For the first time in a very long time, I am NOT in "constant motion." I finished my big dance performance on Saturday and have the summer off from dance rehearsals while Elena is in Russia. My house is (fairly) spotless right now. I'm overcoming a nasty case of bronchitis so I'm feeling fatigued and unmotivated to start any new projects. My baby is taking a nap, my toddler is working on homework while watching a cartoon, and my oldest is still riding his bus home from school. So, I am in a predicament of sorts. Do I allow myself to rest and "take it easy," or do I push forward with the next challenge? A normal person might say, "Rest!" But, if you know me at all, you know what a painful decision it is for me to actually choose to "rest" because I sit there uneasy and wish I had just chosen to fill up my time. This is something I want to work on. I want to learn to sit and be content. To sit in my thoughts. To relax my body. To breathe. To just be.
Instead, moments like these make me feel very uptight and uneasy. I sit upright on the edge of my seat, wide-eyed, anxious, taking short breaths, eyes darting around the room like a mental patient, looking for something to do. Oh, there's a dish. I'll wash it. Oh, there's a pile of papers. I'll organize those and pay some bills. Oh, look, an alumni letter from BYU. Maybe I'll take a class... in Arabic. Believe it or not, I do not suffer from ADHD (although some might argue differently). This is just a very bad habit I have formed over the years of never sitting still. It comes with the job of being a mom, too. I am always working. I feel like Marge Simpson in that episode where the family moves for Homer's great new job (until he realizes he's working for an evil mastermind) and Marge's house is self-cleaning so she's just anxious and unhappy. It KILLS me to sit still. It is agonizing! When I am sick, I stay busy cleaning my house so I don't have to think about how sick I feel. When my heart is hurting, I stay busy with everything I can think of so I don't have to think about how I feel. I am always finding new hobbies, new challenges, new things to learn and study and do.
So, this is my challenge - to just sit. Relax my shoulders. Sink into my chair a little deeper. Rest my head. Breathe in. Breathe out. Relax. Be okay with it. Relax.
That's NOT going to happen right this second, but I'll work on it. I promise.
In other news, to keep my fingers click-clacking happily, Saturday's dance performance went really well.
I had been trying to get through a nasty respiratory illness all week and tried every home remedy I could think of leading up to the show. Finally, I just prayed that I would be able to breathe and make it through the show, giving it my best. I arrived at the theater at 4:45 with all of my costumes and was led to my very fancy dressing room. I felt like a true star - I even had a fancy mirror with those fancy lights on the sides and a nice chair to sit in while I did my makeup. Much nicer than when we performed at the Russian Embassy (where we were all squeezed into a dressing room with no mirrors and there were surveillance cameras in each corner which was a little unnerving while changing into different costumes...) We blocked out the different dances on the stage and then prepared for the show.
I got dressed into my Greek costume, did up my hair, covered my face in stage makeup (my least favorite aspect of the whole thing is the terrible makeup!), and was rushed out of my room by one of the assistants and led to the stage. I could hear the crowd beyond the curtain still filing in to find their seats. Everything was still bustling and noisy and frantic around us. The stage crew was making final adjustments. Suddenly, everything went dark. Everything went still and quiet. I took my spot and got into position. I was trying to stand still, but I felt like I was wavering in my place as I stood there waiting. It was a very cool moment of anticipation. The curtains opened, the spotlights came on and offered a faint glow across the stage, and the music began. And, suddenly, alongside my fellow dancers, I was a performer. I danced, I leaped, I twirled, I smiled. I finished. I didn't fall on my face! The crowd cheered. I bowed. It was marvelous!
I did that through 8 more dances. I stomped and clacked spoons through a Russian folk dance (the crowd loved that one!). I gracefully glided and arabesqued through a lyrical ballet set to The Beatles' Yesterday. Then, I waltzed in huge ballgown. I hopped in flapper-girl style doing the Charleston. I became exotic with my Indian attire and intricate finger and eye movements and sharp angles of my arms and legs in Bollywood. I did an Arctic Nomad interpretive dance in a big furry costume (the boots kept falling down past my ballet shoes which was quite distracting because I was afraid I was going to trip. Terrible!) And, finally, I did the Ukrainian. The show-stealer. Right towards the end, we do a rigorous line comparable to Irish Step Dancing (like River Dance) but with Ukrainian flair and while wearing two-inch heels. This is the dance that caused me to sprain my ankle during rehearsals about five weeks ago. It's hard. And it's a workout. My heart was pounding and I couldn't breathe, and we were right at that moment before my solo. !!!!! Ahhh! I thought I was going to drop over from exhaustion. But I had made it this far! I had to do this.....
I gave myself a split-second pep talk. "Push through... keep going!" I smiled and leapt out front and center.
For my solo I had to go from my place in the line and forcefully (but "gracefully," "effortlessly") leap in one direction and land in a pique (almost like an Echappe, Pique, but with a more forceful leap and more distinct pique, which is why I have just broken it down as such), then I leap back in the other direction, pique, then pirouette a few times and jump right back into the leap. It goes something like this: Leap right... Pique left! Leap left ... Pique right! Pirouette, Pirouette, Pirouette.... Leap right... Pique left! Leap left... Pique right!..... Pirouette, Pirouette, Pirouette! Oh, yeah, and SMILE! After three of those, I gracefully pranced just far enough off stage so that the audience couldn't see me fold over in exhaustion. I had five seconds or so to recover before I had to prance back out for more leaps and jumps and kicks. Whoever says dancers are not athletes has never danced like this before... and this is easy compared to what ballerinas do! We had reached the finale and had to push strong. It was invigorating. The lights were spinning around me as I twirled around. I got through my final turns, threw my hands up in the air, smiled, and was done!
The crowd was in an uproar of cheers, there was clapping and whistling, and all of us dancers bowing and flowers started coming up from every direction (I'm not sure if this is standard dance tradition but it is the first time I have experienced this). My favorite moment in this moment of "fame" was seeing my husband and son arrive at the stage with flowers. After all, when I was dancing, it was for them, not everyone else. They handed me the flowers and the crowd cheered. I blew my sweet boy a kiss and felt like crying. It was over. All the hard work, the intensity of rehearsals, the stress and the sleepless nights going over dance steps in my head, the daily dance injuries and muscle aches and pains, Elena screaming at us to work harder and be sharper, it was all over... it was suddenly done. I have never ran a marathon, but I imagine that when people complete a marathon they have similar feelings of relief mixed with satisfaction. Mixed feelings of being so glad it's over and vowing to never do it again, yet thinking, "Maybe just one more time...." The curtains closed and we all ran back to our dressing rooms quickly before doing a meet-and-greet with the crowd in the lobby. I was so touched when an old Russian lady made her way through the crowd and grabbed my arm and told me, "Thank you for the dance... It was inspiring!" Another lady, who I learned used to dance with the company, approached me and gave me stern advice to not lose any more weight, and she started going off about the stress of being a dancer and how I needed to be careful. I smiled and graciously accepted her advice, agreeing with her. I didn't think I was too skinny, but she apparently was on a mission and I wasn't going to stop her from offering good advice since many dancers do indeed have eating disorders. Not me - I love food. I should have directed her towards the young ballerinas :)
Finally I got to a point where I could slip away unnoticed and quickly changed into my warmup clothes, wiped away the red lipstick, guzzled down an entire bottle of water, and packed my bag. I was tired. There was an after-party at the director's house, but it was going to consist of constantly-flowing vodka and inappropriate jokes. At the last party, one of the dancers showed me her new boob job, another started crying to me about how sad the politics of Russia had become, most everyone was raucous and loud, and the party tends to last until the wee hours of the morning. I was looking forward to a nice evening with my husband and son. I slipped out quietly, met my husband and son incognito, and we drove to a quiet Thai restaurant. We ordered our favorite dishes and I relished in my time alone with them. If it weren't so late in the evening, my youngest two could have been there as well. I was just looking across the table at them - at my handsome husband and my good-looking boy and felt so grateful to have the support of my loving family. That's all I need. My loving family. That is what I always wished for.
So, now I'm like Clorinda the Cow. That's a children's book about a cow who loves to dance and she tries to make it big in NYC but lands on her dancing partner during her performance. Still, the crowd cheers because she gave it her best shot. She goes back to her hometown and becomes a dance teacher in the barn so she can teach all of the animals about the joys of dancing. I am now a dancer, even if I'm not the "best" dancer in the world. Some day I will open my dance and fitness studio. It will probably be mostly yoga classes and jazzercise-style fitness classes, but I would love to teach some beginning dance classes to children and adults and maybe even hire some better dancers to teach ballroom dance and more advanced classes. This is my current dream. I talk about my "studio" all the time. Jordan is all for it. We're just waiting for the right time. Right now we're still moving a lot (we move again in a year) and our children are young. So, it's in the "five-year plan."
Until then... In the word's of the great Tom Petty:
It's time to move on, time to get going,
What lies ahead, I have no way of knowing,
But under my feet, baby, grass is growing,
It's time to move on, it's time to get going....
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