Used to be my playground – At Sea – [11/07/2011]

It’s been a very long time. Nearly too long. You’ve debated at times taking the skill off your CV altogether, what right do you have to claim it when you’ve not picked up the tools in nearly 10 years? How can you say you remember anything? But then, you figure, you promised your friend onboard, and you keep your promises. So you pull out your oversized suitcase from under your bunk bed, and dig through to the bottom until your fingers touch old worn leather. There’s one, you have to dig again for the other one, they must have gotten separated during transport. You feel vaguely guilty that you never bothered to unpack them before this.

When you first sit with them in your lap, watching her buckle up her perfectly polished perfectly shaped high-heeled Bloche character taps you feel foolish. This wasn’t a good idea. What were you thinking? It was a long time ago, it’s over. You’re still a dancer sure, but you’re a swing dancer now, be happy with that. Let it go…

You feel like a poor country cousin watching her fasten up those beautifully cared for perfect shoes.

Ooooh! You brought your characters?

Yeah…

I debated, but mine just weigh too much…got into a debate with my mom about it ‘for once leave one pair of dance shoes at home’…besides, these are old friends…

And they are. When you slide your bare foot into them you’re reminded that this is why you have a slightly trick knee – you never did remember to replace the insoles. Long since lost, forgotten, danced through. Instead the calluses on your heel scrape against the rough surface of bare wood. No cushioning between you and the floor. You don’t care to remember how many times your technique teacher yelled at you for that…crazy girl! You can’t dance on straight wood! She said…

The leather is brittle, and stiff with lack of use. For a terrifying moment you think that maybe they don’t fit anymore. But no, they just need to be warmed up, re-broken. You stand and flex your feet, bending them at the arch with the toe on the ground, like a horse pawing the track. The leather fits snug, and smooth, like a second skin.  They’ve fit like that since the first day you took them out of the box, almost too small, but perfect once they stretch to your foot.

You hear the reassuring click from the metal on the hard floor, ringing out, reminding you that here – it’s hard to hide your mistakes. Hesitantly you lift one foot…

Shuffle…

Shuffle…

Stomp…hop shuffle step, slap, step stomp, stomp stomp hop shuffle step slap-step-stomp

And you look at the far wall, muttering aloud that you wonder if you’ve completely lost your ability to spot even as you pin the spot you need to look at, leveling your eyes with it. Single footed turns you can’t do, never could, not with the alignment of your own bone structure working against you, but double-footed turns? Different story. No one could beat you at speed cramp roll turns, and while you wouldn’t want to go up against a professional, it’s nice to realize you can still hold your own without getting dizzy…

Step, toe ,toe, heel, heel stamp toe, toe, heel, heel

They were the best present your grandmother ever gave you (“I don’t care what anyone says, that’s the only brand worth dancing on, and it’s the brand you’ll dance on” was her attitude. Never mind that Bloche was probably a better brand, with sturdier toes and clearer taps, if it wasn’t capezio, it wasn’t worth dancing on).

So you became a capezio girl…and you still are, to this day.

Capezio, size four…split sole, tele-tone taps. Metal starting to wear thin at the tips. Danced through at heel and toe, laces snapped in more than one place…to the point where the right one is hard to do up properly, always has been.

Welcome home kid…

Bloggers note:  I was 20 when I finally walked away from studio dancing. When I walked away from the world of class-structure and logo-emblazoned t-shirts (though half my wardrobe still bears the logo of one studio or another)..there were a lot of reasons why I moved to a different sphere of dancing…why I took my training to a different level…or at least a different place…for the most part I never looked back…

Except of course…when life throws a weird opportunity in front of me, and I can’t help but turn my gaze backards…

One shiney shiney…

 And all that…