My friend Marty and I were born a bit too late to make the cut-off date to enter first grade, so our mothers decided to put us in dancing school for that gap year, signing us up for weekly tap and ballet classes.
Tap dancing was fun with all the noise you could make both on the wood floor of the studio and at home practicing in the kitchen.
Ballet was more challenging for a five-year-old –assuming the positions and moving smoothly, holding the bar along the mirrored wall. Staccato and Legato each held our attention, but for me, ballet became pure fascination.
The year culminated with the purchase of a lavender high-necked, long-sleeved leotard—divine when paired with beige tights-almost like the silk stockings our mothers wore. Best of all, they put real rouge and red lipstick on us for the recital!
As the next September approached and my formal education began, dancing lessons did not continue. I did own a lunch box sporting a pink ballerina and books with the same, but that was it.
Fast forward to some free time in college when I registered for a ballet class—not for credit—just for fun. Still challenging, still wonderful and with the same bonus—a recital! We were to perform Chicago’s “Colour My World” and this time the costume was in green, with large wings. Eight graceful butterflies in eight colors in a line across the stage. I was on one end. Somewhere in the audience sat my apartment mates, and a guy I hoped to impress. As the curtain opened and we started into our pirouettes, the top of my left wing caught on the theater curtain, and as I turned, I began to wrap myself cocoon-like in the heavy maroon drapery! I couldn’t reach the tip to release it, nor readily see what could be done. The song, almost three minutes in length, played on without me. James Pankow, the writer of “Colour My World,” once explained that his lyrics “mirror the emotion of love…as a Technicolor movie that takes place in my heart.” No beautiful green in this movie! Once the front curtain known as the ‘grand drape’ was closed, someone from the stage crew came to extricate me from the side masking curtain—chuckling as he did so. My fans found my performance impressive and laughed about it for quite a while.
Recently, I was chatting with a ten-year-old cousin who also loves ballet. She wanted to demonstrate some of the fifteen turns she knows and have me try them. On the first attempt she corrected my stance saying:
“That leg is to be up, up. Doesn’t it go any higher?”
“I’m afraid not, Sweetheart.”
That ship sailed…perhaps on the day I was born! No matter. If we’re playing ‘Would you Rather,’ my answer remains “Ballet.”
Lilly Kauffman is a non-fiction writer who was privileged to work as both librarian and a teacher. Her essays, whether serious or humorous, capture the experiences that allow us to laugh and grieve. Family and faith inform her writings. She is currently working on several book projects: A Mother Grieves in Ink, Ampersand, and Lil Letters.