Its All About the Toenails

Sometimes I think I am not girly enough to be a bellydancer. Wait, I take that back, sometimes I think I am not girly enough to be a cabaret dancer. Tonight, sitting on the sofa watching the History channel with my husband, I looked down at my toenails. Weeks ago they were a shiny hot pink,now they look more like a drunken street walker and/or refugee camp sort of chipped wondrousness. My immediate thought was....."I am not girly enough to be a cabaret bellydancer".
   Given the choice between
A. doing the dishes
B. goofing off with my kids/husband
C. eating cotton candy at the fair
or D. doing my nails,
 I would say Eff the nails and go for B. or C. That, plus my affinity for cursing and arm wrestling makes me a prime candidate for either shot put ( which ironically, I used to do), or Fusion, where I could probably get bonus points for letting my nails get chipped. I'd probably get a badge or something.
    Sometimes I think that minus all the blah blah hoopla that separates the Fusion/Tribal crowd from the Cabaret crowd, it all comes down to one chick who says to herself  "you know I really like the movements, but do I HAVE to act all coy and cutesy?....hell, maybe I'll start my own style." Who knows, maybe that is how it all started.
  But I ain't coy or cutesy. The closest thing I have seen to flirtatiousness was making eyes at the Egyptian guy that pumps gas at the station down the street. But even then, I caught myself and reminded myself of what I learned years ago......I am a woman. If they don't like it, they can stuff it. Luckily, every bellydance teacher I have ever had was as girly as they came, but more woman than Sophia Loren. So I didn't think that girly some sort of pre-requisite for being a cabaret dancer.

Sheva was a painted nails, bouffant-ed woman with teeny feet and an even teenier body ( compared to me). But she was serious about bellydance and more woman that I could have ever been at the time.
Skipping the others and going to Donna, when I saw her the first time I wondered whether I'd make it. I wandered in the first day of class, milk stains on my shirt ( I was nursing at the time), toenails and fingernails so neglected that they started to paint themselves, Armenian uni-brow starting to resurface, and feeling as out of style/uncoordinated/ungirly as they come. I was never the cool type, anyway. I was never the one who could be head cheerleader, I wore my feelings on my sleeve. When Donna proudly wore her gold toe ring, perfect manicure and long gorgeous nails ( mine are short and stubby) to every class.....I remember thinking, " maybe I am not cut out for this". But as I got to know her, and more accurately, saw her dance, it all came together in an act of pride, femininity, power and finesse. She might have done her toenails flawlessly, and even when it was 100 degrees outside, wore her hair down ( at which point it was so hot that even the girliest among us borrowed scrunchies to put our hair up) to dance, but this woman was a WOMAN. Girly was something she CHOSE. I figured out that I didn't have to be anything but what I was, chipped toenails and all. ( although now, I DO make sure they look good at least when I dance)...
    So yeah, I can open a beer bottle with my forearm ( trick I learned in my twenties), yeah, I said goodbye to flirting a long time ago, and exchanged that sort of thing for power and grown-up emotion in my dance ( and in life), and yeah, it took me a long time to be O.K. with not being bouncy, tiny, and even the slightest bit girly.......but I am a bellydancer, baby. A real one. I like to do my nails, and giggle about boys, and even look at clothes sometimes, but give me good food or drink or movie with a loud bawdy friend and I am at my happiest.
  If that makes me un-girly, then so be it....crappy toenails and all.