Somebody saw - Part Two

(This is the second part of a post about a very special moment, a milestone in my life, I believe. Part one  here)


She said: 'This weight of yours is only like an armour, and inside it is the real you. A dancer.'

I think that was the moment the tears came to my eyes. Maybe because I was still a little shaken by my emotions in class, but mostly because it was a moment of truth.

SHE KNEW. 
SHE SAW. 

I said yes, through my tears. 'Yes, I feel it. Sometimes, when I listen to music and I just want to... ' here I made an opening gesture with my arms '... come out and... '

There are no words for it. 

BUT SHE UNDERSTANDS.

I saw it in her face. She understands, because she is a dancer. 

More tears came.

Then she added: Sometimes I see glimpses of it, in the way you lift your arm at the barre for example.
Don't let your shyness stop you, don't let self-doubt stop you.

I nodded again.

SHE KNOWS.

In those small beginning movements, I often dare to 'open myself'.
But then my courage fails me.


She also said it was a pity I couldn't jump.
I said yes, but that I wanted to dance all my life and not ruin my joints. And that I hoped one day I'd be light enough to jump.

Melanie: 'Maybe you will one day be allowed to jump, then you will be able to feel the pressure of your feet against the floor when you take off, and you will feel weightless for a moment in the air. It is a wonderful feeling.'

I nodded, smiling.

I KNOW, I wanted to say. I never did those jumps, but I KNOW how it feels. 

Melanie also said: 'If you hold yourself back, the class will only do so much for your feet and legs, your strength etc. But if you dare to let go...
Do come more often to my class. I am always wondering, will Alienor be here today? And if you are not, I am disappointed. I really like you.'


Then she told me about her trouble, something to do with her husband's job, which was making her tense and irritable. She apologized for the way she had behaved in class. She had just suddenly felt as if all her effort to give a great class was unappreciated. So she grew very angry and just gave easy combinations as I wrote above. But she didn't blame me, although I had made as many mistakes. I still don't know who she meant, we were all trying.


Well. That was a milestone moment. At last, I have proof. I am not imagining things. I do have this deep love of music and movement, and it is evident. I am not fooling myself.

Everything I have experienced so far, all the suffering, all the joy, have brought me here.

I can't wait for what is still to come. It is scary, but exciting.


Four years ago, (after taking classes for two months) I wrote this in my diary, after an open house day at a dance school where I'd taken five different classes. It came to my mind just now. The moment I first truly realized it for myself:

"... After ballet I went to African Dance. A tall, beautiful African taught that class. The music was wonderful, almost only drums. I longed to just dance to it, and in fact the teacher told us to, in pairs. But I didn't feel ready yet...

But then he taught us steps, and slowly put together a dance. I was not always fast enough, but the stomping and bending felt wonderful. He told us to forget goals, to think only of dancing, to smile. He said every body was different, so we couldn't all dance the same way. It was important to dance, not to do everything right. A child came in and started dancing right away. The teacher immediately invited it in. It was a young girl, and in the end, when we had to improvise, she just jumped and jumped and shouted with joy.

This lesson especially made me feel keenly that I am a dancer, under all my fat, behind all my fears. And I will set myself free and dance until my dying day. ... "

Somebody saw - Part One

I had the strangest ballet class this morning. I've never felt so bad in class before, not even at the opera this summer where the teacher didn't demonstrate and just mumbled a barely audible stream of complicated combinations and I was totally lost and sat out the whole centre and the class was full of pre-pros and pros.

It was a small class, only five students. This russian girl and Marianne who are less advanced than I, and Carla and Maria who are more advanced.
Our teacher, Melanie, got suddenly angry for no apparent reason other than some of us making mistakes. She stopped speaking and only demonstrated, and gave the simplest, most basic combinations like four battements en croix etc. I picked up on her anger immediately and felt really bad. I couldn't believe a teacher was behaving like this. It worried me and made me feel bad and after some time, angry.

The result was that I was at first really unconcentrated, then close to tears, even blinking while stretching, and then just plain furious. I made lots of mistakes, wich made me feel stupid and guilty for maybe feeding her anger, and that made everything worse still. One exercise I just didn't do on the left, because i felt like a fool attempting something difficult while she just stared. I didn't want to expose myself in this atmosphere.

After class, everybody left right away. I wanted to stretch and did so, even though Melanie was still there sorting her CDs. Then she came over to me.

Here I must write down something I have been wanting to write about for some time. It is important for what happened today:

Lately, while listening to beautiful music, there has been a feeling inside me, of the most intense longing. I have known it for years, but it has got so much stronger lately, so that I am often close to tears. It feels as if I want to burst, as if I want to sing and dance and jump and fly up to the sky and play all the instruments of the world at once, because the music is so powerful.

To dance is no longer enough, even if I were the best dancer in the world. I want to dissolve and BECOME the music.

When I am alone, and sometimes in class, especially when I feel unwatched, I can let myself express some of the delight of the music through my movements. It is EXQUISIT.
I love myself in those moments, and the world and all the things in it.

I have often wondered if this love is visible to others. Does Franca see it? She never comments.


Mrs. H said sometimes, when I did something like this on rare occasions, that I deeply moved her. At the time this scared me.


I don't remember what Melanie said word for word, but in essence this is what happened:

So, after this crazy class Melanie came over to me - I was stretching on the floor - and said (and she didn't sound angry at all anymore): Alienor, you work so intelligently. Much more intelligently than the others, by the way. I see that you UNDERSTAND. But your problem is that you are too shy, you are afraid.

Here I nodded. I got up. It seemed more fitting.

Then she said: You need to trust me. I trust you, Alienor. Do you trust me?

I said yes, although at the moment I was still a little angry with her. But in general, it was true.

She said: There is a dancer within you, waiting to come out. But you need to trust me and to trust yourself. Don't hide.

She had already said something like that once before, in August. It had made me very happy then.

I answered that sometimes it was difficult with my weight, sometimes I'd see myself in the mirror and not like how something looked, and then I'd hold back. I told her I was trying to lose weight.

Melanie said that she knew, and that mirrors made us look at ourselves in a bad light, only seeing faults.
She said that when she'd been a dancer, she'd been very skinny, but she STILL felt fat, and always compared herself to the girls next to her.

It was in her head. She had no self-confidence to speak of. And that she was now trying to get rid of that, and it was SO important. To appreciate yourself...

Part two of this post

Sisters! A Rant.

I am furious right now. My little sister, Sina, is the most hateful, rude and humourless bitch person I ever met. I had such a lovely evening, a cosy chat in the kitchen with my mother, a little harp practice session, some tv-watching in the dusk. I was looking forward to the first family meal since last Sunday's breakfast. But she had to go and be horribly rude to me because I said something (and I am absolutely certain Diane got that it was meant as a humorous reference, although she denied it later and took Sina's part as always), and threaten to throw her food into my face (!) if I mentioned it again. She is 21, by the way, and, apparently, intelligent. This set off Papa, who began to scream at the top of his voice, like a mindless ape, that we should be quiet (how ironic!). I was so ashamed of him. And angry with Sina. She has been rude to me for weeks, but especially tonight. Everything I say or do sets her off, and her reactions are totally disproportionate to any (perceived) annoyances or insults.

I am not without faults, but this is going too far. I REFUSE to be spoken to like that. I walked away and stopped my ears with music in my room. In between songs I heard them arguing in the kitchen. Papa is still behaving like a petulant child, banging things apparently because I told him there was no need to scream like a mindless ape (it is true!).

Really, I had NO intention of offending or criticizing Sina. I made a humorous comment about her old, faded and tattered polar fleece jacket, which I had been objecting to for years. Last winter, I had been serious. I thought it was not fit to be worn anymore. But not this time. If I search my feelings, I was really just joking. I know by now that I will never be able to make Sina change her mind about something if I criticize or scold her.

I don't know what is the matter with her. But it doesn't matter whether she is afraid of something, in love, stressed or sad, as long as she doesn't tell us that something is wrong, she has no right to behave like that. If she came and told me she was having a difficult time and that was the reason for her short temper, I would make allowances. But I feel like she has been like this for the past two to three years. And lately, it has got really bad. When I ask her, she says everything is all right.

I just thought of something: What if it is my weight loss? She has been putting on quite a bit of weight over the last years, and I have been losing weight since the spring. Maybe she is jealous. Diane sometimes appears to be jealous, too. She is thin though, but her face is plain and she has very low self-esteem... Hmmm. I need to think about that.

I would rather become thin and have my sisters be mean to me than the other way around. I am working and making my own money. I am dancing a lot. I am taking an interest in my appearance. I am getting more confident and grown-up. I am thinking, and singing and enjoying life. They might resent that, but I won't tone myself down to make them comfortable. At last, I am learning to be who I really am. And adding to who I am. I will not be stopped.

From now on, I will watch my every word to my sisters. I'll make it a game. I'll show off a little, but make it appear to be completely unconscious. It'll be fun. Let's see what will happen tomorrow.