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Last night, so many of us waited for the final flight of Olympic skaters to perform, and when they entered the ice, I held my breath. So much is at stake, always, for these athletes—for anyone who has named a dream and held to it.

I don't need to report the scores; they're known. Kim Ya-na's record-breaking, cobalt blue performance. Mao Asada's steely, silver triple axels. The sweeping extensions of bronze-medalist Joannie Rochette over elastic knees. And let's not forget the American, 16-year-old Mirai Nagasu, who skated last and flawlessly in the wake of some of the most emotional performances the Olympics has ever seen. We were taught, by these young women, that it is possible to be exquisitely brave or simply exquisite, when the entire world is watching. We were reminded that sometimes power and grace are a single thing.

An arm uplifted is a hand extended. A sideways glance is a dream.

I know that it doesn't make much sense to go ballroom dancing with a smashed-up toe, but I've skipped Zumba this week and taken funny, peg-legged walks, and I just couldn't help myself, so I went—climbed the stairs to DanceSport, opened the door, donned my un-girly shoes, and risked it.

I don't think there are enough words for dancing. The ones we use are too often used, and they are rather stultifying. Swirl and twirl—like two bad-hair day sisters. Sashay—if you are doing that, are you really dancing? Twist and roll—sounds painful. Gliding—a fine bit of self-puffery, me thinks.

Maybe all it is (for me) is that I'm being myself—that I'm being happy and not necessarily useful and nobody stops me. Yeah, sure, so maybe Jean rolls his eyes at my spastic reprieves, and maybe somewhere deep inside his elegant Belarussian self he's thinking, Lord, this is some way to make a living. But if this is the case, he doesn't let on—doesn't make me feel old, ugly shoed, sleep deprived, disappointing, academic, too intense, over-the-hill, or elsewise. For those 45 minutes, I'm dancing, and that's the only word there is.

A few weeks ago, I prematurely loaded this brief excerpt from a much-longer interview conducted by the extraordinarily gracious Paula Marantz Cohen on behalf of The Drexel InterView, a nationally distributed cable show. My thanks to Lynn Levin for clearing the way for this permanent posting.

The conversation was held last autumn. During this segment I speak of the blog, the dance world, and next projects. I had not yet started on the book that preoccupies me now when this taping took place. I did not yet know that Dangerous Neighbors, my fifth novel for young adults, would find its way to Egmont USA.

(courtesy of the brilliant photographer and wonderful friend, Mike Matthews)

We danced the tango for Magda today. She helped us to see it through her eyes—shifted the balance in things, taught us the momentum that builds from a rightly strengthened spine, helped us close the piece in, so that we danced it, mostly, for each other.

But maybe that's not why she's entered our lives at this time—all this making right of a single dance, to be performed in a month, for a few hundred people. Three minutes—less—and it will be over, done—the steps worked out or not, the final leap syncing with the music or not, the rondes arcing wide or not—and what, she wondered, what (she asked us) will we have when it is over? What happens after that? What will this tango mean, this thing that we have built from Scott's choreography, and from (now) Magda's perfecting touch?

What will we have, and will we know how to dance—finally and rightly with each other?

Magda is supposed to be teaching us how to move. She is teaching us something richer, altogether.

Probably in this case the title says it all, for this is Magda, a world champion ballroom dancer who comes to Dancesport a few days a week and gives to others what she knows. She does it without temper or stomp, without conceit. She dances for you and with you, so that you might align, however briefly, with the slip light of her grace. She raises her arm and her hands are liquid, and for a fraction of an instant you are liquid, too—seeing possibility, hearing song, finding new religion in the uninterrupted, the continuous. Choreography is made up of parts; Magda weaves the parts into a whole. Dance is made alive by the slow abbreviated by the fast; she shows you how.

And when she says, Put your hands on the small of my back so that you can see what I am saying about the spine, you are reminded of how weightless beauty is.

Laurel crafting beauty at Chanticleer, in Wayne, PA, and the future stars of So You Think You Can Dance, at Dancesport Academy in Ardmore, PA.