The spotlight finds me. I tremble with stillness as the first beat rocks the world. My legs lift, slowly, painfully, aching up, up, as my spine straightens and the first note swells; I lift with it, and the crowd sits rapt.
My mother once told me I was hideous. That’s a word that never leaves you. Hideous. We were in the kitchen and she was cooking something on the stove-top; deep rivulets of sweat trailed down the back of her neck, tendons raised on thick hands, hands used to work. She wore a simple brown apron over her sky-blue dress (I still won’t wear blue, and it makes me shudder to see that shade) and ignored me in the kind way busy mothers have, no time to spend on hugs and kisses. I had gotten into the cupboard, all of seven years old, and had turned a colander into a crown. “Mommy,” I announced, “will I be a princess some day?” She laughed, no malice in the sound, the subtler cruelty of unnecessary, unvarnished truth. “You won’t be one to coast on your looks. Better work hard at school, make yourself smart – no prince will marry a girl so hideous.”
My back arcs, stretching to the limit, as I turn upward motion into a glide down, down, and my tendons stretch and pull and I ride the music, part of it, the black of my dress setting off the painted whiteness of my face so I seem to glow in the dark theatre, a shining point of light in the deep bass. The music eddies, then swirls; I go with it, and as I whisper upright the crowd lets out an almost silent sigh.
When I was fourteen a boy laughed in my face at the notion he might like me. He didn’t mean to do it; it was the unconscious cruelty of a truth I had not yet learned to fight. Some girl had sent him a note, asking him to go to the dance, and signed it with my name. He approached me, awkward and unsure, the note held proffered like a shield against my intentions. I suppose those girls thought their prank had failed, because the boy’s kindness led him to an awkward explanation of how he was busy, and he thought he already had a date, and it wasn’t that he didn’t like me it was just – I cut him off. Explained with a sigh and rolled eyes that I didn’t send the note. Just a silly joke, I told him, and waved at our giggling audience. He glared at them, and for a moment, just a second, just a space, I thought I had an ally here, of all the strange places… and then he turned back to me, and laughed. “Thank God,” he said. “I thought you…” He laughed again, and I pretended to smile at the hideous idea that I might have wanted to dance with this pretty boy.
The music is mine, and when I am a part of it no one doubts my right to be in the light. The strange stretches of my pale skin are part of the magic. My over-long fingers move with the conductor and give grace to the simplicity of every move. The audience drinks me in, sees what I am capable of and exults with me, loves with me, their hearts move with me and for this moment, the span of this song, I am… beautiful.
I am nineteen years old, and I stand before the audition board. It is clear they don’t understand how I got here – what teacher recommended me? What classes dressed me up in lace and bows and tried to make a dancer of me? My thin limbs quiver in the light, and my black leotard is a thing of scorn, worn and repatched until it’s almost grey. One of the board members coughs, attention wandering before the song even begins. But when you have nothing to lose, how can you feel fear? When you find a place you finally belong, how can you not fight to get there? The music swells and I begin to move, and I can feel the moment when they start to pay attention. I can feel the moment when their eyes rivet onto me, can sense their hearts begin to beat in time to mine. I know the moment I intrigue them, feel the moment I capture them, and I bring them with me as I dance, and I know I will never be alone again.
Today’s image comes to you courtesy of Rene Blais. Check out his work on His Facebook Page, and see more about him on Lucid Dreaming’s Contributors Page; with model Missy Anne