I’m a self conscious, round-shouldered bookworm. These qualities have made me the best at my sport of choice: extreme reading, in bed. Holding up a book while lounging for hours daily may result in permanent injuries such as dowager’s hump, reader’s elbow, and paper cuts. To cross train, I belly dance.

As a child, I read all I wanted without hurting myself. As an adult, I’ve relied on decades of jogging, swimming and tai chi to prevent the bed sores that plague extreme readers.

Seven years ago, at fifty, I attended a middle-eastern dance recital with a friend. If I’d been standing, my knees would have given way. Must! Do! That! Now, twice a year, I “dance” in these recitals myself. 

Being very middle aged, very married, and very professional, I’m free to make a fool of myself. Nothing is more fun than prancing around on stage to music in a girlie, glittery costume in the company of (mostly) younger women who dance way, way better than I do. The audience is looking at them. How great is that? All the fun, none of the pressure. Hubby, my biggest fan, cheers me on from the audience, bored out of his gourd. 

Belly dancing draws all types of women— fat, thin, young, old, tall, short, athletic, not. Wiggling comes naturally to female bodies. It feels good. And looks good too.

Provided you can pat your head, rub your belly, shimmy the hips, undulate your spine, travel to the beat, and smile, all at the same time. Easy. Especially when compared to the focus and concentration required for hours of non-stop reading while reclining on a soft surface. 

It’s bad for the scholarly stoop, but what the heck, I try to keep my shoulders level and rib cage still when shifting and lifting my hips. Since learning to sway my arms like seaweed in a current, I’ve had problems tossing a bad novel with the old flap. Add fancy footwork and I worry my eye muscles are getting flabby. 

The fall recital is right around the corner, and I am not ready. But then, am I ever? I’m in two dances, one with a veil. My veil is a nine by four feet sheet of hand dyed silk, emerald green bleeding into brilliant blue. 

To hold it, I toss it behind me, then center my hands along the long edge, slipping the fabric between straightened index and third fingers, palm straight too. Readers, this is the antidote for those pesky book-holding cramps. 

Veil work, like reading, develops the imagination. When I read It was a dark and stormy night, those words call up heavy cloud cover, no moon, wind tossed tree branches stripped of leaves, gusts of rain rattling the window. 

When I lift the veil from behind, bring my arms forward and cross them over my face, the veil covers me from head to toe. When I sweep my arms open, I’m a butterfly bursting from her cocoon. 

When I lift the veil up and sashay forward, it lofts and billows like a sail in the wind. When I swish it in a figure eight in front of me, it flares in bursts of blue green fire. When I lower it to the ground, I step on it and trip. 

There are six of us in the veil dance, each swooping a different bright hue. When we practice, I drift out of my row, stumble into a classmate, and get tangled up in my veil. At home though, I’m better about bumping into Hubby, tripping over the dog and banging my shins on end tables en route to my book. 

The daily practices weeks before the performance keep me vertically challenged and cut heavily into my reading time. The paper cuts will finally heal. 

Hamming it up for the audience, especially when they send the love back with clapping and ululating, provides healthful contrast and balance for the solitary pleasures of reading.  The best performance perk though, is the improvement in my horizontal fitness after: I fall into bed like an axed tree. 

When I come to, I have the arm flexibility to pop eight hundred milligrams of ibuprofen and the core strength to lean over the bedside table to click on the lamp next to my tasty book stack. My eyes stroll leisurely down the spines. A trash thriller? Why not? A roll back onto the pillows in the classic round shouldered posture, a heft to prop the book on my belly and— Ah! Let the extreme read begin.

PHOTO CREDIT: Alaskan Dude