Can't…move…my....Two weeks after nigh night was found in the sock drawer of Jacob's nine year old sister (if the cleaning people weren't going to think my clothes belonged to the father's girlfriend, could they at LEAST have thought my stuff belonged to the fourteen year old daughter? I mean, c'mon, the NINE YEAR OLD?!) and two weeks after my seismic ear infection , I decided it was time to get back into shape.
"We definitely need to start taking classes again," Desiree whispered to me at the ballet last week whilst we watched our former colleagues prance around half naked revealing their ripped, lithe bodies. I nodded.
So that Monday after work I ran home, changed and dashed out the door to class.
"Seriously? Just like that? Don't you need to work up to it or prepare or…" Desiree and Lindsey both said to me when I told them where I was going and would they like to come with?
Ha—work up to it? How hard can it be? We did this our entire lives, I thought to myself. There's got to be something said for muscle memory.
Or not.
My legs were shaking so hard I thought they just might detach themselves from my quaking torso. I glanced at the clock.
Ten minutes.
You're fricking kidding me, I thought. I'm having a heart attack after ten minutes? Through pain-filled eyes I glanced at the instructor who looked, surprisingly, like the love child of Dane Cook and Ralph Fienes. I had a death grip on the barre --- half from shock over the masculinity of the teacher and half from sheer physical desperation.
"Aaaannnd….arabesque…" the instructor said as sweat poured down my back, which is saying something because I really don't sweat that much. Ever. Obediently I lifted my leg only to feel a razor sharp pain shoot from the tip of my left toe, up my back to settle on the crown of my head.
Holy freaking @#(#*)(!$
And just like that I had a version of swearing turrets for the rest of the class.
I looked behind me to see that yes, indeed, my leg was still up in the air but I could no longer feel it. I couldn't feel anything. What had just happened?
When the music ended I stretched forward (ok, I collapsed. Fine.) and slammed my head against the barre. The instructor shot a confused look in my direction— I had a mark on my forehead now and though my lines were all correct, my body wobbled like a prepubescent weakling. The effeminate male in front of me who thought I had encroached on his view of the arse of the man behind me and disrupted his concentration with my clumsiness, glared.
Oh bite me, buddy. Then: L, I thought, your body isn't responding but just concentrate…concentrate…
My concentration cracked at the sight of the greatest character of the day:
Never Danced In His Life But Loving It Man.
He literally looked like he learned to dance...yesterday. Not because his technique was lacking—but because his moves were indiscernible. Well…I guess if you had to discern something you could guess he had just been electrocuted in tights while standing in a puddle of water.
I loved him immediately. I loved him more than even the woman who looked like she showed up for the French Maid Strip Tease Class but apparently settled for the open ballet class. She had tiny shorts on underneath a puffy little skirt and a bright hot-pink tank top with a black bow-tie right across the breasts. Sassy.
New Dancer Man (as I will call him) was tall, in his forties, loved his tights and wheezed dramatically after every combination as if he had just finished the entire second act of Swan Lake. I envied his spirit— he flew across the stage, barreling into people, flailing his arms, tossing his head-- to do moves never before seen in the land of the living with such gusto that he could have been on god only knows what, and with such flair that I want him to replace John Travolta in Hairspray.
I watched the dimples in the instructor's cheeks deepen as he watched New Dancer Man but he never cracked a smile. I had to bend over and pretend to stretch to keep from beaming with sheer delight at that spectacle. Right as I was on the verge of asking New Dancer Man if I could take him home to entertain me and make me happy, the instructor poked my stomach.
"Tighten right there….the center…"
Good lord. First class with this guy and he had already discovered my dancing nemesis: The nebulous "Center".
The Center, for those that don't dance, is apparently the key to looking in control for the entirety of your dancing career. However, it is not really defined in any physical way or capable of being attached to any muscle group. The Center has the terror-inspiring aura about it as the Harry Potter Lord Voldemort: Powerful yet rarely seen.
"You're doing very well with everything but…." The head mistress of SAB tapped her clipboard in the dim room while my twelve year old self stood and squirmed under her gaze. "Buuut….you're a little…hmmm…."
Dumb? Too thin? Not thin enough? Ugly? Not right? Abnoxious? Say something!
"Discombobulated."
Woah. Ok.
Totally would never have guessed THAT word would come out of her mouth.
This discombobulation has something to do with not having The Center and a little trick I did in those days when I was too lazy to learn the combinations. Whenever I didn't know what step came next I would wobble around like I was adjusting myself and wait until another student moved to tell me what to do. I honestly thought it was a fool-proof strategy for ever having to pay attention in class.
Definitely not fool proof. Instead of thinking I was dull she thought I was….discombobulated. Worse. And as far as I got in training professionally, I don't think I ever found The Center.
I did, however, find the next day that you can be so sore that your vestigial organs ache and you take a leftover vicadin and then can't remember where you are when you wake up the next morning. Yes, you can be THAT sore.
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