"Slip these on."
I've been dancing for about 4 years now. I started ballet because I thought it might help me turn better when swing dancing. I haven't donned my Bleyers in a year now, I bet, but I've worn through half a dozen pairs of ballet slippers since then.
"How are they? Pleé. Can you flatten your toes?"
I took ballet lessons for a few years as a little girl. I remember how weird it felt to walk back into a dance studio again, wearing a remarkably similar black leotard and pink tights, standing at a remarkably similar barre. Standing in first position and back at square one all over again.
"Try these. Stand in first position. Releveé." My instructor kneels down with the sales lady to look at my ankles.
I have a lot of friends at the studio now. We've struggled through rehearsals and recitals together. And while our friendships are benchmarked by performances, it's the technique classes that leave their mark. Stretching and strengthening ever so slowly, week after week. Working and fighting and sometimes falling, always getting back up. Slowly making little breakthroughs in one area only to be set back in others. Ballet is a two-steps-forward, one-step-backwards kind of passion. Bit by bit at our own paces, we've moved up through the ranks to new classes and new challenges.
"Now parallel. Releveé."
We watched through the windows as the more advanced students danced in pointe shoes. "I don't get that," someone says. "I'd never tear up my feet like that for dance. Would you?" Watching through the window, Jenny and I wistfully reply.
"Yep."
"In a second."
"These look good. How do they feel?"
"They're rubbing against the top of my big toe some."
"We can fix that."
"Try these? Better?"
"Yeah."
"They look good. Good fit."
"Yeah, I think so."
That night, the baby put to bed and the house quiet, I opened the Contra Costa Dancewear bag. I slipped off my socks and slipped on my new shoes, wrapping the satin ribbons around my ankles. Slowly, holding on to the back of the couch as if it were a barre, I rose up. Looking down at the shiny, new shoes peaking out from under my pajama pants, it seemed more real.
I'm on pointe.