A shout-out to a friend

Four years ago I decided to take up ballet as a hobby. My instructor for the first few months was Jessica Lindenfelser. When I started I was a bit concerned that I wouldn't be taken seriously, that other students would think I was there to cruise for dates or ogle the pretty girls. But I was welcomed by both Jessica and the other students.

That's not to say there haven't been a couple of moments. One day I walked into the studio a few minutes late and found everyone huddled over something in the corner. One of the students was new, and when she saw me walk in she gave me a look that suggested she thought I'd just walked into a women's dressing room, only to be surprised when Jessica and the other students greeted me warmly. It's a fond memory I go back to when I feel like an outsider.

Jessica and her husband are true U2 fanatics, and they attend just about every U2 concert they can get to. She said Bono has a fondness for belly dancers, and wrote the song "Mysterious Ways" about them. Knowing this, Jessica had gone to a concert some years before dressed in a belly dancer costume and was holding a sign that read something like "Belly Dancer available, one night only!" Bono saw her in the crowd and when "Mysterious Ways" came up on the playlist he looked for her again but couldn't find her. When he spotted her again a few songs later he called her on stage for whatever song was next in the playlist. What my classmates were doing was watching a video someone had taken of Jessica dancing on stage with the band.

It's been years since I moved on to other studios, but I still follow Jessica's adventures via social media. This afternoon she posted a link to a video taken at a U2 concert in Toronto last night. One of the band members spotted her in the crowd and recognized her. In the video you can clearly see him tell Bono about her, and Bono comes over to the edge of the stage to see for himself. "I know you!" he says before having the burly security people extract her from the crowd and bring her up on stage. Again. This time for "Mysterious Ways", as it should have been the first time.

The video is a bit over 12 minutes long, and is well worth watching. If you have a decent network connection and a larger screen, crank up the video resolution.

https://youtu.be/AzPv5_ipdvs

Congratulations, Jessica!