Life is a Balancing Act
On the cusp of my 78th birthday, I am up early. It’s still dark as I get out of bed and reach the ballet barre on the wall that we installed after Kit’s fall that changed everything. Its presence in our bedroom reminds me that at our age, it’s all about balance and staying upright. For a moment, I pause, place both of my hands on the barre and let memory guide my feet back to the place where ballet first came into my life.
I came late to ballet. At 32, I was living in Los Angeles, teaching at an inner city junior high school the size of a small college campus. The noise level created by its 2,200 teenagers rose to assault level by the end of each teaching day, jarring my body like street music blaring from a boom box at maximum volume. I loved teaching but increasingly found myself looking for a way to restore my inner calm. Ballet was the answer.
Like the routine-weary businessman in the film, “Shall We Dance?” I passed an upstairs dance studio on my drive home late each afternoon. Dancers doing barre exercises were visible just above a sign with a phone number large enough to be read by passing drivers. The seed finally took root one particularly taxing semester. I signed up for a nighttime beginning ballet class two nights a week.
I had no illusions about ever balancing my body on point or becoming the ballet world’s next Cynthia Gregory. What I wanted was physical exercise to limber up my teacher-fatigued back and neck muscles in a studio filled with classical ballet music that would make my spirit soar. Two evenings a week, dressed in black tights, leotard, and ballet slippers, I took my place at the studio’s barre with adult women of various ages. My friend Pat Fennell also signed up for the class. Together we entered Ms. Irene’s magical world of ballet. When the music began, we straightened up in unison, pulled our rounded shoulders back, brought the backs of our heels together, and moved as one into a routine of warm-up barre exercises familiar to dancers the world over—from 6-year-old beginners to aging Bolshoi stars.
Forty-six years have passed since my introduction to ballet. In the interim years, life became the dance with the balancing act being family, teaching, moves from L.A to Washington, DC to Missouri, a personal journey into writing, a brief move with Kit and three cats to New Mexico, and then a reverse migration back to Missouri seven months later to Boomerang Creek—our home for the next sixteen years.
The decision to leave New Mexico was a painful chapter in my life, one that had me turn again to ballet for balance. I had a large open studio where there was space in one corner for my writing life and a ballet barre on a wall near the entrance. One exercise was done in silence; the other took place in a space transformed by musical selections from some of the world’s most familiar ballets. Following my memory back to my studio at Boomerang Creek, I take my place at the ballet barre. Act II, “Dance of the Little Swans” from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake filled the room. A recessed overhead light illuminated the 4’x4’ wall mirror and ballet barre where my solo practice sessions took place.
Ballet was my way of regaining my balance. I was sixty years old and it had been decades since I’d attended Ms. Irene’s dance classes in Los Angeles. I had designing my ballet studio in my head before leaving Albuquerque when I realized that I could not live in a desert. While packing to leave, I found my old pair of ballet slippers and pink leg warmers in an old cedar trunk. As if a sign, I ordered a new pair of pink ballet slippers as soon as we were settled at Boomerang Creek.
In the dance corner of my studio, the same exercises were repeated each time I took hold of the ballet barre. Memory took over as I moved my feet into first, second, third, fourth and finally fifth position. Steadying myself, I brought my feet together and slowly raised myself onto my toes. With one hand on the barre, I raised my other arm over my head. Then focusing on balance, I let go of the barre and raised that arm overhead forming an arch. It was an achievement born of effort and passion witnessed by no one and lasting only seconds. Before leaving Boomerang Creek, I took one final picture of myself standing at the barre, reflecting on the road ahead.
Home is now in the Sierra Foothills above Nevada City, CA. In this challenging new chapter in life, I once again feel the need to stand with one hand on the barre as I face another day without Kit at home. His struggle for balance continues daily at the Lodge, ten minutes from where I get up each morning. The ballet bar I hang onto as rise in the dark each morning is a reminder of his extraordinary spirit, as well as my efforts to cope.
In life, balance is everything.