This past Sunday, I performed with my belly dance class at the end-of-semester recital for the arts center where our class and others were held. As I watched the other belly dance classes perform their pieces, an idea struck me. I love the bellies that I see in this community of dance. Almost every woman and girl there Sunday bared her belly, proud in her beauty and grace, as she danced, and I found myself observing them as well as enjoying their performances. And I found that I love those bellies.

There are bellies that have borne children, still bearing the marks of that great effort, and have perhaps gone with less or even without so a child’s belly would not.

There are bellies that have seen decades of life, work, changes, and love.

There are bellies still soft with baby fat, barely in their first act of life.

There are bellies slender with vivacity and activity. Bellies strong and muscular with hard work and determination. Bellies voluptuous and curvy. Bellies dimpled and scarred with evidence and proof of life.

There are bellies of all shapes, sizes, and colors, and each and every single one is beautiful, graceful, lovely, and powerful.

It is the magnificence of each woman that makes up the beauty of the dance.

Yallah!