Return to the Stage

Core memory 🔓 : I think I was 4 years old the first time I was ever on stage. We were butterflies and penguins in a ballet rendition of Mary Poppins. I remember I wanted to be a penguin so bad because I thought the butterfly costumes were too girly and something about the penguins just felt cooler.

I can still remember going out on stage, warm lights beaming on my face, comfort in the fact that I was being “seen” without having to “see” anyone in the audience. If you’ve never experienced it, it’s pretty liberating. So liberating in fact that I must have forgotten where my feet were because I wiped out during one of the partner passes. We’re talking chest first, tutu up, both feet fully suspended into the air. I grabbed my partner’s hand and got right back up to finish the routine.

I can’t remember if I smiled at the end or if I cried afterwards, if I did no one knew. Though I do remember the smile on my mom’s face when she came backstage to check on me. I thought she was going to be mad but it was quite the opposite. That may be my first memory of her being proud of me. For whatever reason, that was the last time I did ballet.

We talk so much about healing our inner child, but a child cannot exist without her mother. Like so many others, I have a complicated relationship with mine, one that’s been exacerbated in the past couple of years. I think my subconscious led me back to ballet so that I could relive those tender moments of maternal love. It’s a different kind of mourning process, but I’m dancing through it :).