Some things don't change.

I still can't jetté backwards. It's nice to know matter how long it's been since you've been in a ballet class, and no matter how many more you take during the semester you're abroad, you probably still won't be able to jetté backwards. I could at least do a single turn this week (from fifth too!).

I have an old feeling tonight. Sitting in the communal kitchen, cooking dinner in a leotard and tights. It's a familiar feeling that I haven't felt in a very long time. I'll eat my dinner at a table, half way still in dance clothes half way still in street clothes, just like I was still in high school. . . . Funny how all you need is a little lycra and spandex to take you back.

This is not intentionally nostalgic, I'm not looking forward; I'm looking ahead. Studying abroad, with a strange academic schedule and 5 month residence that doesn't make one an ideal candidate for work and internships, is giving me a chance I don't think I would have ever gotten in New York. I can just do school & dance, a pairing I loved and knew so well for much of my life. (Obviously with some weekend travel thrown in.)

I'm tired of being the girl who "was gonna be" or "who really wanted to be," even the one "who planned on being" a dancer. Whether it's my major or not, it's something that (over the course of 13 or so years) became an integral part of me. I love theatre and I love writing & words more than anything, but there is something that happens when you don't speak and you just move that can never be captured with language. Even the act of going to a beginner ballet class to be re-taught how to tendu and port de bras releases something in me that is otherwise deprived and repressed. Now that I'm recommitting to this (even for the short 5 month period), I don't think I'll be able to give it up again. Not hurt & sad like I did.

Maybe it's taken me this long to get the right perspective on everything that happened: I finally distanced myself from all the drama for (forgive the horrid image) the scab to fall off, leaving new - though not naïve - skin ready to try again under different circumstances.

Maybe I just like the physical release after a long academic day, a short distraction before it's back to books and papers until the early hours of the morning. Because that doesn't change when you go abroad either. For a short while (a.k.a. the first month of being in London), it was a strange occurrence if I didn't sleep more than 8-10 hours a night (BIZARRE, HUH!?). That's long gone now. Pages wait to be read & syntax waits to be perfected.

As for the immediate present, though, pasta waits to be eaten.

Love & cheers,
D