Sample Chapter: Dreams
Each time things start to happen again
I think I got something good goin’ for myself
But what goes wrong?
Sometimes I feel very sad
Sometimes I feel very sad
(Can’t find nothin’ I can put my heart and soul into)
Sometimes I feel very sad
(Can’t find nothin’ I can put my heart and soul into)
Brian Wilson, “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times” from Pet Sounds
Dreams
Do you know what regret and loss sound like, what a vanishing dream sounds like? For me, they sound like “The Grand Pas de Deux” from the Nutcracker Suite by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. My musician husband (a trumpet player), loves to point out that it’s just a play on a scale, but to me, it is the strumming of my heart’s strings. Another musician friend laughed once, “Tchaikovsky is SO melodramatic.” Well, fine. But we ballerinas love a drama that can read all the way to the back of the house.
The weeping violins, swelling crescendos, moody decrescendos - Oh, how I love that music! I always thought it was a bit much for the Sugar Plum Fairy; I mean, what does she have to be moody about? She’s the ruler of Candyland, and there’s not even a Lord Licorice. But in many versions of the ballet, choreographers have given the music to a Clara who becomes a grown-up ballerina in the second act. The drama makes sense from her perspective; she’s been through a lot! She defeated a mouse king, shrunk into some psychedelic fantasy, fell in love for the first time, and knows that it’s all going to end. I always wanted to be Clara but never was given the part. In a way, though, I feel like a real life Clara. I fell in love, braved the obstacles, and enjoyed every fleeting moment of the dream before it evaporated around me.
All the terrible feedback I received about God not wanting me to be a dancer made me skeptical from then on of any artistic urge or dream. I refused to allow myself to want anything big again. Suppression of ambition and desire became modus operandi. Before wanting to be a dancer, I had wanted to be a doctor. But did I do pre-med once I got to college? No, I was too tired and deflated. I loved art history and quite nearly have a minor in it, but I didn’t dare pour myself into something “frivolous” again. I decided that art was non-essential to life. I joined the University of Washington Business School for two reasons: 1) earning potential (in case Brendan dies young!) and 2) a desire to work in HR and help people with their stinkin’ L&I cases. Except for lots of opportunities to “perform” as a well-spoken presenter and donor-favor-currier, Business School did nothing for my soul.
When I met people, I knew they could not really become my friend or understand me unless they were told about my bad break-up with ballet. But, I hated to tell it. My whole life as a dancer turned into a bad dream because that journey ended in a bad crash. In the Stowell version of Nutcracker, Clara is last seen terrified, confused, and weeping. That’s how I felt too, and it’s hardly a good state in which to make new friends or choose a new career path.
I locked up the dancer part of me. I stopped allowing myself to believe that art was important - to the world (like Mr. Hess always had taught me) or to me individually. I poured my perfectionism, my passion, and my work ethic into things that didn’t pay off- things like a clean house, my GPA. (All the while, I was writing. Or drawing. The dancer-artist wanted out!)
A new dream, to become a writer, swelled so huge in my heart that I cowered before it. “No!” I thought. “Something bad will happen! What if I try and it doesn’t work out? I’ll never be able to try again.” Loving after loss is deeply challenging whether you had a bad breakup, were rejected by the school or job you wanted, or lose the use of your art or skill-set. But dreams themselves have a value that is worth squeezing out. Trying to write with my hands while squinching my eyes shut and shrinking away like I might get hit is just too hard! All those days dancing on bloody toes, doing the difficult parts of being a dancer were only possible because the vision of what was to come carried me. Bloody toes weren’t the goal; Lincoln Center was. A contract with a ballet company, a life of moving and creating were what pushed me through pain, loneliness, fear, and intimidation. If we cannot dream again, we have to push through on brute strength alone, and it just doesn’t work. I realized pretty quick that without dreaming, without ambition, this writer thing could never happen.
So then I had to ask myself, “why are you so scared to dream?” The answer seems obvious: “because I am afraid I’ll be hurt again.” And that’s true, but I’m not a teenager. The writing world is not the ballet world (though it IS a good thing that I’m already very familiar with the words “Accepted” and “Rejected”). I’m not as vulnerable as I was. After some digging, I found my real answer.
“Why are you so scared to dream?”
“Because I think I was an idiot to dream the first time. It ended in nightmare, and I decided that somehow it was my fault. My bootstraps gave out. I wasn’t tough enough to get the prize.”
That answer breaks down under some scrutiny. The fact is that I was a victim in the accident. It wasn’t my fault. I’m not a quitter, a weakling; I’m one of the toughest people I know.
But that took about 3 years of therapy for me to conclude.
