Inner Demon of Dance

It’s after eight o’clock and I’m just now eating supper.  I’m having sushi, (California rolls and tempura shrimp rolls), and the only beer that I don’t mind drinking, La Cerveza del Pacifico.  I’m also using tamari instead of regular soy sauce and have already mistaken it, twice, for the beer bottle. 

That’s pretty much as unpleasant as it seems.  I’m sure that I’ve consumed in five minutes my entire sodium intake for the week without even trying.  And I’m not a huge salt fan- I use a teensy bit of tamari normally.  In college biology, I learned that I’m a super taster, so I’m pretty sensitive to salty tastes.

I don’t drink very often; counting the two glasses of champagne I had on New Year’s and the three glasses of wine I’ve had since then, this is my sixth drink this year.  I’m just not a big fan of alcoholic beverages.  Used to be, but not so much any more. 

There are a few things that I like to order when I’m out- the Lemon-Basil Mojito at Buca di Beppo, and I’m rather fond of the mango margaritas at Chili’s.  My theory is that if I’m going to pay $7.50 for something, it better be something that takes a bit of effort to make.

But, back to my supper.

I’m feeding only myself tonight, in case you couldn’t already interpret that from my non-beef meal.  Hubby’s out saving the world, so I’m holding down the fort by myself.  Just me, Kalashnikov the Psychotic Betta Fish, and the Beretta. 

Right.

I haven’t yet decided that, should the occasion call for it, that I’d be able to shoot someone.  It just seems like so many steps to get to the actual shooting part, and I’d probably miss one in the ensuing panic and screw it all up.  I’ve pretty much decided that it’s more suiting to my personality to just beat the intruder to death with the gun case, or possibly one of my cast iron skillets. Any blunt object, really.  Whatever’s handy at the time.  I’m not picky.

Sarah the Queen, in the entryway, with the skillet.

I told that to one of my friends from college, who happens to be a real, grown-up lawyer now, and she said, “You know, if you’re going to do that, you’d better make sure that you kill them, because if you don’t, they could sue you.”

And so I thought about it.  I’ve decided that if someone should break into my home meaning to cause me harm, then beating them to death really wouldn’t be that much harder than just beating them half to death.  I’m sure I could find the motivation.

I’m in a bit of a weird place now.  Happens every springtime.  It’s wanderlust, but I don’t want to go anywhere different, per se.  It’s more like emotional wanderlust.  Creative wanderlust.

It’s an itch that starts deep down in my bones and then moves to my belly and sits there for a few weeks, waiting for me to acknowledge It.  It’s a tricky bugger, and It knows that I can’t ignore It for long.  Eventually, It invades my subconscious to such a paralyzing degree that It’s all I can think about in my waking hours.  In the past, It’s been responsible for dyeing my hair, unnecessary shopping trips, absolutely smashing college parties, weekend road trips, and general friskiness.

It thrives on flux and conflict of a glorious nature.  It feeds off change and craves even more change.  It is gluttonous and insatiable.  And when It goes away, I miss It, so I relish Its return, masochistically putting It on the back burner just to make It linger as long as possible. 

It has the ability to make me pouty and irritable and bitchy while I’m ignoring It.  When I finally listen to It, when I can’t take It anymore, a great burden, like a snow-laden cloud, lifts from my shoulders and I breathe again.  I shake my head at It and It smirks back at me, saying “I told you so.  You should have listened to me earlier.”

I first noticed It this year about three weeks ago.  It’s hard to recognize at first, and I always chalk my weird mood up to a bad night’s sleep/allergies/PMS/heartburn/etc.  It takes a while before I figure out what It is. 

And when I do realize, I have a very self-deprecating “duh” moment for not knowing It for what It was, not seeing Its smirking face staring back at me in the mirror every morning.

I figured out what It was this year when I opened my mailbox two weeks ago and a catalog from Discount Dance Supply fell out.  I requested one more than a year ago when we were living at the apartment and never got it.  Not sure how they got my new address, since I never gave it to them and the post office isn’t supposed to forward third-class mail, but I got it anyway. 

Fell right out of the mailbox onto my shoes.  And then, I knew.  And I was so surprised that I hadn’t realized  what was happening before that I said out loud, “Lord, you’re duuuuumb, sometimes.”  But, I came in the house and set the catalog down and haven’t seen it since.  I literally have no idea where it is.  Like it just walked off on its own.

Then, last Friday evening, the traffic was particularly awful and I could feel my shoulders getting tighter with every passing mile.  As I was stopped at a stoplight, I found myself going through the ballet feet positions in my head in ascending order, along with the corresponding hand positions, and then in descending order, to calm myself down.

The next day I was in Target, looking for legal pads on the top row of shelves on the stationery aisle.  I didn’t realize that I was walking on my tiptoes until two aisles later when I caught a little kid staring at me.  And when I say tiptoes, I mean tiptoes- completely on the balls of my feet so that the rest of my foot is entirely perpendicular to the floor.  I didn’t even know I could do that in flip-flops.

On Thursday of this week, I was listening to my iPod while I was at work, and caught myself tracing rond de jambes on the floor with my right foot to the dulcet tones of Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls”.

And last night It was so loud in my head It was practically yelling at me.

Do it.  You know you want to.  You wanted to last spring, but you were sidetracked.  You miss it so bad you can’t hardly stand it.  You miss the grace and the beauty and the pain and the blisters.  You regret quitting, you always have. 

I know, I know.  I DO regret it.  But, I’m too old.  People retire by the time they’re my age.  I’m 26 in less than a week.

Ok, so you’re not going to be a principal with the New York City Ballet.  You’re not going to Julliard.  We already knew that.  You made that decision long ago, when you were still dancing.

But, I’m too fat.  There’s no way I’m going to parade my clad-only-in-tights-and-a-leotard ass around in front of a bunch of strangers.  I mean, the last time I did that, I was 118 pounds and I thought I was fat.  Now I’m...more than that.  And I have boobs.  Ballerinas aren’t meant to have boobs.  They throw off your center of gravity.

You’re not too fat, you’re grown up.  It happens.  You were 12 the last time that you did this.  You’re not meant to weigh 118 pounds again, and you won’t have to.  You’ve already planned on losing another 15 or so to make up for the 10 months of exercise that you lost when you were sick and so that your pants fit better.  Now you’ll have more motivation- to be nicer to your knees.

Have you seen me recently?  My turnout’s terrible- it’s never been 180 degrees, and I’m sure it’s much less than that now.  And I can’t fit my legs behind my head any more- I’m not nearly as flexible as I used to be.

Since when did ballet require you to put your legs behind your head?  And you’re already working on the flexibility thing by doing yoga again in the mornings.  In no time you’ll be touching your forehead to your knees in the forward bend.  Stop trying to argue with me on this.  You know I’m winning.  You know you want this just as badly as you wanted that first pair of pointe shoes.  Let your battered, embittered feet redeem themselves and make peace with your thighs, because you have no other choice.

And so that’s how I ended up with an appointment for a pointe shoe fitting this coming Wednesday evening, the day before my birthday, and an invitation to visit an adult ballet class on Monday night. 

A present for myself.  The summer term starts in June, and I’ll be taking ballet again for the first time in a very long time.  I’m also thinking about taking the belly dancing class on Tuesday nights, too, because I took some belly dancing in college and really loved it.  But, apparently, I’m still a ballerina at heart and just didn’t know it. 

Got older, got educated, got chubby, got married, got a job, got less chubby, got cancer, got fired, got better, and got a new job, and the dance was lurking behind it all, waiting for the opportune moment to present itself.

My turnout is pretty nasty (maybe 130 degrees, comfortably), my flexibility is not so hot, my knees creak all the time, (kind of like that wicked stepsister in Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, so maybe I should seek out some unicorn oil to grease them up), I’m, like, twice as big as normal ballerinas, and I don’t have any hair to put into a bun.  But, I’m going to do it anyway. 

I could handle the pain as a whiny adolescent, and I’ll handle it now, as someone who kicked cancer’s ass.  I mean, it can’t be worse than chemo.  And I have the motivation that I used to be pretty good, so I shouldn’t totally suck now.  I guess you can’t do something for 8 1/2 years and not be pretty good at it.  My toe point was very pretty- and thus very stable.  Partially because I have a high arch and also because I’d been doing it for so long. 

Here’s the photo of my last year.  My hands aren’t great at all, but my feet are nice.  This photo makes me smile now because I did really think I was fat then.  I just matured quickly.  I was already 5’4” and wearing women’s size 8 clothing and size 10 shoes, and I’d been wearing a bra since the previous year.  But, since I couldn’t fit into the Limited Too clothing that was so popular when I was a pre-teen, (just can’t bring myself to refer to myself as a “tween”), because it only came in children’s sizes, I thought I was fat.

My legs were incredible.  They still are, I think, under the chub.  My quads are over-developed and rock-hard when I flex them, and when I point my toes as I am doing in this picture, my calf muscles (aka my gastrocnemii and solei) are clearly defined and firm.  I haven’t danced in 14 years and in some ways, it’s like my legs haven’t quite forgotten everything. 

It’s like when I was sitting in chemo one day last fall trying to remember how to solve my Rubik’s cube.  I hadn’t worked it in months, and one of the algorithms was confusing me.  In my drugged-up fog, I closed my eyes and let my fingers solve it.  They remembered, even when my brain didn’t.  Muscle memory.

It’s going to be tough getting back into it, but I’m so excited about it.  I’ve been randomly stopping at different points in my day today and doing demi pliès from first and second positions.  I’ll report back regarding my shoe purchase.  I might not be en pointe for a while, but I’ll definitely be wearing them around the house, and having loads of fun breaking them in.  (Is there anything more gratifying than beating a beautiful pink satin shoe with a hammer or slamming it in a door?  Not much.)

So, these aren’t my first pointe shoes- they were the year before.  This was the second pair.  The Capezio Pavlova, size 6, medium width, European Pink, same as the first pair.  That first pair was a big, freaking deal.  Little girls work for years to develop their muscles to earn those shoes.  Buying my wedding dress was not nearly the event that buying those shoes was.

I remember how fascinated I was and still am at the engineering marvel that is a pointe shoe.  The thin satin, the teeny leather sole with the even smaller metal or plastic plate inside it, and most of all the box.  The box that makes it all possible, that’s made it possible for hundreds of years.  That special combination of layers of fabric, burlap, cardboard, and glue keeps the dancer from falling over or breaking her ankle and lets her balance on a spot about the size of a silver dollar. 

This is much more stable than it sounds.  As spastic as I am, I never once fell or slipped in ballet, something that my husband doubts very much, but it’s true.  Interestingly enough, the shoes are surprisingly comfy, for the most part, when you’re en pointe, and not very comfy at all when you’re flat footed, because there’s no other structure to the rest of the shoe and that satin doesn’t provide much cushion to the rest of your foot- there’s no arch support at all.

It’s late and I’m headed to bed, but I wanted to give you a life update.

Cheers and good night.