They Can't Take Mozart From Me.

Thank God art is mobile. We can google anything. We have ipods, DVDs, computers... everything. Like I said before, the emotional attachment we feel to art is one of the most real, tangible human emotions I think that there is. I'm just grateful for the fact that no matter where I go, I can take a little bit of Mozart or Babs or PIcasso with me. That was a great comfort to me last year when I was first faced with being away from home. Art brings us home. It transports us back to a time and place that is indelible in our minds and completely disarming. It's like smelling something old and familiar--like your Grandmother's house or the perfume you wore to your prom. No matter how many times I listen to Swan Lake, and no matter where I am, I am immediately transported to the box that the Birthday Fairy Godmother put my Wolfpack and me in at the Lyric Opera House to watch the American Ballet Theatre production last April. The memory of the musty smell and soft friction of velvet surrounds me and Tchaikovsky's liberation and rebirth of strings fills my ears and heart and guts all at the same time. It's haunting. It's magic.
The other day my sister and I were listening to "Comfortable" by John Mayer. I told her that my favorite line was "Life of the party and she swears that she's artsy, but you could distinguish Miles from Coltrane..." I think that line is brilliant--it's like the reason that he loves his old girlfriend is because she took the art closest to his heart and made it her art. She knew the smallest nuances of it because it meant so much to him. It's quite comforting to think about. My dad was quoting something the other day that stuck in my head... I don't remember who said it or if it was just he who said it. "If it weren't for art, how would we know each other at all?" I'm very grateful for art, and for the chance to be known through art, and the chance to be enriched by it.
I'm reading Gilda Radner's memoir of her battle with ovarian cancer in the 80s. After her years on SNL, she had to relearn to be herself when the absolute worst happened--"the unfunniest thing in the world"--cancer. When she reemerged and reintroduced herself as a warrior against cancer, and still the same funny Roseanne Roseannadanna saying "it's always something..." she gave hope to millions of people, all through her commitment to her art: comedy.
If I have one dream in life, it would be to have the ability to touch people through art like that--to dance or sing or paint or write or be funny like that. Nothing connects us quite like those emotions do.
No matter where I go, or what I do, no matter how much I miss my family or friends or cat or car or whatever, I know that I have a little bit of Gilda or Barbra or Swan lake or Mozart within me--and no time or distance or place can take that from me.

Phoebe.

My friend told me that if you visualize yourself doing something enough, you can acquire that skill. It's in her education psychology textbook so it must be true, right? Naturally, my roommate and I made a list of all the skills we plan on acquiring using this method. (Megan and I obviously have very different ideas of constitutes a skill and what constitutes an activity... singing vs. flower arranging... telekinesis vs. bartending.) Nevertheless, if I keep to my visualizing exercises, I should be singing, dancing, and eating fire on Broadway as a cover for my secret life as a mafia boss by this time next year.

The television show Friends has become a staple for my friends and me. We've gotten through four seasons just since Christmas. It has been decided that I am, undoubtedly, Phoebe--that's P as in Phoebe, Has in Hoebe, O as in Oebe, E as in ebe, B as in Bebe and E as in "'Ello, Mate!" I'm always ready with a ridiculous answer or a brilliant analogy that people eventually come to understand (lobsters... they mate for life).

There was this one episode where Phoebe discovers that Old Yeller actually dies at the end of the movie. Every movie she watches for the next few days end up having a terribly depressing ending--"Pride of the Yankees? The guy gets Lou Gehrig's disease!"--so Monica gives her It's a Wonderful Life, figuring that it will cheer her up. Phoebe doesn't have the patience to finish the movie because it gets worse before it gets better. IMPORTANT LESSON HERE FOR SARAH. Patience and practice makes perfect. Sometimes, you have to sit through crappy things before you realize how much you love Donna Reed. I need a little more patience in my dancing, with my parents, my friends, my typing skills, everything. I guess we all do. Thank goodness we have someone as funny as Phoebe to show us that. In the mean time, while we are practicing our patience, we can visualize perfect pirouettes until they happen!

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The strength to change the things I can
And the Wisdom to know the difference.
-Reinhold Neibuhr


Wolfpack goes to Swan Lake.
Thanks Birthday Fairy Godmother!

The Things Parents Do.

This story only skims the surface of what a parent does for his kid. Parents who do these sorts of things for their kids must love them like none other.

I had this tape of the New York City Ballet performing The Nutcracker. Macaulay Caulkin as Clara's Prince... so awesome right? I used to dance along with it all the time when I was like four years old. When the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Prince would dance together, I made my dad dance with me. He was the Prince to my Sugar Plum, and while one of us was "dancing" in front of the television, the other would wait out in the "wings" (or the hallway) and "get a drink of water" until the dancers changed places. The great thing was that he thought this was the greatest thing in the world. He told everyone about his escapades as the Sugar Plum's Prince. He was just proud and amused. I think only parents can really feel that way.

I want my kids to be little ballerinas so badly! I mean, if they hate it, obviously they don't need to continue with it. I know the moment I see them master a plie for the first time, and feel that same rush of blood to the head when they turn I'll be just as proud as my parents when I danced along to The Nutcracker.

On the Subject of Muchness.

I saw Alice in Wonderland this weekend. Normally Tim Burton stuff completely freaks me out but for some reason I loved it! I just wasn't prepared for how beautiful the art direction and cinematography were. In my favorite scene, the Mad Hatter criticizes Alice for her lack of "muchness". The old Alice, the little girl who traveled to Wonderland in her dreams, apparently had all the guts and bravery to take on the inverted ridiculousness of Wonderland. Little kids will do anything until they realize how dangerous or ridiculous it is--until they lose their "muchness". Alice at age 20, however, seemed to lack this panache. The rest of the movie had to do with Alice's reclaiming of her muchness so that she could save Wonderland from the evil antics of the Red Queen. Alice realizes that Wonderland is nothing more than a dream, yet her efforts are still devoted to saving the characters and the world she has come to love. No, it's not real. It's art. It's a dream. But the emotional attachment that we all have to art and dreams--there's nothing more real than that.

I did the splits for the first time since I was ten this week. I was really proud of myself. I wasn't sure if I could actually get all the way down there but I just went for it happened! I was in the splits. Tuesday was a little rough... but I don't regret it. There's no way that I could have gotten into that position without this taking this class. Since we've started working with one hand on the bar I can definitely feel my arms getting stronger, and my balance is sloooooowly improving. The Dance Informance is sneaking up on us and of course, I won't feel ready for it. Something about having an audience, though, seems to automatically prepare me for whatever I'm doing. Even if I never feel it anywhere else in my life, I've always felt my muchness when on stage.

I've always admired Maria Callas for her "muchness". There's no way you can hear her sing and think that she didn't just leave it all out there. The beginning of this video is like watching her step up to home plate as she waits for Roger Clemens to pitch to her. And she just hits it out of the park. That look of thrill in her face, the way she purses her lips together while the low strings rev her up is so incredible. I just can't help but be amazed by her. I don't think normal people are like that. They don't tackle art like it's a bully. Only the true artists do--they see inside it and beyond it and become attached to it. Perhaps they are mad, but doesn't that just make you never want to be sane? I know I'd rather be as crazy as Edgar Allen Poe and leave something wonderful and controversial and brilliant than to just walk politely on the edge of things and make it look like you were never even there. I guess that's just muchness.

Anyway, doing the splits this week was step one of Operation Muchness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRgDBo8ZPN0&feature=related

"Have I gone mad?"
"I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are."
-Alice in Wonderland

The Fat/Skinny Cow Snapping Elastic Thing.

I'm prone to having very detailed, yet random dreams. Whether I'm trying on dresses with Grace Kelly in my living room or watching the Olympic gymnastic trials with my mom and Michelle Obama, chances are, I've fallen asleep too soon after eating. After classes yesterday, I had a busy afternoon with three different dreams in the course of three hours! (I thought about giving up naps for Lent. My roommate wouldn't let me. I'd be too cranky.) Anyway, I just remembered what one of the dreams was.

I was in a cow suit doing really terrible pirouettes. We did them for the first time in class on Monday, and boy was I terrible! It kills me to think how good I used to be at this and now I'm a cow with no turn out. And, of course, I was mooing. I know where that one came from too, though. When I was a baby, one of my first words came very nonchalantly from the back of the car as my parents and I drove home from a wedding. Passing a field of grazing cows, I simply sighed and said, "moo." My parents laugh at me for that one all the time. Apparently it was pretty cute, unlike those pirouettes yesterday!

The hardest part about this ballet class for me is looking in the mirror and realizing the limitations that my body didn't have the last time I did these things. It's inspiring me to eat healthier(ish... right Denise??), to stretch, and to drag my carcass over to Halas more often. I only get a little bit of time each week to really test myself in class. I want to make the most of it. So, when I step up to the barre each day, I really am trying to focus all of my energy into my alignment, into presenting my turned out foot like there was a piece of Swiss chocolate on it, on keeping my hips square and my "fanny down," (as my old smelly instructor used to say).

We all wore these purple leotards with an elastic strap that sat right under our shoulder blades. She always used to snap mine really hard before I could even realize she was behind me. "Fanny down, Sarah! I'm going to tie a string from your navel to the ceiling." (It always drove me nuts how she said "navel". I don't know why.) I still feel her behind me when I'm at the barre now. I'm not sure if it makes any difference or not, but Janet is always right there, babbling about fannies and navels and snapping me with my own leotard. You'll probably think it's really odd that I find this comforting, but I do. I know that somewhere inside of me is this little girl who was cocky and knew she was good at what she was doing. She didn't let cow dreams or leotard snapping get to her. Wherever little me is, I'm trying to channel her each time I step up to the barre. Little ballet me is probably the most confident that I will ever be in my life. She's a pretty good role model as far as I'm concerned.

Nobody ever wanted to be in the middle of the living room at the age of four as badly as I did... except for maybe Barbra Streisand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w5y8TLDXMA


"Accentuate your positive, delete your negative." --Donna Karan

This is how we improve Mondays.

I realized somewhere between the sixth and the twelfth grades that I missed ballet. I only did it all through my childhood and it was the one thing I knew that I was good at and nobody else (outside of my little dance world) was. It made me different. At least, that was my mother's argument when she told me not to give it up; surely I'd regret it later, and later would be too late. "Being different," however, is hardly the best argument to employ with a twelve-year-old. Say "everyone will envy you," "this is going to make you really popular" or "one day you're going to look back and be so happy you listened to me." Well, not so. Instead, I hear, "She told you so."

After ballet I played volleyball. I was spending time with my friends, I was in with the "in crowd", and I had the "oh-she's-on-varsity" mentality. For many years I worked hard, made my way up the food chain, and hated every single second of it. Quitting just wasn't an option, because then I'd have been 0/2. I don't regret sticking with it. I regret not sticking with ballet in the first place.

Then I moved to Chicago from a small city in eastern Washington that nobody ever pronounces correctly. Chicago's about as far away from my high school and volleyball teams and family as I can get. The freedom is exciting, not having to play volleyball is relieving, and dancing again is finally something I can enjoy. I'm starting to realize how young I was when I did all of this the first time around. I had much better turn out than handwriting, I was more comfortable doing a double pirouette than long division, I wore my first pair of point shoes before my first bra, and the last time I wore a leotard I probably weighed eighty-two pounds. Getting used to the mirrors again is a lot more difficult this time. It didn't seem the least bit awkward for me when I was a kid--I grew up around it. I was always the youngest and most confident in my class, and ballet was the one place where I wasn't quiet as a mouse. My classmates in school intimidated me and hardly ever included me, but in ballet I was a show-off. My instructors complimented my square hips and high battements, but I was always the first to be scolded for talking during class.

I wish I hadn't given it up. I think a lot of things in my teenage years that would have been different--my body, my grades, my friends, my self-confidence, and my general level of happiness. At least now, I have this opportunity to try to re-learn something I once loved so much, something that was such an important part of me. Even though it's the most frustrating thing in the world to be wobbly on releve and to have like the worst alignment ever, it's the thing that's getting me out of bed on Monday mornings and I couldn't be happier about it.

"I was starting to believe the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size." -Adaptation, a movie based on Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief