One Of My Layers

An internet friend of mine, Glenn, wrote a blog post recently about his life right after high school.

It was quite fascinating. 

It was also fascinating to see a layer of his past. 

And I made a comment about his post and his story that suggested that I needed to get out more. 

Because, I do. 

But it got me thinking about my own layers. 

And my own story. 

Right now I am settling into my current layer. 

The parental layer. 

Where my days consist of doctor appointments, underwear on the bathroom floor, homework, and sibling fist fights. 

But I have a past. 

And, in comparison to some people, it may seem very dull. 

But, it may not. 

It's mine. 

And I'll share a piece of it. 

When I was a sophomore in college I heard something. 

I heard that the theatre department was looking for dancers for a play. 

Hey!

I was a dancer!

I was a commercial studio dance major. 

Don't ask me what that means. 

Okay, I'll tell you. 

It means...dancer. 

So, I wandered over to the theatre department at Illinois State University to see what was what. 

They needed six girls to dance en pointe for a mainstage production by a guest director. 

Cool!

Sign me up!

I don't remember the details of the audition. 

But I got the part.

And what a part it was. 

The play was titled "White Boned Demon."

The story was multi-layered.  

Are you ready for this?

It's a doozey. 

Mao Zedong. 

His wife. 

Ibsen. 

The Gang of Four. 

Huh?

Mao Zedong's wife, Jiang Qing, was a famous actress in Shanghai before she married Mao. 

Her favorite role had been of Nora in Ibsen's play "The Doll House."

The play "White Boned Demon" focused on her trial in the 1970s and her memories of her past in the theatre.  

Essentially, it was a play within a play.

And I was to play a Chinese Communist soldier. 

Who danced en pointe. 

Oh!

And I got to swing across the stage on a rope during a fight scene!

Which was totally cool until that day that the rope broke and I crashed to the floor in a heap. 

It was all good because it was only during rehearsal. 

And the only thing that got hurt was the sole of my foot. 

Pointe shoes have a piece of wood that runs along the sole of the shoe.

But it doesn't go to the end of the shoe. 

To the heel end. 

It stops a few inches before the end of the heel. 

Once that rope broke, I fell from about 10 feet up and landed with a very hard piece of wood shoved into the fleshy part of my heel. 

I remember it was about 10 feet up because to get ahold of the rope I had to scale the rigging on the side of the stage midway through the last scene of the show. 

All of my weight landed on one foot, so that foot took the brunt of my weight. 

Which was NOT how much I weigh now. 

Instead it was a nice, light 112 pounds. 

I have always had a high threshold for pain. 

I was back up on that rope the next day. 

And the next day.

And the next day. 

And I swung on that rope all the way to a stage at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Illinois State University's production of "White Boned Demon" was selected to perform at the American College Theatre Festival in the spring of 1991. 

And the rope didn't break the night we performed. 

And I added another layer to myself. 

Another layer to my story...

Dancing Drama

We started Gigi in dance class two months after she turned two years old. 
Her sister had been diagnosed with leukemia just four months prior and we thought that dance class would be a great distraction for her. 
But as it turned out, leukemia was the biggest distraction of all. 
Grandma had to take Gigi to a lot of her dance classes. 
I was busy with Zoe either in the hospital or Zoe couldn't leave the house.
Hence, I couldn't leave the house 
Gigi was very reluctant to participate. 
All of it seemed interesting, but she just couldn't take that first step. 
She always talked about dancing on stage like Zoe, but when it was right in front of her, it was just too much. 
When she had finally and bravely decided she could join the other girls, it was fun for her. 
But then I would be able to take her to class and all of her progress went out the door. 
She would cry.
Hide behind me. 
Disaster and despair took over her two year old self. 
So, we stopped going. 
We thought, next year will be better for her. 
So, in September of 2011, we tried again.
She started off eager to dance. 
She loves the leotards and shoes. 
But once we got there (I have been able to take her to all of her classes this year) it was a repeat of last year. 
Reluctance. 
Crying. 
Hiding. 
It was about a month into classes and I had made my decision to stop being nice about her non-participation and delusional antics. 
It was just a Gigi-ploy to get attention.   
I bucked her up and firmly said "You have one more chance.  Either you dance today, right now, or we leave and never come back!"  
I declared "No more tears!" 
I also threw in "If you don't start dancing today, then you will NOT get a fancy costume and get to dance on stage like Zoe!" 
I didn't coddle her. 
I didn't even act nice about it. 
I was firm and forceful and she needed to realize that last year was last year and leukemia was not keeping mom away from her and what she thought was fun. 
She has been the star of her class ever since...  

what's old is new again...

I had a talk, a very brief talk, a month or so ago with a friend I have known since the 4th grade. I told her that I thought I had lost my funk and I think that I had left it in 1996. She knew what I was was talking about. She is an artist and back in the day, I was an artist. She actually paints and has a solid medium for her art, but I was a dancer. She and I had both lost our artistic way for many years due mainly to the fact that we needed to make some money to support ourselves in this world.

I have thought often of my past when I was a dancer, my younger, thinner, more flexible past. I learned the stylings of Twyla Tharp, George Balanchine and Merce Cunningham. I had the privilege of dancing onstage at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. I earned a degree in dance and taught briefly after college. Times were tough when I was a dance instructor and I had to look for my income elsewhere. I never lost the passion to dance, just the time and the energy and the ability to touch my toes.

So, my friend recently lost her job and because she wasn't in the corporate world anymore, she started painting again. She hasn't lost her touch. I bought one of her paintings to hang in my daughters' bedroom.

I spoke to her about my yearning to find my way again and about her finding her path. I was a bit jealous of her ability to get right back into it. She lives alone and has more freedoms than I do. Have you ever tried to do a pirouette with a 5 year old asking you to help her practice writing her Q's and a cattle dog nipping at your spinning heel? It's not so easy.

Shortly after I spoke with her, a rather interesting turn of events happened. My daughter Zoe's dance teacher (who knew that I was an ex-Martha Graham aficionado) asked me if I would be interested in teaching a modern dance class at her studio. Her current instructor was leaving to start a new life as a married lady in the suburbs of Chicago. Hhhmmmmm? Could I do it? Would I remember how to teach and WHAT I was supposed to teach? I told her simply "I don't know."

I went home and slept on the idea, tossed it around to my husband. He has never known me as a dancer. Sure I can wiggle it around fine in our living room with him, but he doesn't know the dancer that I had been in my past. I emailed Zoe's teacher the next day and told her YES, I was interested!

Sometimes our past is right around the corner, peeking out to see if we are still interested. If the right moment happens upon you, you may be able to grab your past and reinvent it for the present...just remember to point your toes.