Ballerina Dreams

I know why little girls dream of being ballerinas.  I watched the Nevada Ballet Theater (NBT) performance at the Smith Center and was mesmerized by it all: the choreography and the costumes and the way the dancers seemed to float through the air. 

My eyes were drawn to the flow of the tulle skirts and the tutu as it bounced daintily with the dancer's movement as she tip-toed across the stage, and the way the light hit the subtle sparkles.  I was taken back to a time when I wanted to be a ballerina; a memory residing somewhere in the recess of my mind that I only recalled as I watched the beauty unfold before me in the form of dance. 

I must have wanted to be a ballerina as this picture of me with a gift for my tenth birthday attests to.
  

I still have this doll

I took dance lessons: jazz, tap, and ballet at Miss Laura Jean's School of Dance in Corfu, New York with my cousin Wende.

Not the best split because I HATE my kneecap touching the floor

I'm third from the left, next to Miss Laura Jean.

I also have a memory of my grandmother taking me to a dance class somewhere close to Buffalo.  It was during grade 7 and I was at the time living with my aunt and her family in Akron.  My grandmother would pick me up and drop me back off and the best memory I have is not of the dance classes but of the ride home when my grandmother would put the car in neutral as we headed back to my aunt's house down a hilly road; a scary and thrilling ride both!

While I watched the Nevada Ballet dancers, as well as the little girls in the audience with eyes big with wonder, I wish I could have asked my grandmother if she had hoped I would be up on a stage like that someday.  Did I disappoint her when I abandoned my dancing dreams?  I realize now the effort she put into my dancing; the time and expense, and I am pretty sure I never thanked her for it.  I wish I could do that now, but she has been gone since 1998.  If there was any way I could, I would tell her that she was with me while I remembered wanting to be a ballerina. 

Perhaps she would still be proud of the person I have turned out to be, even if I am not dressed in a tutu.