Not Turning Into A Pumpkin; 1.5 years Into COVID
Six weeks off of dance feels like ten years in many ways. I feel like I have stuffed my face nonstop (which isn’t true but it just “feels” likes it) and I feel like I have been lying stagnant in bed, which I haven’t. I am nervous to go back to class tonight because I didn’t stretch one time during our break, like I swore I would do. I also didn’t study a single solitary dance thing at all, like I also swore I would do. I did go back to the gym since we can go maskless and started lifting weights. I have been so intimidated to do so, since the machines are daunting and I was scared to ask for help. So I just watched people use them and then afterward, I would use it. I don’t know now why I was so scared?! It’s inspiring to see so many people lifting and working out and it’s contagious to be just as motivated!
I haven’t worn my pointe shoes one time as well. Not once. Since last class. Also something I swore to do. I definitely feel fatter but oh well. I’m excited to get back to it. We have a new teacher this summer and she is tres difficil! If I can’t make it in her class, I might not be able to stay in that class and I would CRY!!! I have to study and do my best every, single day. Better than my best because the girls will only keep progressing at a faster and faster pace.
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It’s weird getting this vaccination like cattle and sitting with other nervous people that aren’t sitting six-feet apart and awaiting to see if our bodies “respond properly.” It’s sort of scary but mostly exciting that we can move on from this long arduous, taxing and uprooting year that have cost people so so much. Thank you God for science and technology and medicine. Thank you for a solution and thank you for having mercy on us. I’m so thankful I could cry. I most certainly won’t because I’m already a nervous nelly and don’t want to freak everyone out in the lobby. I’m still also a little nervous for the second dose, because I read it’s stronger. Watching everyone else come here by themselves is also comforting. I don’t feel so alone.
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I’ve always had mixed feelings about home. It has always been frustrating to me to be born in the smack dab middle of the US and something I have spent a lot fo time thinking about. It has it’s disadvantages and it’s advantages and I’m not sure which outweighs the other.
When I go home and the hedge apple and walnut trees along with the smell of red dirt, feelings of nostalgia and comfort wash over me as I remember fishing in the snapping-turtle pond or remember hanging at the “station” where we sat in trucks and listened to music, just because. Where the highlight of summer was the scorchingly hot tractor-pulls (pronounced like tractor-pools when you have an accent) and the chance to see out-of-owners at the fair. Every time I go home, I uncover more of myself and see things from a constantly ever-changing perspective. It’s where a unique feeling of peace and serenity and where I’ll always know how to get back to, no matter the road.
The highlights of COVID again, the past few months, prove to be the following:
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The crazy man I see frequently in the corner store at the end of the block is the only person who has ever asked if I was a dancer. I was grabbing a water after class and had on sweats and a low bun in my hair. He was drunkenly trying to pay for a frozen pizza and turned around and asked me If “I was a dancer or something?” I blushed and didn’t answer but I was secretly glad.
The old guy at the gym, with a fake tan, dark hair and light green eyes who walks around the gym every single time I’m there and tells everyone good job. He doesn’t even work there!!
Two glasses of rose, two hot dogs and a ballet class and it was my birthday. Probably the best birthday ever honestly.
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The Delta-Varient was rearing its ugly head. A friend of my coworkers was a surgeon’s assistant at a hospital who was called off at work — for the first time in his life — for the next few days because they aren’t doing any procedures because the hospital is full, yet again.
My legs were absolutely shot from the first week back to classes, my calves trembled at the sight of a staircase. My entire body shook when I walked due to exhaustion from being on my legs and feet. Not to mention our classes were now 2 hours long each (which was amazing) and I left a sweaty mess everyday. I was progressively getting worse and more fatigued mixed with work, yoga, weights and I was out-of-sorts from pushing my body in all sorts of directions.
I was still wondering if this was the greatest idea since I first started due to the pandemic not lifting at all and dance remaining in the territory of “will it ever be an art form again?”
My boyfriend talked to me about how I needed a 401K, retirement plan of a million dollars, etc. and I sheepishly said I knew, I thought I just would have had that by now and he asked me how and I said through ballet and writing and looked away embarrassed because I knew how much money he was making now and how much I wasn’t. I was petrified of my future and it wasn’t getting any easier for me with my youth behind me and my life ahead of me seeming more difficult as time marches on.
I searched desperately for ideas in my head at times. Should I go back to my hometown and open a cafe as a fallback plan? I didn’t want my parents to age without me there and me to only be there in times when they are ill and destitute.
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Classes were getting progressively harder. I felt the worst in class again sometimes. The teenagers all picked it up with ease. I flailed in the background wondering what onlooking parents thought about me in there. I tried but I didn’t really prep for Tuesdays class. I was thrown back into work during the pandemic, plus I didn’t workout, study or stretch during the weekend like I intended. We were snowed in this weekend (a rarity in Seattle) and the city shut down again after opening back up for the first time since the plague.
The girls were finally starting to talk to me after class and would ask me if I would go on pointe ever or if I was going to go play in the snow on the weekend lol. They were each so endearing, curious and sweet, and extremely shy for the most part. They always talked about what boys they liked, Harry Styles concerts and would sometimes argue with each other in class, which I found hilarious.
Our teacher made a tiny “center” barre for them since we never had one in that classroom and chose a girl to come up there each class, which I thought was so sweet and a great idea.
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Oh man, although I’m studying and going to every class and being more active the I ever have I got that dreaded feeling today that I’m the worst in class again. I am struggling to keep up with grande allegro combinations and petite allegro. Even though I KNOW IT and I’ve done it before, it’s been so long and everyone else picks up everything so fast! In other news, there was at least 10 gunshots right outside of the studio and no one was hurt but it was across the street and scary af!
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The teacher actually slowed down class today so we could work on technique (thank freaking gosh) and I actually still had a hard time doing even “pointe work” in flats. Aye chihuahua!
I have been surviving on mostly coffee and ballet only *nervous face*
I’m scared one day I won’t be able to advance *sobs* (also may biggggestttttt fear) however, my muscle memory is coming back to me from other studios and it shows up when I least expect it during fast combinations in center and I get so embarrassed when I accidentally do a pirouette instead of a sousous, etc. I always just laugh aloud because I’m just a big hodge-podge of different techniques all jumbled together.
I almost fucked up my knee entirely the other day in class by slipping (because the floor is slippery in certain spots) while in a deep second position, my right foot slid out from underneath me and it tweaked my knee a bit because it’s so much body weight that I put onto my toes in the position. I caught myself at the last second, shifting my weight back squarely onto both feet but it was a close one.
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Ballet is kicking my ever-loving-arse every day, with these five classes a week. Also. I received a card in the mail from Arielle again (she is the nicest friend I’ve ever had I think) and another dear old friend sending me money in a card in the mail lol and thanking me for the coffee I sent them during COVID. The card surprised me and made my whole month and I truly have the sweetest most giving people in my life.
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Going over choreography for Cinderella, taking one too many classes, but I am improving drastically ( I think) Ms. J read to us 101 ballets the story of Cinderella as we all sat around in a circle and I felt the magic of remembering my dreams as a child sitting amongst the other sweet teenagers as we listened and laughed at the Russian version which involved a mean father and oranges gifted from the prince. The girls were all starting to obsess about the main part and if they would be cast, etc. and. I kept trying to just go over the days choreography and classes in my head.
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One of the dancers slipped in her pointe shoes in the building where we were rehearsing during covid and got a concussion and has lost partial vision in one eye as well as messed up her knee and now is terrified to pirouette on pointe. Ack!
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The end of spring is approaching which means that our “performance” (which will be masked in case you were wondering because of COVID) will be in two weeks and also classes will be over mid June! There will probably be no summer classes for adults and the level 5 girls are progressing so rapidly I am unable to keep up at times. I long for the days of my youth with a younger, more quickly to comprehend and memorize combinations!!
I didn’t make it to my first class this morning, despite practically sprinting to the studio so I just LET IT GO! ( as amazingly difficult of a task as this is for me to do) and grabbed a coffee to go over the combinations for today. I also am wearing a dirty leotard and shirt because my roommate was doing laundry this morning and grabbed a clean pair of tights and ran to the studio. But I knew I would interrupt class (a big no-no in the ballet world) if I were to come in 10-15 min late, albeit I have done this a time or two when I commuted a long way for class.
