Last time I came to Marco Island, I didn’t have a real driver’s license, so I couldn’t just dash off to ballet class in Naples by myself.  

This time, I do have one, so I decided check out the local options and find a place to take class — and then DD and Mom decided to come with me anyway so so they could go shopping 😀

This morning’s class at Naples Ballet was quite good. Mr. C, who teaches a Vaganova programme, focused on some of the same things BW went over on Thursday and explained some of the bits that I have still not mastered. It helps to do the same steps with different teachers, as each can illuminate something you didn’t catch in another’s class. 

We did a lovely combination with an Arabesque turn, which was good, because I don’t think I’ve done one of those since … July? Also grand jeté, Bournonville jeté, entrelacé, and saut de chat. 

We also did turns from second, which was fun. We do those very rarely at home. 

Also a lot of correcting of my arms, which are generally the part of me that needs the most work.

It wasn’t my best class ever, but wasn’t my worst ever, either, so I felt pretty satisfied. I’ll be going back definitely for Friday class and possibly for Wednesday class. 

After, we ate lunch and then went swimming without first waiting an hour(1). Mom and I swam in the Gulf for a while, then joined Denis in the pool until a thunderstorm chased us out. 

1. Presumably, that’s what angered Poseidon and/or Zeus, hence the storm that I’m now watching from my veranda.

I love the way rainstorms over open water obscure the horizon until it disappears. The world feels at once intimate and limitless, as if another world might lie just beyond the point at which things blend. 

From the balcony/a million drops of rain/obscure the land’s end.