Over the years, I dutifully recorded Arlinda's tales of growing up. I took notes on a legal pad while she sat back in the conference room chair, teasing out memories. I had trouble stitching the stories together, finding the throughline. The missing ingredients were her emotions and perspective. One day, I asked Arlinda to delve a little deeper. It went a little like this:

March 31, 2012, I sat across from Arlinda in her living room, notebook balanced on my knee, trying to figure out how to ask for what I needed without yet knowing what that was. “Alright, I’ve got these memories. They look great, and I want to use them all.” I shifted in my seat. “I just need more.”

“What do you mean?” She leaned in, hands clasped in her lap. The afternoon light caught the side of her face. Her once padded cheeks were now sharp and chiseled by shadows. “You need more stories?”

I rifled through my notes on her life. “Well, you’re dancing. ’Ang on.” I paused to collect my thoughts. “Okay. If I put them all together like this, it’s going to sound like we’re at an LA dinner party and you’re trying to impress the executive producers sitting next to you and across from you.”

“You think I’m showing off?” She tilted her head.

I pushed my palms toward her. “Not at all. I want to become Arlinda when I’m reading this.”

“Okay?!!” She laughed wickedly.

“You know what I mean. I want to feel what it’s like for you to dance on stage, not like how I might do it as if I’m queued outside a public toilet trying to keep it all together.” I turned the black chair toward Arlinda to focus my full attention on her.

“I gotchu.” She took a moment to flush that visual out of her mind. “Well, when I’m dancing, it just feels so goood. When my muscles move, I’m releasing all this pent-up energy. It’s like scratching an itch. Ya know?”

Before I could respond, she stood. I opened my mouth to say she did not have to demonstrate. But she launched herself into some movements that I could only describe as an alternating jack-knife crunch. She twirled and landed in a horse stance with her arms and face flung toward the ceiling.

I erupted into applause. She glowed.

“See,” I said. “You’ve still got it.”

She lowered herself carefully onto the couch. One hand pressed against her abdomen as she settled back against the cushions. “I don’t want to snap another stitch.”

“Okay, now close your eyes. Take three deep breaths in and out.” I breathed with her.

Her chest rose and fell in shallow breaths.

“Now, think of a time at Thelen that sticks out in your mind. When you come across a thought or feeling you don’t want to tell me, go there anyway. Vulnerability is strength.”

She nodded cautiously, eyes still closed.

I swiped my hand across the notepad and poised my pen, ready to take down her words. “As you please.”

Arlinda drew a long breath. When she spoke, I noticed myself leaning in. I scrawled my pen across the page to log her words before they could escape us. This was the Arlinda I had been searching for in all those neat, impressive anecdotes. I flipped the page and continued jotting down her stories as they flowed.