Parallel Lives -part 1
In college I sat down next the person who would become my best friend for the next years of my life. We were both French students and attended most classes together. We found out we led parallel lives, dancing and teaching ballet during the day, and planning to become French teachers. We danced in the Cincinnati Ballet. We even moved in together for a time. We went to church together (is THAT strange, we were the same faith...), wrote letters when we were not in class sharing ideas. A time of my life had opened with us as best partners in college. In the dance club we performed a comic ballet, with her the ballerina, and I doing it all wrong. I interfered with her diva role, and she fired up on stage and got the laughs. She was a dark haired, long limbed dancer, with lovely extensions, beautiful arabesques and haunting expressiveness while she danced. I looked up to her, but wrong proportioned for dance, short of extension, fat-feet, I stamped my feet louder, prided myself in quick jumps and fouattes.
A foreign teacher, a guest at my Mom's school, took charge of classes and choreography for the newest ballet for the Cincinnati Ballet, and I was quite envious of my best friend getting so much attention. She was in front of the class, in front at the barre, and she got the solos. She stayed after to study and she got extra help after every class. I understand why she is getting the dancing roles, but I am also angry that it is not me. I just am not the dancer type, not the right body type, not good enough, no extension, legs too short, body too long, wrong proportions. I ask myself every day, "Why did I ever want to dance and compete with so many perfect bodies?"
Weeks continue, with practices longer and more intense, costumes handed out, and I notice a new atmosphere at the ballet. Tensions rise, and whispers. Glances between the men and women, and shouting in class. Our teacher is not looking at us, he looks at the floor, recites the French combinations, and we do them. He does not look at us. We do the steps, "NO! NO!," He yells, "LIKE THIS!" He repeats the steps, stomping as he does them, and I cannot tell what he wants different. Students are holding their breath, not knowing what he wants us to do. Fearing he will yell more, we just do our best to do the combination perfectly. He does not even glance up. We know he is displeased. He will not even watch us. Class takes an eternity. Each combination is walking off the plank. Each time we are in the front line we might be the one crucified. We do not know what triggers his outbursts. He has been wronged, and we will pay.
From that day on classes were painful. I was in back by choice and ignored. I no longer tried for parts or hoped for improvement. I waited for the year to end.
At home I was a good friend to the heart break that I discovered. My good friend had been spending so much time with our teacher, she had fallen in love. She cried so bitterly, but could not tell her Mom and Dad. As an only child she felt it would be too painful for them. This teacher, with a wife in some foreign country, and a teenage son a little younger than we were, had led her on, and now dropped her for the next student he was mentoring. I had been jealous of her? How wrong I was. I easily would keep the mediocre dance role I had, NOT to be that creep's favorite student. What a painful time she had, to dance that role, have to continue in class with him, and to know he no longer cared for her, but had just used her. Now she had to stand by and watch him pull the same stunt on another young dancer.
AND THEY DO NOTHING...
A foreign teacher, a guest at my Mom's school, took charge of classes and choreography for the newest ballet for the Cincinnati Ballet, and I was quite envious of my best friend getting so much attention. She was in front of the class, in front at the barre, and she got the solos. She stayed after to study and she got extra help after every class. I understand why she is getting the dancing roles, but I am also angry that it is not me. I just am not the dancer type, not the right body type, not good enough, no extension, legs too short, body too long, wrong proportions. I ask myself every day, "Why did I ever want to dance and compete with so many perfect bodies?"
Weeks continue, with practices longer and more intense, costumes handed out, and I notice a new atmosphere at the ballet. Tensions rise, and whispers. Glances between the men and women, and shouting in class. Our teacher is not looking at us, he looks at the floor, recites the French combinations, and we do them. He does not look at us. We do the steps, "NO! NO!," He yells, "LIKE THIS!" He repeats the steps, stomping as he does them, and I cannot tell what he wants different. Students are holding their breath, not knowing what he wants us to do. Fearing he will yell more, we just do our best to do the combination perfectly. He does not even glance up. We know he is displeased. He will not even watch us. Class takes an eternity. Each combination is walking off the plank. Each time we are in the front line we might be the one crucified. We do not know what triggers his outbursts. He has been wronged, and we will pay.
From that day on classes were painful. I was in back by choice and ignored. I no longer tried for parts or hoped for improvement. I waited for the year to end.
At home I was a good friend to the heart break that I discovered. My good friend had been spending so much time with our teacher, she had fallen in love. She cried so bitterly, but could not tell her Mom and Dad. As an only child she felt it would be too painful for them. This teacher, with a wife in some foreign country, and a teenage son a little younger than we were, had led her on, and now dropped her for the next student he was mentoring. I had been jealous of her? How wrong I was. I easily would keep the mediocre dance role I had, NOT to be that creep's favorite student. What a painful time she had, to dance that role, have to continue in class with him, and to know he no longer cared for her, but had just used her. Now she had to stand by and watch him pull the same stunt on another young dancer.
AND THEY DO NOTHING...
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