Rediscovering Ballet (in Middle Age)

You know how they say, If you ask people what they would do for a living if they could choose anything, nine out of ten would name a career in the arts? Well, I'm no different: I would have been a ballerina girl.

Just looking at this picture makes me feel all weird inside. Love, admiration, envy, regret ... mostly love.

It seems almost an impossible task to sit down now and trace back to the roots of my love of ballet. No one in my family did it. Truthfully, we were pretty poor so all those classes were probably quite a hardship on my family. But I did like to read, and I got that from my dad. I even had a little library in the basement where neighborhood kids could come and check out books if they wanted (nobody ever wanted).

This was one of my books:

It's the story of a little girl named Carol who had weak legs (from Polio), so her doctor suggested ballet lessons to strengthen them. It was full of images like these:

So, Carol starts out with these cool braids, talks to a groovy chick wearing a tunic and headband, then she gets to dress up and dance around in fluffy outfits with a starry wand and other little girls dressed up as flowers. How is that not the coolest thing ever? I was hooked.

If the coffin needed a nail, it came when my mom was watching a movie called "The Red Shoes."

If you haven't seen it (see it), Moira Shearer stars as a dancer who joins a company and ... well, who really cares what the movie is about; the ballet she's in ("The Red Shoes") is about a pair of enchanted red pointe shoes which never let her stop dancing or take them off. She dies in the end. -- Yeah, it's kind of a fucked up movie for a little kid, but WHO CARES, right?!? There are these beautiful beautiful shiny red shoes that imbue the dancer with amazing talent and stamina. It's so magical!

So my mom put me in a ballet class. I was six years old and probably looked a little like this, when I started: a dopey little plump pink dumpling of uncoordinated energy bouncing around the room.

Before too long, though, I was a star:

(dig the tiara -- and how about that arabesque, eh?)

This was our International Recital. I lobbied hard for the Russian part, and finally beat out Julie Druga (who's Hungarian anyways). Note my haughty Communist demeanor. And black pointe shoes; those were the coolest.

In the end, I studied dance for ten years, and I gotta say, I was pretty good. One of my instructors suggested I consider auditioning for the Cleveland Ballet. 

But one morning, I woke up and had these:

(stunt model)

And that was the end of a ballet career for me. Because this is what a ballerina looks like:

Not this:

Yes, I know there's a world of difference between those two extremes, but not in ballet. There's thin, then there's everything else. And, for better or worse, I come from a long line of Russian peasants who used their short strong stocky bodies to carry the ox back to the barn if it was injured. These people are not my grandparents, but they could have been:

For myself, I understood, quite quickly and quite realistically, that I could probably still dance professionally (and starve myself thin), but I would never be a soloist; I would forever be resigned to the chorus.

See how all those dancers look the same? That's on purpose.

Well, I had too much of an ego to not be a Star (capital "S"), so instead I went to college, then more school, then more school, and now I'm a doctor. But I never forgot about being a dancer. There's not a ballet movie I haven't seen, from Misha in "Turning Point" and "White Nights" to....

Wait, you don't know who Misha is? Well, if you're a "Sex and the City" fan, you know him as this guy:

But if you're a dancer, you know him as this guy:

Or this guy:

Or, even in his later years, as this guy:

OK. Moving on.

So. I've seen every ballet movie, and I've sought out live ballet performances no matter where I've traveled, from Chicago to Paris, even if I'm only there for a couple of days. I don't cry every time anymore, but sometimes a dancer will still do something so lovely and ephemeral, I can't quite catch my breath for a moment. And sometimes I do still cry.

But now I am old enough that, even had I been a successful dancer, I would not be one anymore. I would not be in the middle of my professional career, as I am as a veterinarian, but well past its end. My body would probably hurt in more ways than it already does, albeit different ways. The life of a dancer is very physical, sometimes in brutal ways.

But maybe my soul would ache a little less.

So in an effort to recreate my past (never a good idea), I enrolled at a local dance studio. I'm old enough now to know how to suffer embarrassment and failed expectations with grace and a little humor, and I also know that it's my own hard-earned money, and as long as I'm not hurting anyone else (or holding back the class), it's my own business if I want to make an ass of myself.

So this week, I made an ass of myself. I showed up to find myself one of four students in the class. To say that tallying their ages would lead you to mine is a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. Similarly, the instructor was about twenty years old. Well, I told myself, that's how old your instructor was when you were ten, so adjust your perspective.

I also needed to adjust my perspective as to what my body really looks like. I will say this: I look pretty good for a woman nearing fifty. However, I do not look as good as a twenty year old, especially when I'm wearing a leotard and tights, which I have since which time learned is not nearly hip enough for these modern times. Oh yes, fellow dancers, should you not already know this, the modern dancer has just as many accessories (skirts, sweaters, wraps, leg warmers) as Victoria Beckham attending Fashion Week.

Me.

Other students in class.

Although it's not terribly dramatic, not a lot happened for the next hour. There were some things my body remembered to do and still could (pliés, tendus, ronds de jamb). There were some things my body remembered but could no longer do (spotting, arabesque). And when it came time to move away from the barre and do turns across the floor, I came to a sudden realization that I have not voluntarily turned to the right once in the past thirty years. -- I confess, I do occasionally dance a bit in my kitchen, especially now after the remodel made it bigger, but every single pirouette I've done in that kitchen (or elsewhere) has been to the left, my stronger side. It turns out, I'm Derek Zoolander!

Fortunately, my instructor took pity on me (and my classmates -- hey, fatal injuries have been known to occur!), and let me do some balance work instead of full turns on the right-hand side. I nailed the left side, though!

In the end, I was both better and worse than expected. It was painful to look at my body in a mirror for 90 minutes in a row, but I had to admit it could be worse. It was humbling to have neither the balance nor flexibility I once had, but I was surprised my feet at least remembered how to do all those things, whether they could do them or not. And it was, face it, vaguely embarrassing to be a middle-aged broad in a room full of energetic young women -- do we ever REALLY get over feeling like the geeky kid in the class?

But it felt good. And, geeky or no, I liked it. I'm not Gelsey Kirkland or Natalia Makarova or Suzanne Farrell -- I never was, and I never will be. I'll probably never again get my both my feet behind my head. But it doesn't mean I have to stop trying.