My Mama Had a Dancing Heart

Let me begin by saying that I am thankful for Sarah Clarkson. Her book recommendations (see Read for the Heart) have given me opportunities to present truth and beauty to my children in a thousand delightful ways. One of my favorite “Sarah” recommendations is a book called My Mama Had a Dancing Heart (written by Libba Moore Gray, illustrated by Raul Colon). I checked it out from the library and read it to my daughter exactly one time before deciding that we needed to own it.

One glance at the cover will lull you into a sense of joyful contentment. Colon’s illustrations are bright and warm, the colors bleeding gently into one another. He depicts the mother and daughter in a way that makes my heart ache. They wear breezy dresses and glamorous hats, and sometimes they weave flowers into their hair.

Then there are the opening lines, which tell you all you really need to know about the story. “My mama had a dancing heart,” Gray says, “and she shared that heart with me.” How wonderful! Here is a mother who lives life as though each day is worth celebrating. She might kick off her shoes and run into the rain to dance a “frog-h
opping, leaf-growing, flower-opening hello spring ballet,” or she might don her coat and rush out into the snow with her daughter to “dance in slow motion, like hand-mittened, galoshes galumphing funny old snowmen.”

Here is a woman who presses autumn leaves in wax paper and ties balloons to her wrists while she collects shells from the seaside. She reads rain poems and makes sassafras tea and sips cocoa and c
uts “snowflakes paper-white delicate.” Here is a woman I want to emulate, not because I have any gift for dancing, but because I want my heart to dance through life, skipping lightly over the dark patches with as much candor and joy as I can muster, and drinking in the precious moments with my children, awakening them to the wonder and beauty of every season.

And when my daughter is grown and gone, I hope she can honestly say that I celebrated life, and celebrated her, and that I did not keep my joy to myself. I hope she’ll find a little dancing tune in her own heart. And I hope she will soar.

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Image by Paul Boekell

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Helena Sorensen

Helena Sorensen grew up outside Tampa, Florida in a little backwater called Fort Lonesome. She is not making this up. As a child, she went exploring in the orange groves, searching for empty shotgun shells and fragments of broken glass. Since then, she has performed in show choirs and chamber choirs, received a degree in Music Education, written songs and poems, and traveled to Italy and Ireland.

She never saw any of this coming.

She also had no idea of becoming either a mother or a writer, yet here she is, living in Nashville with a husband and two kids and three published books to her name. She ponders the humor of God and the strange adventure of living while she drinks kombucha on the porch, or plans new homeschool units, or reads everything from Emily Bronte to Dave Barry to Betty MacDonald.

You can find her books and an occasional poem or some such at www.helenasorensen.com.

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