TURNING POINTE


“Point your feet!  Rotate!  Don’t stick your butts out!  Stay out of your heels.”  I looked up from where I was sitting.    There was no music—only the thump-thud sound of the dancers en pointe and the ballet master shouting.  “Dance to the tips of your fingers and toes!  Plié!  Spot!”  


Ann obeyed; sweat ran down her face.  “Tours chaînés déboulés,” the master barked.  She struggled as her sleek muscles quivered with exhaustion.  I’d never seen
my aunt rehearsing.  So, the contrast between seeing her stage performance—where she glided effortlessly on the tips of her pointe shoes—and seeing her studio rehearsal baffled me.
  

 “Rond de Jambe en l’air and Frappé.”  The master paused; the dancers gathered at the barre.  “Fifth position, preparation sur le cou de pied.  Single frappe en croix each position getting two counts.”  He strolled around the dance studio.  


 “Close Fifth position front.”  Ann panted for breath.  “Single rond de jambe en l’air en dehors twice at 45°.”  Her corded tendons stood out like insulated cable.  “…Now close to sous-sus front.” 


But when the curtain rose later that winter evening, there stood my aunt—her feathery light body rose en pointe.  Ann lifted her arms and breathed in the music sending it through her torso, arms, and legs.  She surrendered to the music and spun like the wind across Swan Lake—her tutu fluttering like the wings of a bird at dawn.  Dancing became her body’s song, and Ann sang it beautifully as her body told the story of Odette, the Swan Queen, and her love for Prince Siegfried. 


Backstage afterwards, I cringed when Ann removed her pointe shoes revealing
calluses, misshapen toes, black nails and reddish-purple flesh.  The contrast between her beautiful pointe shoes and her battered, ugly feet startled me.  
“I didn’t know how painful ballet dancing could be!”  I searched her eyes.  “How can you endure so much pain?”


Without saying a word, Ann walked over to her dressing table where she wrapped the pointe shoes in soft tissue paper and placed them in a pink satin drawstring bag.  She pulled a piece of paper from her dressing table drawer, scribbled a note, and tucked the note inside the drawstring bag.  “I’m not quite sure how to explain it to you.  But take these.  I want you to have them.  One day, you’ll understand.”  


As I left the performance hall that winter evening, I pulled open the drawstring bag; ran my fingers over the pointe shoes’ pink satiny smooth surface; and read her handwritten note.   “Each time you see these, remember life, like dance, is a beautiful art form.  It’s hard work.  It’s painful.  It’s ugly.  You sweat.  You fail.  You succeed.  You try again.  You push.  You fight.  But always remain graceful.” 


At the time I didn’t understand the profound wisdom in my aunt’s hand-scribbled message.  Now, though, I recognize that my aunt’s gift that winter was not her pointe shoes; rather it was her enduring words that served as a turning point in my young life when I learned that life, like ballet, is a battle between beauty and pain.  

Ann Etgen-Atkinson




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A SCATHINGLY BRILLIANT IDEA

Image
        I’ve thought a lot about the old movie, The Trouble With Angels , a 1966 comedy set at St. Francis, a fictional all-girls Catholic boarding school.   The movie boasted of an all-female   cast that included Rosaline Russell playing the role of Mother Superior who’s constantly at odds with Mary Clancy (Hayley Mills) and Rachel Devery (June Harding). Even the director, Ida Lapino, was female—a rare feat for women in the mid-1960s. The episodic story line followed the two disgruntled teenagers through their sophomore, junior, and senior high-school years.   Mary was the rebellious, prankish instigator who always said to Rachel, “I’ve got the most scathingly brilliant idea!”    Throughout the movie, they pulled pranks on the sisters, repeatedly getting into trouble and turning the convent school upside down.   Mary also resented Mother Superior’s authority and often puzzled over why any woman would choose the life of a nun.   Over time, the sister’s examples of ded
Read more

THE STICKER WEED INCIDENT

Image
         Those of us who grew up in the 50s knew what the recess bell was.   It was a bell—an actual giant red bell—that rang at the beginning of recess in elementary schools all across America.   When it rang, kids lined up to go outside to play—disorganized, loud, dirty play.   When the bell rang again, kids lined up to go back inside. We had morning recess, lunchtime recess, and afternoon recess. In between recesses we had class.           One day in 1962, the afternoon recess bell rang at W.C. Daughtery Elementary.   My friends and I lined up to go outside and play; once outside we scattered like frantic ants on the first warm spring day and headed in all different directions.   Some ran to the slides; others toward the merry-go-round, the swing set, the monkey bars, or the seesaws. But others, like me, didn’t gravitate toward the playground equipment.   We had something else entirely different on our minds.           “Sticker weed battle!” yelled my friend, Tommy,
Read more

ADVENTURE DOWN A COUNTRY ROAD

Image
I was all too familiar with the dark, soupy cocktail of my predawn commute with its precipitous, endless sea of headlights that seemed like lighthouses—beacons of hope illuminating a safe path for me during my morning commute.   I was hopelessly lost, however, on a ritualistic, tempestuous sea never questioning either the distance or the destination.   But one January morning, traffic congestion forced me to exit the well-lit freeway.   By happenstance, I ventured down a poorly-lit, meandering country road.   At each turn I marveled as my headlights reached out in the darkness making the snowflakes look like stars moving faster than the speed of light.   I slowed my car and embraced the subtle privacy of driving through the countryside with its longer, quieter stretches of road where I savored belonging to myself.   At one turn I glanced east just as a subdued sun cast its gentle light upon the snowflakes swirling around my car.   I pulled over, stopped my car, and rolled down
Read more