Day 319

WARNING: This is really long. But I couldn't help it. :)

There's something you don't know about me. Maybe.

I've been in love with ballet as far back as I can remember...and my earliest memory is at 18 months old. In all my dreaming of what I wanted to be when I grew up, "ballerina" was always either my main desire or, "...and a ballerina." Like, "A zookeeper and a ballerina," or "a famous writer and a ballerina," or "winner of the Nobel Prize in astrophysics...and a ballerina." Where other little girls collected and dreamed over horse stories I...well, okay, I had piles of those too. But books on ballet and dancers stacked up right alongside. I taught myself all the basic positions, propping up the books that showed them near a mirror or reflective window so that I could correct my stance until it was perfect. I would practice my turnout while my mother did errands, twisting my right foot to turn precisely the opposite direction of my left--something I still do without noticing when I'm standing in line. I was madly, deeply in love with Baryshnikov.

Unfortunately, we never had money for me to take ballet lessons. I never had a chance to don the traditional black leotard and pink tights. I never got to scuff and pound a pair of toe shoes against the floor or stuff them with gauze (to absorb the blood from burst blisters). And around about puberty when I was awarded the traditional Park genetic structure (i.e. hips and bust), I buried the dream. I was too tall, too curvy, and way too late in life to ever really be a dancer.

But I carry the memories and the love.

One of the most formative books was this one:





Maria Tallchief was my idol. Oh, I was fascinated by other dancers. But Maria Tallchief -- she was something more in my mind. She was both transcendent and possible. She was demonstrably a little girl at one point with a mother and father and little sister, growing up in the U.S. just like me. And yet, she was also an Indian princess! When they wanted her to change her name to sound more Russian (because all the best dancers were Russian--or sounded like it), this is what she said:



Bravery! Temerity! Beauty!



I wanted to be her so very badly.

Last night I went to see an Esther Williams movie, Million Dollar Mermaid, the biopic of Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman. And during her debut at the Hippodrome, guess who else was there?



Pavlova, one of my other favorites -- played by Maria Tallchief!!!



This sounds silly, but I've never seen her before in color! And I've certainly never heard her speak before!



I can't tell you how over the moon I was about this. I can't quite describe how wonderful this was, to see her, to actually be able to watch her dance. It was like I was that little girl again, packed full of dreams and wishing, meeting the embodiment of everything I wanted to be.

And it was amazing.