I. YOU’RE THREE YEARS OLD. the memory is hazy; all blurred out edges and fabricated details at best. all you truly have is your parents colourful recollection to go by but here, this moment is the beginning of everything. you’re three years old and on your way to your very first dance class. it’s not terribly impressive. the dance studio is small and all assortments of children bounce around, their reflections doubling, tripping against the mirrored walls. your fingers curl in the fabric of your small tutu and giggles slip past your lips every time your ponytail swings round. they tell you feathery tales of how your eyes lit up like stars and how the grin stay plastered to your face for hours to come. they talk about how even after one class, you knew you only wanted to dance.
II. YOU’RE SIX YEARS OLD. america; the land of opportunities, they say. clutching tight to your sister’s hand, you step off the plane and into what is to be your knew home. it’s louder and busier then france ever was. the language is hard and clipped and gratingly foreign to your ears. it’s horrible at first; your heart so desperately wishing it could go back, go home, but your mother wipes your tears and promises you a better world, a new life. your young mind begins to soak up the foreign tongue like a sponge, your toes find purchase on a new dance floor and you surround yourself with new friends. america as it turns out, is not as bad as you thought.
III. YOU’RE TWELVE YEARS OLD. words like ‘exotic’ and ‘reclusive’ are thrown around. they are much more preferable to the ones whispered behind your back. teenagers, you discover, are far more cruel then their young souls ought to be. you’re different from your classmates, your skin is darker and your hair wilder and your eyes are not the colour of summer grass but rather of freshly ground soil. you’re an easy target, or so they believe. you don’t have time to hang out after school or swap chatter over reality television during breaks. your days are littered with school work and your nights are spent perched on pointe, trying to make the seemingly impossible look as natural as breathing. your toes bleed, your skin blooms with angry bruises and your muscles scream for mercy, but you tape up your cuts and ice your bruises and do it all over again. you tell yourself that it doesn’t matter what you’ve had to sacrifice, it doesn’t matter that your childhood friends have abandoned you because you’re a dancer. this is the price you pay to be great.
IV. YOU’RE FIFTEEN YEARS OLD. julliard comes knocking at your door. a school revered for it’s dance program, for training the very best of the best and they want you. they extend an invitation to fly to new york for their prestigious summer program; to train with their teachers, to learn and impress and dance on the very stage that produced legends. you can’t say yes fast enough, can’t pack your bags fast enough. it’s a strain on finances and a gruelling test on your body, but every compliment thrown your way makes it all worth while. next year, there will be a spot waiting for you. you’re heaving on the floor, spent and drained but you feel as though you’re about to be split open and stuffed to the brim with blazing sunshine.
V. YOU’RE SIXTEEN YEARS OLD. it all ends with a bang. with a crunch. with the deafening sound of metal and glass and pure devastation all mashed together. it’s an accident, or that’s what they tell you. an eighteen wheeler ran off the road and straight into your car. they tell you it was instant, that she felt no pain in an attempt to make it somehow easier to swallow. not even the drugs pulsing through your veins can quell the shattering of your heart, your soul. your sister is gone. you survived, left with nothing but screws in your knee and a titanium rod connecting the bones in your leg. one broken ballerina cursed with bones made of tin. this is not how the story goes.
VI. you begin to know the inside of hospital walls as well as most girls know their favourite malls. the smell of antiseptic, the bleach white walls and the cooing sounds of nurses soon becomes the soundtrack to your days. it’s horribly uncomfortable, trying to reteach your body how to do something that was once so innate. with every bend, every stretch, it’s a struggle not to wince, not to grimace in pain. breaking in pointe shoes is preferable to this suffering. no one said rebuilding your body would be easy, but they also never told you just how hard it would be. you break and break and break again but somehow, some way you get back up. eventually you stop cringing so often. eventually the exercises become easier. you can move freely now, gaining back an almost full range of motion. you add in weights and you start testing the limits of this body of yours that feels brand new and yet impossible old all at the same time.
VII. they always told you that if your work hard enough, if you want something bad enough, you can do anything. they don’t tell you how cruel this world can be. because while your doctor clears you to dance again, he only does so after strapping a ball and chain to your ankles. yes you can dance, but not like you used to. never like you used to. your knee can’t handle the strain, they said. the pressure and utter perfection ballet demands is much too big for a broken body to handle. julliard rescinds it’s offer; they are in the business of dancers and you are no longer what they need. scholarships vanish along with everything that made you who you were. and just like that, your dream has slipped forever out of your grasp. you are shards of a shattered doll, carelessly glued back together in an abstract picture of what once was. whole once more but forever broken.
VIII. YOU’RE SIXTEEN YEARS OLD. your family is fractured. your father can’t look at your mother without seeing the daughter he lost and your mother can’t look at you without being reminded of the child she’ll never see. your father tells you that it will get better, that your mother can’t help it, that he will always love you. he talks of your sisters death like it’s the weight of the world, crushing the bones in atlas’ back. you want to scream, want to cry because you’re hurting too but no one seems to hear it. but grief is a festering wound and no amount of settlement money can stitch it back together. your parents never stop fighting. your mother can never quite look you in the eyes, can’t stand to be around you for more then a few fleeting moments. your father moves out because he can’t stand the inside of your family home anymore. the divorce is only the last nail in the coffin. you’re all that’s left when the dust settles.
IX. YOU’RE SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD. try, just try. words your therapist whispers over and over again. those delicate balcony doors leaning towards a ballet career have been chained shut but you can’t seem to tear yourself away from them, to turn your back on the dream you lost. try, she says. a women like you can not survive without passion. she pushes and prods and demands more and more from you, prying you open with the bend of a crowbar, with the sharp edges of a blade. try. so you do. if only out of spite at first, if only to shove each failure back into her face. you can’t find the stillness required to get through a book or the fine tuned ear to create symphonies in your mind and you’re certainly no artist either. but eventually you stumble into the kitchen. there is a strange sense of calm you discover amongst the pots and pans, an innate rhythm your body seems to fall into. it’s almost a dance, for lack of a better word. it’s something.
X. YOU’RE EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD. you haven’t swapped one dream for another. that’s not how this passion thing works. but you’ve found a place to take refuge, a place to quiet the raging of a restless soul like yours. you’ve always been good in the kitchen, but now you’re becoming great. mixing and crushing and blending ingredients together feels a bit like breaking apart choreography. soaking up steps in the form of skills and designing routines has morphed into crafting recipes. it’s individual ingredients and steps that weave together to create something like art. no, not something like it. art. and for the first time in a long time, you find yourself wanting again.
XI. YOU’RE NINETEEN YEARS OLD. your father is getting married again. he extends the invite like a bouquet of wilting daisies. he’s still your father, he always will be, or at least those are the words he whispers to you. but he’s found a new life. he’s moving on and crafting a future with someone new and you will always be a chapter in his past. you haven’t spoken to your mother in what feels like forever; of course she doesn’t come to the ceremony. you’re father grins brilliantly and all his guests cheer because he’s finally getting a second chance to do this family thing right. that night you don’t weep at the edge of your sister’s grave, the tears won’t come. instead it feels like the bitter end to something that had broke long again. it’s just you now.
XII. YOU’RE TWENTY YEARS OLD. you’re working in a food truck when the offer comes. you’ve worked long and hard and absorbed as much knowledge as you can from your superiors but you’ve got your own truck now. she’s a customer you’ve seen a few times now, always coming back for more and more despite the hurried way she seems to gulp down each helping of food. instead of shouting her order up at the open window, she lingers, only approaching when the mass of customers has finally died down. she offers you a job, catering for a network she represents. the hours are longer but the pay is better and the menu is yours to create. you jumps at the chance.
XII. YOU’RE TWENTY ONE YEARS OLD. your days are filled with vibrancy and noise and an array of flavours so bold it’s a struggle to keep the excitement at bay. you get the freedom to experiment and the challenge of creating for a multitude of artists. you’re days are louder then life but your nights take on a quieter note. despite the livelihood of the day, you retreat back to an empty apartment. some nights are harder then others; when the silence is particularly heavy and the weight of it all presses down hard enough to make your bones splinter. on those nights you wonder if you’re too far gone to come back. your leg still twinges when the temperature drops and your skin is still riddled with scars but you’re moving and you’re creating and feeling and that is enough for now. it has to be enough.
