Tis the Season

There is something about the ballet that makes me feel like a kid again. I don’t know if its the music or being all fancy or what, but I love it. My parents used to take us when we were growing up and it was always a treat. We would fight to sit next to Mom because she had the binoculars and chocolate and also because she knows e v e r y t h i n g about ballet.

If I was lucky, between the dances she would whisper her ballet secrets to me. She would tell me of painful point shoes and sparkling tiaras, the butterflies of pre-show jitters. We would watch the show together, she and I, and she would point out the best dancers. She would show me the girls with beautiful extension and the men with excellent partnering skills. I remember the way her warm breath felt on my ear as she would explain to me how Clara was just dreaming of the Mouse King and her heroic Nutcracker. I always wanted to play Clara, just once. I mean, how lucky is she? A sleigh! And a tutu! I could have rocked that part.

Tonight, the sisters and I went to the ballet. We were missing our mother, but it felt like she was there. The show was wonderful and it never fails to make me cry but just a LITTLE bit because it is so beautiful to watch. These dancers are seriously athletes, they always make it look so easy. I never see them even breathing heavy. Maybe the don’t even breathe– maybe they are so in shape and tiny that they have evolved to higher beings and they no longer need oxygen, I don’t know.

And don’t worry mom, we counted all the pirouettes and fouettes during the grand pas de deux and they still got it.