Beauty and Dance

As I write this, I am sitting in a Corner Bakery in downtown Chicago, 2 blocks from the Joffery Ballet. On a weeknight. During spring break. In a week I am working downtown several days. Why? Because I love my 15 year old and I support her dreams. It is hard to say, I support her dreams. Her dreams that she might dance, her unrealistic, less than 1% chance that she will succeed, and no one makes money in the arts anyhow but she really loves dance dreams. 

Clare started dancing at 3, like a lot of little girls. She was good, but at 3, who cares. Then at 9 she was still good. At 12 she was working really hard, but was not as good as other girls. At 15, she holds her own, but a lot of girls are better, in honesty, but she loves it. She is passionate, and she is driven. More driven than I ever have been about anything in my life, I'm kinda lazy. That is why, when her classmates are vacationing, my daughter is seeking out drop in classes all over the city. Sometimes she is so bold as to take the train and hoof it to the classes herself, but, not in the dark as it will be when class ends tonight. 

She works harder than I do for anything. Yet, I have to work harder for her to work that hard, it requires multiple jobs, lots of sacrifice and often frustration. But, she loves it. And, it makes her even more beautiful. Ballet has taught her grace in tha face of extreme disappoinment. It has taught her grace in the face of great joy, the kind of joy that wants to brag, but cannot. It has taught her how to work, and how to encourage, it has taught her that her body is a temple. It teaches her every day that that temple will betray you, and that you have to love that temple. It has taught her that no matter what others may say about her body, it is strong and powerful, it is good to her when she is good to it. Ballet has taught her how to laugh, how to smile and how to cry without ever making a sound, but through every limb and gesture. 

We are too poor for her to succeed in the same ways her peers do, private lessons, summer intensives and scholarship competitions are not in her future, but, she assures me that a good story goes a long way, and parents that sacrifice is the best story any director can hear. A mother who can sew has helped, too. Everything she has learned in ballet she is starting to pass onto another generation, through the 5 classes a week she teaches, because, she has also learned, teachers are not always those who danced the best, but are often those who are the kindest, most patient and the best learners. And, bring the beauty of joy to eager hearts.