This essay, along with this ballerina outfit, was used as part of the ‘What I Wore’ exhibit for Sexual Assault Awareness Month at the LSU Student Union Art Gallery. The exhibit will be available for viewing through the end of the month.
***I’ve used the beginning of this essay in another one, in case it sounds familiar.
Last year, I went to physical therapy twice a week for lingering issues due to a bout of shingles.
For two days out of every seven , I laid on a black table with an oval shape cut out of it for my face to rest in. Tears burned my eyes as the physical therapist dry needled my shoulder blade trying to wake up dead muscles and nerves, signaling my brain to breathe deeply.
As a young ballerina, I was taught early on to find a spot across the room to focus on intently while learning to pirouette. The idea is to focus on one spot – usually on the wall – as your body twirls around, not turning your head until the very last second. As you spin, immediately finding and re-focusing on that same spot.
I could spin indefinitely, so long as I didn’t lose sight of that spot.
On the table at physical therapy, I found one spot on the floor and focused with all my might. But it’s not the only reason I had to count my breath, focus on one spot, and meditate through the inhales and exhales while laying face down and digging my fingernails into the palms of my hands.
The carpet on the floor I stared at twice a week had the same exact pattern and texture as the couch in my grandparent’s Florida room. The same couch I focused on when my grandfather would pin me down and rape me on the ground in between the exercise bike and the couch while the television blared next to us.
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That little ballerina lives inside my brain, even now, pirouetting towards the beauty of her life, her costume covering her abused, broken body. On nights I lay awake, unable to sleep from the flashbacks, snippets of my early ballet days co-mingle together with the nightmare. There is a studio photograph of me from that time in my ballet recital costume. I’m dressed as a bunny, the dance studio’s innocent version of a centerfold.
My grandparent’s home was near the Indian River, close enough to see the wide, clear sky over the water, and close enough to watch shuttles launch from Cape Canaveral. At the end of their driveway, I would pirouette to Perry Como crooning ‘Catch a Falling Star’ from a car radio, patiently waiting to make shapes out of the vapor clouds. I absorbed these images to use as a spot to focus on later that night when my grandfather wrapped a hand around a long lock of my loose curls.
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Last year, while my car sat idle in the pre-dawn darkness at the bus stop, my fourteen year old son took over the playlist. We have a playlist labeled ‘Crooners’ that he and I listen to, waiting for him to discover a song so old he’s never heard it before. The amazing thing about technology is that when your chosen list runs out, it keeps playing songs from the same genre, even if you didn’t add the song.
A few minutes before the sun glows on the horizon, ‘Catch a Falling Star’ fills the car. My son has never heard it before and twists the knob to turn the volume up. The sleepy ballerina inside me straightens her posture, ready to spin.
“Mom,” I look over, my son looking at me with teenage annoyance, “where’d you go? You zoned out for a second there.”
His face sharply comes into focus, the hint of his dimple my spot to focus on. “I was thinking about doing pirouettes to this song when I was a little girl.”
“You’re such a weirdo, Mom, but I love you,” he says as the bus pulls up.
“I love you, too,” I yell after him. I start the song over and drive back home.
After my oldest leaves for school and my husband leaves for work, I search for the photo. I find it, my stomach churning at the studio portrait of me wearing the pristine ballet costume.
I’m a child, dressed as the centerfold of every man’s desire.
I’m a child, dressed as the desire of my personal monster.
The ballerina in my head loses her spot of focus and tumbles over.