Ballet

I elegantly slide my foot into the canvas shoe and tighten the drawstring in anticipation of my long-awaited return to the ballet barre.  As I gracefully walk across the floor, head held high, stomach lean and taut, legs long and limber, shoulders back I think of how amazing it will be to put 13 years of previously unused knowledge to use.  As the instructor begins I claim my spot at the head of the class not wanting to miss a thing.  My plies are perfect; Entendues enchanting; Arabesque's amazing.  I pirouette across the room in a blur of beauty.  Everyone must wonder who this magnificent creature is.  Where did she come from?  Who trained her?  It is as if Anna Pavlova herself is channeling my body in her final performance of the Dying Swan.

What really happened:

I fuss with my new canvas ballet shoes hoping the shoddy stitch job I did on the straps hold up during class.  For 13 years I never had to sew a thing because my mom always did.  The night before I was half-tempted to call her at 9:00 and ask if she would finish sewing the straps on for me.  As I stand up and readjust my outfit I see in the mirror bulges that were not there earlier when I first got dressed at home.  Damnit.  Where did those come from?  I plod across the floor trying to ignore the belly pushing my pants down and wishing I had remembered to put on deodorant and brushed my teeth.  I would hate to be asked not to return due to a lack of personal hygiene.  The instructor starts the class.  "Eh, this is easy enough," I think as we begin warming up at the barre.  5 minutes later and I'm lost.  "What the hell is a frappe?!  I mean, I know what it is at Starbucks."  "Sh*t.  Why is everyone facing me now?  Oh, hell.  I shoulda turned around back there."  Once our warm-up is complete we head to the middle of the floor.  Everyone else vies for a position in front of the mirror while I hide behind a column.  It gets a little blurry (literally) here because I forget the cardinal rule of pirouettes, which is spotting, and I fight back the nausea creeping up, putting my head between my legs.  At some point we gather in the corner to leap and twirl across the room in hopes of appearing light and airy.  At each landing I hit the floor with a thud, the mirrors shake and the ceiling above cracks and crumbles onto my head.  I swear I hear an elephant herd nearby but I realize I must be dreaming.  We're nowhere near the Serengeti, silly!  Finally, our instructor calls it quits, disheartened I'm sure by the repairs to the ceiling she will now have to make after tonight's lesson.  I make my way back to my bag and change into my street clothes feeling satisfied I had the guts to return to ballet.  As I wave goodbye to the instructor and head downstairs I swear I hear the trumpeting of elephants but quickly realize it is the instructor weeping.  I must have made that big of an impression on her.