She always wanted to learn hula, admired hips swinging, grass skirt swaying. Bare brown feet, toes kissing the earth, arms outstretched, calling out a narrative. As a spectator she pieced together a story told long ago, tethered to form and melody.

The girls wear magenta lipstick, long hair swept to the side with a plumeria, a hibiscus, an orchid for adornment. She longed to be made up too, tell a story with her movements, with her hands raised heavenward.

Ballet never appealed to her; such delicacies were not in her constitution. She did like tap dance, clipping the hard floor, reverberating sound. Tap, though, still possessed a harsh edge: a clank of form, of function. Not a gentle sway, like the hula, like this place: fluid, fragrant. Here she relaxes into her bones; the breeze, the rolling waves smooth and synchronous to her heartbeat, to her soul.