Yesterday Sucked, Today I Took Class

Yesterday was little more than a series of voices ~ of silences, unforced errors, computer losses, rescheduled appointments, snake-bite disappointments and unanswered emails bundled up together in a tight little eight hour package, comin’ at me one after the other like some kind of Greatest Hits of Failure ~ all conspiring to tell me that I do not exist.  That I am delusional.  Wasting time.  That my dreams are simply that.  That I’m not good enough.  Not special.  That I have nothing to say and that I should just resign myself to a life of professional nothingness.  That I should simply be happy and thankful for whatever I get and walk away from this bullshit of wanting more.

I went to bed wishing I could even get myself together enough to cry and loathing the fact that I had promised a friend I’d take dance class with her in the morning.  I’ve taken maybe five dance classes this century and I would truly have rather stuck a rusty fork in my face than return to those unforgiving, mean-spirited and frequently convex dance class mirrors which do nothing more than serve as a constant reminder of the fact that my feet, when fully pointed, resemble irons taped to the ends of broomsticks.  Also, class was at 8:30.  AM.  For the record, my administration will make it a felony to begin dance class before ten.  It’s just not right.  It’s against nature.

But I went.  Because I hate the idea of standing up a friend.  Because I hate even more the idea that I could be sidelined by a bad day.  Ok, a really bad day, but just a bad day nonetheless.

I got to class, a small studio out here in the suburbs populated with middle-aged housewives.  It would be a lie of omission not to confess the twinge of condescension that ripped through my head as I looked around.  ”What am I doing here?  I’m better than this.  I’ve been on the Broad-WAY!”  But those thoughts were fleeting.  For all the years I spent dancing, I never felt fully comfortable in that world.  I never felt that it was what I did.  It was just what I kept getting paid to do ~ it was where I fit into the business of musical theatre.  But I was a limited dancer and spent every single audition deathly afraid that we’d be given a combination I simply could not do.  That I’d make a fool of myself.  Don’t know what I was so afraid of really…it happened with some amount of regularity.  You’d think I’d have gotten used to it.  But what I could do, I could do well.  And I knew it.

So there I was.  8:30.  AM.  Ready to dance.  Wondering how it would feel and what I’d look like in those mirrors, beyond my atrocious feet.  I gripped the proverbial safety bar and heard the ticking of the roller coaster going up the first big hill as I watched the teacher put on the warm-up music.  She walked downstage center and planted herself in a shoulder-width parallel first.  She counted us in.  With a quick demi-plié she inhaled and reached to the sky.  Whooosh!!!!!!  We were off.

Without realizing it, I positioned myself in the exact same spot I occupied in every single dance class or audition I ever went to ~ just upstage of the teacher or choreographer’s shoulder.  Preferably their right shoulder.  Before it was a habit, then a superstition and eventually a mild form of OCD, it was a necessity.  If I stood anywhere else I simply couldn’t see what they were teaching.  And Lord help me to ever see their feet.  Of the genetic gifts I was presented with at birth, height was not amongst them.

And we moved.  And I moved.  And was moved.  And all those parts of my head ~ those tricks for getting through the counts I wasn’t sure of, those nano-second glances at the teacher when I forgot the next section, those minor choreographic adjustments for my body ~ those pieces of me that have been almost entirely dormant in recent years, were dusted off.  I was amazed to find that the person I was in class fifteen years ago is the exact same person I am in class today.  Even out here in the suburbs.  Even with no intention of ever dancing professionally again.  I’m still the guy in the back with my head down and my eyes closed marking the feet and as much of the port de bras as I can while the other groups are dancing.  I’m still him.  I’m still the guy who would rather vomit or pass out than ever give in to fatigue.  I’m still the guy who loves the feeling of really moving through space ~ of covering ground ~ of staying in the air as long as I possibly can ~ of getting as low to the ground as I possibly can ~ of feeling the music in my body, inside me.  I’m still the guy who cries when I dance.  I’m still fearless.  I’m still him.  It’s all still there.

So yesterday sucked.  Today will be better.  Today I took class.

Maybe it’s true when they say you can’t go home again.  But every now and then it just feels so fuckin’ good to visit the old neighborhood.

Posted on Dec 5, 2012 by Ian In: All, Inside Voice
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