Ballet Hard Work Quotes

Single parenting isn’t just being the only one to take care of your kid. It’s not about being able to “tap out” for a break or tag team bath- and bedtime; those were the least of the difficulties I faced. I had a crushing amount of responsibility. I took out the trash. I brought in the groceries I had gone to the store to select and buy. I cooked. I cleaned. I changed out the toilet paper. I made the bed. I dusted. I checked the oil in the car. I drove Mia to the doctor, to her dad's house. I drove her to ballet class if I could find one that offered scholarships and then drove her back home again. I watched every twirl, every jump, and every trip down the slide. It was me who pushed her on the swing, put her to sleep at night, kissed her when she fell. When I sat down, I worried. With the stress gnawing at my stomach, worrying. I worried that my paycheck might not cover bills that month. I worried about Christmas, still four months away. I worried that Mia's cough might become a sinus infection that would keep her out of day care... . I worried that I would have to reschedule work or miss it altogether.

Ballet shoes... I cannot play with them like they're toys. But when the music is playing they get deep on my toes.

Little Brother, an aspiring painter, saved up all his money and went to France, to surround himself with beauty and inspiration. He lived on the cheap, painted every day, visited museums, traveled to picturesque locations, bravely spoke to everyone he met, and showed his work to anyone who would look at it. One afternoon, Little Brother struck up a conversation in a café with a group of charming young people, who turned out to be some species of fancy aristocrats. The charming young aristocrats took a liking to Little Brother and invited him to a party that weekend in a castle in the Loire Valley. They promised Little Brother that this was going to be the most fabulous party of the year. It would be attended by the rich, by the famous, and by several crowned heads of Europe. Best of all, it was to be a masquerade ball, where nobody skimped on the costumes. It was not to be missed. Dress up, they said, and join us! Excited, Little Brother worked all week on a costume that he was certain would be a showstopper. He scoured Paris for materials and held back neither on the details nor the audacity of his creation. Then he rented a car and drove to the castle, three hours from Paris. He changed into his costume in the car and ascended the castle steps. He gave his name to the butler, who found him on the guest list and politely welcomed him in. Little Brother entered the ballroom, head held high. Upon which he immediately realized his mistake. This was indeed a costume party—his new friends had not misled him there—but he had missed one detail in translation: This was a themed costume party. The theme was “a medieval court.” And Little Brother was dressed as a lobster. All around him, the wealthiest and most beautiful people of Europe were attired in gilded finery and elaborate period gowns, draped in heirloom jewels, sparkling with elegance as they waltzed to a fine orchestra. Little Brother, on the other hand, was wearing a red leotard, red tights, red ballet slippers, and giant red foam claws. Also, his face was painted red. This is the part of the story where I must tell you that Little Brother was over six feet tall and quite skinny—but with the long waving antennae on his head, he appeared even taller. He was also, of course, the only American in the room. He stood at the top of the steps for one long, ghastly moment. He almost ran away in shame. Running away in shame seemed like the most dignified response to the situation. But he didn’t run. Somehow, he found his resolve. He’d come this far, after all. He’d worked tremendously hard to make this costume, and he was proud of it. He took a deep breath and walked onto the dance floor. He reported later that it was only his experience as an aspiring artist that gave him the courage and the license to be so vulnerable and absurd. Something in life had already taught him to just put it out there, whatever “it” is. That costume was what he had made, after all, so that’s what he was bringing to the party. It was the best he had. It was all he had. So he decided to trust in himself, to trust in his costume, to trust in the circumstances. As he moved into the crowd of aristocrats, a silence fell. The dancing stopped. The orchestra stuttered to a stop. The other guests gathered around Little Brother. Finally, someone asked him what on earth he was. Little Brother bowed deeply and announced, “I am the court lobster.” Then: laughter. Not ridicule—just joy. They loved him. They loved his sweetness, his weirdness, his giant red claws, his skinny ass in his bright spandex tights. He was the trickster among them, and so he made the party. Little Brother even ended up dancing that night with the Queen of Belgium. This is how you must do it, people.

Blues Elizabeth Alexander, 1962 I am lazy, the laziest girl in the world. I sleep during the day when I want to, ‘til my face is creased and swollen, ‘til my lips are dry and hot. I eat as I please: cookies and milk after lunch, butter and sour cream on my baked potato, foods that slothful people eat, that turn yellow and opaque beneath the skin. Sometimes come dinnertime Sunday I am still in my nightgown, the one with the lace trim listing because I have not mended it. Many days I do not exercise, only consider it, then rub my curdy belly and lie down. Even my poems are lazy. I use syllabics instead of iambs, prefer slant to the gong of full rhyme, write briefly while others go for pages. And yesterday, for example, I did not work at all! I got in my car and I drove to factory outlet stores, purchased stockings and panties and socks with my father’s money. To think, in childhood I missed only one day of school per year. I went to ballet class four days a week at four-forty-five and on Saturdays, beginning always with plie, ending with curtsy. To think, I knew only industry, the industry of my race and of immigrants, the radio tuned always to the station that said, Line up your summer job months in advance. Work hard and do not shame your family, who worked hard to give you what you have. There is no sin but sloth. Burn to a wick and keep moving. I avoided sleep for years, up at night replaying evening news stories about nearby jailbreaks, fat people who ate fried chicken and woke up dead. In sleep I am looking for poems in the shape of open V’s of birds flying in formation, or open arms saying, I forgive you, all.

She found some solace in her love of dancing inviting the West Heath school pianist, the late Lily Snipp and Wendy Mitchell, her dance teacher, to Buckingham Palace to give her private lessons. For forty minutes Diana, dressed in a black leotard, went through a routine that combined ballet with tap dancing. During those momentous days Miss Snipp kept a diary which gives a first-hand feeling of the misgivings felt by Lady Diana Spencer as the wedding-day approached. The first entry in Miss Snipp’s diary, on Friday June 5, 1981, recorded details of Diana’s first lesson. She wrote: “To Buckingham Palace to play for Lady Diana. We all worked hard the lesson, no time wasted. When the lesson was over Lady Diana, with her tongue in her cheek, said: “I suppose Miss Snipp will now go direct to Fleet Street.” She has a good sense of humour--she will need it in the years to come.

I had dreamed that if this moment happened I would be elated and triumphant and flooded with relief, but when you have been keeping company with anxiety and fear for a long time it's hard to shake them off immediately. Also I hadn't really thought about anything behond the immediate goal: getting in. Now I was in and now I was going to have to do this thing, ballet, and not just think about the day I would do it. I realized I still wanted to dream about the person I would become, not actually be her. I was worried that I would work hard and nothing would happen, that I was as good as I would ever be.

Why here? Why this far from home? Why here? Why alone? Why, why, why? Why so nostalgic about those days? Why those songs? Why so comforting to reminisce? Why so fond am I? Why so old now? Why so hard to die? Why waiting? Why then, and not now? Why, why, why? Why lessons? Why teachers - students? Why books? Why work and no play? Why tomorrow and not today?

An hour later we were pulling into the hospital parking lot. Sparkly and shiny from my hair and makeup job, I had to stop and bend over six times between the car and the front door of the hospital. I literally couldn’t take a step until each contraction ended. Within an hour after checking in, I was writhing on a hospital bed in all-encompassing pain and wishing once again that I’d gone ahead and moved to Chicago. It had become my default response when things got rough in my life: morning sickness? I should have moved to Chicago. Cow manure in my yard? Chicago would have been a better choice. Contractions less than a minute apart? Windy City, come and get me. Finally, I reached my breaking point. It’s an indescribable feeling, the throes of hard labor--that mind-numbing total body cramp whose origin you can’t even begin to wrap your head around. After trying to be strong and tough in front of Marlboro Man, I finally gave up and gripped the bedsheet and clenched my teeth. I groaned and moaned and pushed the nurse button and whimpered to Marlboro Man, “I can’t do this anymore.” When the nurse came into the room moments later, I begged her to put me out of my misery. My salvation arrived five minutes later in the form of an eight-inch needle, and when the medicine hit I nearly began to cry. The relief was indescribably sweet. I was so blissfully pain-free, I fell asleep. And when I woke up confused and disoriented an hour later, a nurse named Heidi was telling me it was time to push. Almost immediately, Dr. Oliver entered the room, fully scrubbed and wearing a mask. “Are you ready, Mama?” Marlboro Man asked, standing near my shoulders as the nurse draped my legs and adjusted the fetal monitor, which was strapped around my middle. I felt like I’d woken up in the middle of a party. But the weirdest party ever--one where the hostess was putting my feet in stirrups. I ordered Marlboro Man to remain north of my belly button as nurses scurried into place. I’d made it clear beforehand: I didn’t want him down there. I wanted him to continue to get to know me the old-fashioned way--and besides, that’s what we were paying the doctor for. “Go ahead and push once for me,” Dr. Oliver said. I did, but only hard enough to ensure that nothing accidental or embarrassing would slip out. I could think of no greater humiliation. “Okay, that’s not going to work at all,” Dr. Oliver scolded. I pushed again. “Ree,” Dr. Oliver said, looking up at me through the space between my legs. “You can do way better than that.” He’d watched me grow up in the ballet company in our town. He’d watched me contort and leap and spin in everything from The Nutcracker to Swan Lake to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He knew I had the fortitude to will a baby from my loins. That’s when Marlboro Man grabbed my hand, as if to impart to me, his sweaty and slightly weary wife, a measure of his strength and endurance. “Come on, honey,” he said. “You can do it.” A few tense moments later, our baby was born. Except it wasn’t a baby boy. It was a seven-pound, twenty-one-inch baby girl. It was the most important moment of my life. And more ways than one, it was a pivotal moment for Marlboro Man.

Looking down at my feet, he laughs a little, and then says, "Don't turn your toes outward like in ballet." I turn my toes straight forward. It feels awkward. Now make a fist and keep your hand close to your face." He shows me how. "You want your weight to be on the balls of your feet, not in your heels." "That's the only thing that comes naturally to me." I'm getting frustrated. This is hard work.

The history of the land is a history of blood. In this history, someone wins and someone loses. There are patriots and enemies. Folk heroes who save the day. Vanquished foes who had it coming. It’s all in the telling. The conquered have no voice. Ask the thirty-eight Santee Sioux singing the death song with the nooses around their necks, the treaty signed fair and square, then nullified with a snap of the rope. Ask the slave women forced to bear their masters’ children, to raise and love them and see them sold. Ask the miners slaughtered by the militia in Ludlow. Names are erased. The conqueror tells the story. The colonizer writes the history, winning twice: A theft of land. A theft of witness. Oh, but let’s not speak of such things! Look: Here is an eagle whipping above the vast grasslands where the buffalo once thundered bold as gods. (The buffalo are here among the dead. So many buffalo.) There is the Declaration in sepia. (Signed by slave owners. Shhh, hush up about that, now!) See how the sun shines down upon the homesteaders’ wagons racing toward a precious claim in the nation’s future, the pursuit of happiness pursued without rest, destiny made manifest? (Never mind about those same homesteaders eating the flesh of neighbors. Winters are harsh in this country. Pack a snack.) The history is a hungry history. Its mouth opens wide to consume. It must be fed. Bring me what you would forget, it cries, and I will swallow it whole and pull out the bones bleached of truth upon which you will hang the myths of yourselves. Feed me your pain and I will give you dreams and denial, a balm in Gilead. The land remembers everything, though. It knows the steps of this nation’s ballet of violence and forgetting. The land receives our dead, and the dead sing softly the song of us: blood. Blood on the plains. In the rivers. On the trees where the ropes swing. Blood on the leaves. Blood under the flowers of Gettysburg, of Antioch. Blood on the auction blocks. Blood of the Lenape, the Cherokee, the Cheyenne. Blood of the Alamo. Blood of the Chinese railroad workers. Blood of the midwives hung for witchcraft, for the crime of being women who bleed. Blood of the immigrants fleeing the hopeless, running toward the open arms of the nation’s seductive hope, its greatest export. Blood of the first removed to make way for the cities, the factories, the people and their unbridled dreams: The chugging of the railways. The tapping of the telegram. The humming of industry. Sound burbling along telephone wires. Printing presses whirring with the day’s news. And the next day’s. And the day after that’s. Endless cycles of information. Cities brimming with ambitions used and discarded. The dead hold what the people throw away. The stories sink the tendrils of their hope and sorrow down into the graves and coil around the dead buried there, deep in its womb. All passes away, the dead whisper. Except for us. We, the eternal. Always here. Always listening. Always seeing. One nation, under the earth. E Pluribus unum mortuis. Oh, how we wish we could reach you! You dreamers and schemers! Oh, you children of optimism! You pioneers! You stars and stripes, forever! Sometimes, the dreamers wake as if they have heard. They take to the streets. They pick up the plow, the pen, the banner, the promise. They reach out to neighbors. They reach out to strangers. Backs stooped from a hard day’s labor, two men, one black, one white, share water from a well. They are thirsty and, in this one moment, thirst and work make them brothers. They drink of shared trust, that all men are created equal. They wipe their brows and smile up at a faithful sun.

It was never a matter of “how” I did things. I’m sure any parent would do the same. Single parenting isn’t just being the only one to take care of your kid. It’s not about being able to “tap out” for a break or tag team bath- and bedtime; those were the least of the difficulties I faced. I had a crushing amount of responsibility. I took out the trash. I brought in the groceries I had gone to the store to select and buy. I cooked. I cleaned. I changed out the toilet paper. I made the bed. I dusted. I checked the oil in the car. I drove Mia to the doctor, to her dad’s house. I drove her to ballet class if I could find one that offered scholarships and then drove her back home again. I watched every twirl, every jump, and every trip down the slide. It was me who pushed her on the swing, put her to sleep at night, kissed her when she fell. When I sat down, I worried. With the stress gnawing at my stomach, worrying. I worried that my paycheck might not cover bills that month. I worried about Christmas, still four months away. I worried that Mia’s cough might become a sinus infection that would keep her out of day care. I worried that Jamie’s behavior was escalating, that we would get in a fight, that he would go back on his offer to pick her up at day care that week just to make it difficult for me. I worried that I would have to reschedule work or miss it altogether. Every single parent teetering on poverty does this. We work, we love, we do. And the stress of it all, the exhaustion, leaves us hollowed. Scraped out. Ghosts of our former selves. That’s how I felt for those few days after the accident, like I wasn’t fully connected to the ground when I walked. I knew that at any moment, a breeze could come and blow me away.