Where are you going my little one, little one
Where are you going my baby my own
Turn around and you’re two
Turn around and you’re four
Turn around and you’re a young girl
Going out of the door

From Nanci Griffith’s “Turn Around“

“The days are long, but the years are short.” Especially looking at pictures of children on first days and last days of school, my calendar with pages quickly turned, anniversaries and birthdays that mark time in a way my body understands but my mind denies, I live long days and short years. Wrapped in long days and short years are Easters, Christmases, finisher medals, open doors, big mistakes, graduations, moving boxes, love affairs, scraped knees, births, and deaths.

What does it mean to turn around? That is where the idea of falling apart and coming together enters the conversation. As we turn around, falling apart happens. As we turn around again, coming together happens. As we turn around from crinoline tutus and patent leather tap shoes where we hang the moon and the stars for a few (that is my prayer that we all know what that feels like at some point in our lives) to grown up ways, wisdom happens.

Turning around can be dizzying, if you let it. In ballet class years ago, I learned to pick a spot on the wall on which to focus my eyes so I would stay steady during a turn. Spotting a turn is a valuable skill. I like the idea that focus and attention help steady us while we turn around. Learning where to spot is important. Don’t look too high or low. Don’t keep the spot too long. There is a perfect timing to spotting a turn — a certain and gentle decision, a balance between attention and release — that allows a dancer to keep her bearings. Perhaps that is the way we can navigate the turning around of long days and short years.