I wanted that dream again. I wanted to at least try to have that dream.
So I decided to make an audition video for Juilliard after all. The applications for next fall are due by November and I’m doing it. I’m going for it.
That’s why I’m here. To try.
I shed my dress in the bathroom to change into my leotard and my practice tights that I brought with me in my bag and get ready to practice.
The main practice area has polished hardwood floors and mirrors running along one wall, plus a steel barre for barreexercises. I sit on the floor to tie up my pointe shoes before I begin.
I do the warm-up exercises, stretching my legs, flexing my toes. I go through arm and leg positions one by one, checking my posture in the mirror, correcting the arch of my spine and the line of my shoulders.
When I’m done, I grab the CD that I want from the collection and put on the song that I’ve been working on all summer.
Well, I’ve been working on this song for the past two years actually.
It’s the same one that I was going to perform at Bardstown High that night.
The one where I had to wear the wings because I was a fairy who falls in love with a human who betrays me in the end.
It’s the song that I never got to do.
It’s the song that I want to remember, however.
I want to remember the pain, the misery. The tears I’ve cried.
I want toremembermy heartbreak.
So I never make the same mistake again.
And so I wear the wings; these ones are borrowed from the storage closet. They are cheap and made of fake silk as opposed to my furry, custom-made, heavy wings.
But it doesn’t matter.
I’m not a fairy. I never was.
I don’t need pretty wings. I can make do with these fake ones and as soon as I have them in place over my shoulders, I start the music and close my eyes.
I let myself remember now.
I let the beats drop into my body, my stomach and chest. I let them drop into my arms and my legs.
When I’ve become sufficiently heavy with memories and light with the violins, I raise my arms and take my first spin.
After that everything becomes easy.
Everything becomes natural.
Like I was born to do this song.
Like I was born to fall in love one day and have my heart broken. Like I was born to be the girl who dances on those broken pieces of her heart.
I jump and leap and spin and turn without my conscious volition.
By the time the song ends and I fall to the floor on my knees, my feet are throbbing and my cheeks are wet from my tears.
Oh yeah, that happens.
I cry.
