Said uniform matches mine and Tori’s exactly, yet again. Pink tights and white leotards, an outfit I haven’t worn since I actuallywasfour years old starting my first dance class. The ballet slippers feel odd on my feet as well. They aren’t my well-worn split soles, but rather the standard “little girl” ballet shoes, and I crinkle my nose as I try to point my toes in them.
Making a mental note to ask Daddy if we can order me some different shoes, I move to the front of the room and face my friends. Miss Evelyn is sitting in a chair off to the side, a bag of yarn in her lap for knitting as she keeps watch over us. Juju and Tori were all bubbly smiles after lunch, telling me how excited they were to take a dance class from a real live ballerina, and whatever nerves I might have had about teaching evaporated in the face of their excitement.
“Hello, class,” I greet them from the front of the room.
“Hi, Izzy!” they chirp back, bouncing on their toes.
“I think today we’ll just start with the ballet positions. Does anyone know what they are?”
“Oh, me, me!” Juju nearly leaps off the ground in her excitement, waving her hand over her head to get my attention, as if there aren’t only two of them in the room.
Swallowing my laughter, I point in her direction. “Juliet. Can you show us first position?”
Placing her heels together, Juju slowly pushes her toes outward, forming more of a V than a straight line, but it’s a good try for someone who hasn’t been practicing their entire life the way I have.
“Very good! If you can turn your hips out just a bit more, though, that would be amazing.”
Tongue between her teeth, Juju focuses on doing what I’ve asked, improving her stance enough for me to applaud the effort. Tori follows suit, and I approach them, helping them with their posture. It’s a bit difficult to getexactlythe right position with the bulk of our diapers impeding the movements of our hips, but we make do.
We spend much of the next hour moving between the positions, with me painstakingly explaining how to fix things, and by the last few tries, they seem to recognize when something doesn’t feel right and they’re able to correct themselves.
Pride wells in my chest when Tori immediately moves her heel closer to her opposite toe in fifth position. Maybe it’s not dancing the lead in Swan Lake, but watching my friends discover their own love of ballet fills something—a space in me I didn’t even know was empty before today.
We’re closing in on the end of class when Tori collapses on the ground. “I can’t go on! It's too much! I'mexhausted!”
I have to swallow another laugh because we've barely done anything today. But my friends aren't as used to constant physical activity as I am so it makes sense they wouldn't last as long.
Though I had thought they might last alittlelonger, if I'm being honest.
“Me too!” Juju follows suit, the back of one hand pressed against her forehead as she sinks dramatically to the floor.
Now I can't quite contain my giggles. “You guys. We still have fifteen minutes of class left. What are we supposed to do?”
“Oh!” With a sudden burst of energy, Tori pops back up into a sitting position. “Show us one of your routines!”
“Yes! Yes! Show us!” Juju cries out in support.
“You mean from one of my shows?” I wrinkle my nose. “I don’t know. I don’t have my pointe shoes or anything.”
“Please, Izzy?” Clasping her hands together in front of her, Tori widens her eyes into the biggest, most pitiful puppy dog eyes I’ve ever seen. Juju joins in, and I know I don't stand a chance against them.
“All right, all right. Um, Miss Evelyn?”
When Miss Evelyn looks up from her knitting, a small smile plays on her lips. “Yes, Isabella?”
“Can you play ‘Waltz of the Flowers’ from The Nutcracker? On your phone maybe?”
“Of course, sweetheart. Just a second.”
Heart pounding as though I’m about to take the stage again in front of half of New York City, I center myself in the room, closing my eyes as the first strains of the waltz wash over me. I practiced and performed this number so many times last Christmas, I don’t even need to count the beats before I step out on my right foot, my arms raised high over my head as I bring my left foot up to my knee. It feels a bit clumsy without my pointe shoes, but I manage, and soon I’m lost in the music, my body moving through the steps with the ease of muscle memory as I dip and sway and spin my way through the waltz.
And for a few minutes, the island fades away. All my thoughts of escape, my plans to return to New York, my fears that I’m becoming a bittoocomfortable here, all of it simply… disappears. There is only me and the music as I let it guide my steps.
This is what I love best about dance. Not the applause or the status of being one of the elite. I love the music. The way I can lose myself so completely in it as I move. I love the way my body feels, like it becomes one with every sound. There is nothing quite like it in the entire world.
Somewhere along the way, I think I forgot that. I let myself get so caught up in the competition, the rat race, theworkballet had become that I lost the peace it used to bring me.
I lost my love of the dance, and I have no idea when it happened.
