It was now one year later, 1987. A Friday night in November. I had graduated college and accepted a freelance job teaching chair aerobics at the Beverly Hills YMCA.

Yes, you might ask. How can a person with one arm teach aerobics? Well, I did.

Initially, I taught adults with Parkinson’s, but then I was asked to teach another class—a 4:30 in the morning class for middle-aged and older adults.

Me. Right? Who would have thought?

So I taught with my smile and my light. Through music, laughter and sheer joy, I taught them to love themselves through exercise. Just as Al Gilbert helped me, I wanted to help others shine and forget everything else while engaged in physical activity. To share my happiness with them, to be that example and light, and to show them it could be done, that anyone could have fun and enjoy themselves through laughter and movement, no matter what their disabilities—this was my goal. I wanted to illustrate what exercise could do for anyone with or without a physical disability.

What does this have to do with the poem? Everything.

After coming home from the 4:30 class that morning, I straightened up my home and got in several hours of writing on one of the poems in this book. For me, writing had become a part of my life. It was something I did on a regular basis, because I not only loved it then and love it now, but I recalled how, as a young woman of eighteen, I couldn’t even write a letter by myself.

When that evening came, I was eager to do more than just sit around. Besides, it was a weekend night, and I was ready to dance the night away.

I was so full of energy and enthusiasm that I primped and fussed over myself. I got all dolled up with my hair, my makeup, and my lipstick just right. I twirled around the floor, looking into the full-length mirror, seeing this young woman ready to dance. Me!

With my outfit on point, I was ready to walk out the door and drive the thirty miles round trip to the square dance at the TRW building in El Segundo, where they built satellites. I double checked myself in the mirror by the front door and dazzled myself with my smile.

I walked out the front door, down the stairs, opened the car door, and off I drove.

Thirty minutes later, I arrived. I parked my car and headed towards the hall where the square dance queueing would start.

After two rounds of dancing, a man came up to me. He was very good looking, with sandy blond hair. He asked me to dance. I accepted. He was so nice that, to the end of the night, I danced every dance with him. We talked and exchanged telephone numbers as he do-si-doed me to my car.

I not only wrote this poem about my feelings for him, but we have been married for 37 years.

PALATE of PURITY

For years, I’ve lived with hopes and dreams
Wishes and wants
An inspiring word
A response or
A gentle smile from some divine soul
Sent from above.

A day,
A week,
A year,
Twenty have passed,
But I always knew
In my heart that there would be a kindred spirit,
A soul in tune
With mine!

Then one day
I heard a sweet melodic sound,
A constellation crossing
In the midst of my path,

Weightlessness
Which took me by surprise
Engraving a mark
Indelibly on my life.

We knew from the first,
We felt it deep within
Which washed our palate,
With a purity and reprise
Resilient
Elastic
And Buoyant from all woes

Now, nothing can touch us
Nothing at all
Not a care in the world
Can come between us
Nothing but you and me
To climb the staircase way on high.