“Should I Just Retire?!” I Said to My Best Friend
I couldn’t move the day after our first weekend of shows.
I hopped to the bathroom. I hopped back. My love asked me on a date which we haven’t done in months… and I turned him down because I couldn’t dream of getting from car to a coffee-shop without imitating Harvey the bunny… minus the coveted anonymity.
“The cane didn’t help,” I said, for the 7 millionth time in the last 7 weeks, “Maybe if I had a stronger upper body?” I watched videos. They said don’t use a cane like House (who does not have his MD in therapeutic cane walking). I ached all the more.
If there was less stigma around using a device when needed and not when not… maybe I’d have gone on the date. Instead I thought: “I just danced an extremely hard show… I can’t use a cane the next day”, as if that logic - and the ableism rich within it - made sense.
I think most of us wake up from shows as if hit by a bus. We bewitch nightly seances in Tiger Balm. Whisper things like, “I’m sorry for the smell” while making friends’ eyes water from standing too close on stage. We do IMPOSSIBLE things with little to no support - no PT or free pointe shoes for smaller-town pros- and wonder why we can barely hobble to our second and third jobs. Dancers would snort Epsom if it’d make a difference.
“Should I just retire?!” I said to my best friend the next day; All drama but utter sincerity (the two can co-exist). “Will everyone go: ‘Ew so embarrassing. She can’t keep up anymore’.” (I have the type of best friend who would- with throat-slitting honesty - say “yes” if she felt it true.)
“You are better than f*cking Patrick Mahomes with his ankle at the Super Bowl.” She meant T hiding pain, not in general. And she’s from Boston so I assume this not-fully-turncoat reference was very flattering. (My throat remains un-slit, for now.)
Yet my “shank-less pointe shoes”- as the husband jokes - might as well be. Given in 2017 or 2019- no more, no less; cracked to expose spotty remains of plastic. I’ve paid for 3 since. Each were so mis-sized that I cried, ate the bill (figuratively) and gave up (literally). Whether small or large towns: some pros can’t gamble $200 away.
Resources and bodies are a privilege. So is dance… no more, no less.
All drama, utter sincerity.
(The two can co-exist.)
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