However, I truthfully swear that I was once told by my mother she sometimes thought I must have been dropped on my head as a baby because no-one is naturally as uncoordinated and awkward as I was. Ouch.
In my mother's defence, I was an adult not an impressionable child when these words were uttered and to be truthful I do take clumsy to a new level.
At some point when I was aged about five, a well meaning specialist suggested that ballet dancing would be a good idea to strengthen my legs and build coordination.
So it was that I was unleashed in a pink tutu on Miss Daphne.
My memories of the ballet lessons in the Nundah Memorial Hall are not kind.
Miss Daphne was not exactly Miss Abby from Dance Moms but she did see her mission as creating a new generation of ballerina and not assisting chronically awkward little girls whose legs could do with a bit of leg strengthening.
I recall the first concert as a sea anemone in wild amounts of coloured fabric.
But my dancing career was over soon after it began when I refused to go back.
My mother, still believing the promise of the strong graceful legs, was going to hold out but my much older and wiser sister, aged 7, who'd joined me in the classes told my mother that the teacher made the classes hell for me. No more ballet classes.
I can't remember what happened to the ballet shoes but I do wonder if this lone ballet slipper I saw this morning stuffed in between the pickets of a picket fence is the sign of another little girl whose dancing dream has been crushed..
Of course, it could be a Cinderella moment. I do hope that Prince Charming comes along and reunites the slipper with its owner.
What a great picture and lovely story. x
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