to a mental breakdown, I spent the two hours immediately after the class locked in a practice room playing Beethoven sonatas. I can't think of a word that really captures just how comforting it was to hear music, and not some garbled mess of hisses and squeaks, coming out of that piano.

I suppose the quality of my footwork has nowhere to go but up. Yet I can't help wishing my first foray into the wild world of ballroom dance had gone just a little more smoothly.