My Narrative Composition

"Tondu, jete, glisad, jete, ecarte plie, grande plie, rest, 2, 3, saute, LEFT SIDE!" I have been to the ballet. Hasn't everyone? But have you really seen the ballet? Everyone knows the Nutcracker. Every little girl dreams one day of playing the bejeweled snow fairy queen, leaping gracefully and winning grand applause in those magical pink shoes. I have certainly had my share of those dreams. Believe it or not, yes, me. I once was a little girl and that little girl had a dream. Except some dreams turn out sour. So there I am, tiny blonde eleven shipped up to Saratoga, New York to take classes and aspire to be a prima ballerina in the New York City Ballet. Funny, now looking at myself decked out in my Destroy boots. I never really got very tall. I'm 5'2" and I am not really stick skinny at all. You'd never guess I used to wear those silly little slippers and pink wrap skirts. Maybe that's why I'm so pinkaphobic. Things never turned out as I had planned them.

Dedicated to beat all odds and grace the stage, I attended the Briansky Summer Ballet Center. Yes, Russians. Oh and not just that, Frenchmen too. This married couple ran it, the ice-cold "Madame" with whom I would share my most painful moments and Mr. Briansky who cursed quietly in Russian at the older girls. Dreadfully homesick by the first night, the rear end of snuffuluffagous became my surrogate parent. Brian was a mime who made me stop crying and the very second day drove me to get my very first pointe shoes. These were supposed to be the first in a long line and, according to tradition, hung up for good luck once I had danced the wood bare. Fascinated still with their beauty, I burned, cut darned, sewed and soaked those Capezios (size 2) and prepared to fly.

And here begins the agony which haunts me to this day. Those things were really painful. I mean supremely. I labored after Madame's demands. I bit my lips away to take focus off the searing in my legs. God have mercy, I was eleven. Going to see the company practice and perform each week, I kept going. I walked back to my dorm room barefoot, bleeding, limping. Brian once laughed watching me emerge my dressed feet in rubbing alcohol. The world seemed to be insisting I would not succeed.

It moved up slowly from my heels like a blazing infections. My knees would not straighten and were consequently smacked daily. My posture shuddered at each escape. My kinder teachers screamed at me to smile, not frown. All the while, despite my inflexibility, my limitations, the facts that built against me, I thought I could make up for it in soul. I was told I would never dance because my rib cage was to big. I was told I would never dance because my arch was too small.

I still haven't gotten physical therapy because the pain comes and goes. I guess I procrastinate like that sometimes. I tried running this summer but found I could only walk. How long you can pay for you dreams is quite astounding. I go to classes here and there, Jazz or Modern, street funk or salsa. Ballet doesn't appeal to me much anymore anyway. But sometimes I get sad. I really can never dance now. The stress of simple point and flex tears at my scarred flesh, telltale of my achilles tendonitis. But I remember those days. "tondu, jete, glisad, jete, ecarte plie, grande plie, rest 23 saute, LEFT SIDE!"