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A week later Ryan was enrolled in the winter semester of ballet for 6 year olds. He was the only boy in the class, but that didn't faze him. Surrounded by pink flowing fairies my child looked like a ninja in his black sweats and dragon T-shirt. He started late in the year but was keeping up well and particularly enjoying the theatrics of the class.
agging sock feet slip on the [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] waxy buffed linoleum as I awkwardly shuffle my way past a gaggle of giggling girls in baby pink tutus. I'm wearing my yoga clothes, which have sadly not seen a yoga mat in two years, and my long mane of hair is reluctantly tied back in a girlie ponytail.
So here I am in the Shuswap Dance ballet studio waiting to make an ass of myself. My inner twelve-year-old got me here, but [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] the sensible 30-year-old thinks I'm nuts. "Should I run now and spare myself the embarrassment?"
I wear the shoes all the time, eagerly awaiting the next class. I lace up my adorable little black shoes and stretch my toes into the lovely pointe shape I've admired for so many years. A feeling of pride and accomplishment washes over me.
I came here today [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] to begin something I yearned to do almost twenty years ago.
The movie rocked Ryan's world. He was copying the moves with amazing accuracy, the spins and leaps and beaming ear to ear. The dancing he saw on the screen illuminated a whole new level of appreciation for dance and confirmed a fervent desire in his heart to dance.
Ballet or violin? My maturity and insight in the decision took my mother by surprise. I chose violin [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] knowing I could play violin for a lifetime as opposed to the very short careers of performing ballerinas. One thousand dollars of my mother's pain money funded my first violin, a Karl Knilling German factory fiddle made in 1989.
We certainly couldn't afford private lessons but that didn't stop me living and breathing violin. I took the city bus downtown and brought home as many sheet music scores and audio tapes as the public library would allow. We moved so I could attend [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] school where orchestra was offered. Practicing three to five hours a day, I quickly advanced to the concertmaster position and soon started ensembles of my own.
Music college and several orchestras later I find myself married with a child and the owner of a violin business. Life had zoomed past and I never again looked back on my desire to dance ballet.
The class ends and I head upstairs to buy my first set of dancing shoes. I'm tired, far more tired than I'd expected I'd be, but I feel a warm glow in my bones as I slip on various slippers and shoes. I settle on a cozy pair of jazz shoes and receive encouragement from Carolyn. We both know I'll never dance with the Royal Ballet and may not make it on to pointe shoes. I don't mind. I'm just fulfilling a promise to myself and it feels great.
I have learned that I can do anything I set my mind to. This was a gift that my mother passed on to me: the gift of learning to really want something and having the desire and [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] tenacity to make it happen.
"I'm a dancer," I snicker.
I learn that my class performs more than just ballet. We work on a jazzy swing number and next break into a chirpy hip-hop number by, er, Brittney who? I'm an old matron who listens to CBC news radio; completely out of touch with 21st Century pop culture. The girls fill me in on the singer's recent head shaving and suspected drug addiction and we move on. I try my best to copy their moves and fail miserably to keep up but know I'll get it eventually.
It hit [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] me like a load of ballet shoes. "Me, a dancer?" I thought. It had never occurred to me to take up dance as an adult. "Why the heck not," I told myself. "I just turned thirty years old, dammit, and I can take ballet classes if I want to!"
When I was twelve my mother was seriously injured [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] at the shipyard where she painted oil tankers. She received a very modest cash settlement to take care of the doctor's bills and time off work. In her first position to pay for a class, my mother said I could take up one activity: ballet classes for a year or the purchase of a violin.
The seven-year-olds clear out and any moment now I'll be greeted by perfectly straight white smiles perched on top of perfectly young, toned bodies in lululemon spandex. Slouching in my slouch socks I catch my nervous reflection in the enormous wall of mirrors glaring back at me. Socks are not the only things that are sagging in this gal; my body has seen nine long months of pregnancy, two years of nursing and a several years skipping the morning make-up routine to chase after an active son.
She played beginning Suzuki "Twinkle Twinkle" variations and tears of yearning welled up in my eyes. She performed simple dance routines on the glossy hardwood floor of her living room set to orchestral music on the hi-fi and I [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] applauded her every move. Sometimes she allowed me to wear her old ballet slippers and a flowing black skirt as I mimicked her clumsily.
I feel ridiculous. I'm a thirty-year-old woman enrolled in a ballet class with teenage girls.
A passionate fan of classical music since birth [and [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] a typical pre-teen girl], I became enamoured with both violin and ballet and begged my mother to send me to classes. Sadly finances forbade it completely and I was relegated to the audience to watch and admire Meghan.
My classmates enter the room. Normal looking teenage girls in sweats and T-shirts, no makeup, no perfect figures. Not the prima pink ballerinas I expected. Just some young ladies who want to learn to dance. (Phew, I won't need to buy anything pink!)
It was New Year's Eve at Grandma's house and my six-year-old son was doing his usual dance after supper routine, this time heightened by the vast quantities of Christmas candy he had consumed. On a whim [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] sequences and I'd enjoy a jaunt down memory lane with the classic flick.
I grew up the oldest child of a single mother who struggled to put food on the table. My best friend's family was well-off and put their children through whatever after school activities and summer camps their hearts desired. Among riding lessons, piano lessons, flute ensemble and painting class, Meghan excelled in ballet and violin.
And this time around I'll have my handsome son as a dance partner.
For four weeks I peeked through the doors of the waiting room and watched Ryan's class alone while other parents ran errands with the spare 45 minutes. One session I was, as usual, copying the class' movements from behind the door when another parent asked, "you're a dancer too?"
My mother watched with adoration and I felt a deep pride: I'd helped him find something he loved. Heck, anyone could enroll their kids in a hundred activities, but it's far more meaningful when it's something their heart aches for. I'd even go as far to say that when you get something too easily it's not as sacred. I'd been waiting for this moment to come and was more than willing to [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] support him in it.
My muscles are protesting from the sudden activity as if to say, "what did we do to you to deserve this sudden onslaught of torture?" The pli?s (I'm sure [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] which literally translates to "pain in le ass") are killer, but they make me feel like a graceful dancer so I forge on. I know I'll feel this tomorrow but continue to bend deeper into the stretch.
Our instructor, Carolyn Wonacott, starts us out skipping around the room... backwards. I'm tripping on myself and getting in everyone's way: making a complete ass of myself as expected. But I' laughing and having the time of my life. Carolyn blasts Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean" as we practice twirling around the room, dizzy and giddy.