My reflections on having my feet off the ground...

Well, it’s been another week and I am absolutely exhausted, but completely exhilarated.  I loved the Viennese Waltz.  It was the most beautiful dance and Tony came up with this glorious dance for me to do.  I thought the waltz would be easy, a nice one, two, three and hold my frame and wouldn’t be too taxing. 

Little did I know that Tony was going to have me spinning around the place and standing on one foot being held by three fingers and off balance.  But it was just so beautiful when I saw it on tape.  I couldn’t believe how gorgeous it was.  The dress just floated and I was really proud of it.  The best part of all for me too was having gone through the drama the week before with the Tango and rushing back to England and dealing with losing my mom, the funeral and exhaustion, all of that passion, I was actually dancing a dance that was my mother’s favorite dance, the Viennese Waltz.  She spent a lot of time in Vienna, in fact we all had.  She loved the Viennese Waltz.  The most amazing thing is the day I performed it would have been her 93rd birthday.  I just keep thinking that my mom is here with me.  I just know she is. There are all kinds of crazy happenings that are going on.  I feel she is haunting me and my sisters.  I would say rather than haunting, she is guiding us, she is there, her spirit is with us.  Every singly minute I feel her inside of me, reminding me to live my life to the fullest, to be of service to others, to believe that I can, and to not let negativity come into my life. 
 
I really had to think about that before I went on last Monday, because Sabrina who’s 22 yrs old and a professional dancer went out there and did the most phenomenal performance with Mark and got three tens.  I’m just watching this little spitfire dance across the floor and everyone just going crazy about the fact that she got a perfect score and there I had to go out immediately afterwards doing exactly the opposite.  I thought at first, Oh my gosh, that’s so unfair, that’s so hard.  Maybe I shouldn’t be there at all. Then I threw those thoughts out the window and I said to myself, wait a minute. How cool is this ?  A kid who is younger than my own children has just performed and I am performing on the same stage.  I’m equal in the competition with this young girl.  How amazing is it that at my age I could be on the same stage as this kid, younger than some of my own kids.  I felt kind of proud of the fact that I am persevering.  I felt really proud of Tony for pulling me through each week and really finding something within me I didn’t even know was there.  The joy of dancing that waltz with Tony, it was just a magical experience. 

Then came the judges.  The problem is when you finish doing that you are on a high if you know you’ve done it right.  I knew, I could see from Tony’s face that every single thing he’d worked on with me, I really nailed it.  When Carrie Ann started talking about a lift, I thought, this is ridiculous.  These other girls are flying in the air, they’re over the head of their partners.  What could possibly have been a lift ?  The centrifugal force of being spun around, I guess my big toe came off the ground half an inch for one second and as far as she was concerned that constituted a lift.  Well, needless to say, I was upset about that because I had worked really hard to make sure my feet were on the ground.  So had Tony.  In fact, he talked to me about it after the dress rehearsal.  But what happens is the judges watch the dress rehearsals, not when we’re visible, but they watch them in the control booth.  That’s how they come up with their comments.  Obviously they can’t be expected to come up with comments immediately upon watching the dance, so they kind of prepare in advance, to some degree, what it is they are going to say. 

In the dress rehearsal, yes my foot did come off the ground, maybe an inch, certainly slightly more than it did on the actual performance.  So I think Carrie Ann was kind of looking at that and realizing she was going to make an issue of this point with other people later on.  I just got the brunt of it.  But, you know what, again something that could have been really negative turned out to be something really positive.  Anybody in America that did not know I was dancing on Dancing With The Stars got to see me on the news, On Good Morning America, it was the talk of the airways, whether or not my foot was half an inch off the ground. 

So on Tuesday I made a point of going up to Carrie Ann and giving her a big hug and thanking her profusely for putting Tony and I in the spotlight.  We’re all friends, so anyone that feels badly about what Carrie Ann did, it’s so over.  Tony and I are fine.  The actual regulations for ballroom dictate that a lift is when you are in the air above the knee of your partner and clearly I was nowhere near that.  But, I still think it was a beautiful dance and clearly other people have been way up in the air more than I ever have.  But we know they are going to be really strict.  You have to remember this show is entertainment, so they want drama.  They’re looking for controversy and I’m not that controversial.  So they’ll pick on pretty much anything they can with me if they possibly can find it.