riff on my dropfoot
Did you guys know that I went up on point the very first time I tried?
That’s how strong my feet used to be.
I think I was fifteen. My cousin was fourteen. My cousin was the ballerina. My cousin was the one with etendus in attendance. With swan shoulders and luminous skin polished to high moonstone by her mother’s tyrannical repudiation of harsh Florida sunlight. I had big old cock and ball joint shoulders and a deliberately fearless mother loved to watch me grow bronze and ruddy, although by then sunshine did a Violent Femmes number on my cystic acne and I, too, went covered up a lot of the time.
Anyway. I was older, I was bigger, I did gymnastics. Because even though we were only children living on opposite coasts, our mothers adhered to the sibling fantasy of separating church and state, cementing our distinction from one another, our arbitrary uniqueness.
Gymnasts do better with strong, smart feet, and I had those. I always ran correctly-not terribly fast, but with proper form. Moving through the stations of the foot. Standard sneakers slid off my narrow heels, so I often wore gymnastics, jazz, and ballet slippers out and about. Shoes kept your feet from being naked.
My gymnastics attendance was sporadic, or insignificant, or faded out, or something, it’s hard to remember why because things in my father’s wake were always kind of ending dramatically and suddenly and with no small supply of extremely bad feelings best left unquestioned so you know how knows, or maybe I was doing gymnastics and added ballet? To get away from my father’s antics? That sounds true.
I took intermediate ballet a few days a week and obviously my listing flexibility gave me an advantage. There’s a lot of crossover between ballet and gymnastics, but turnout is an area of difference. Turnout referee to the rotation of a dancer’s leg from center- the way their toes point out tot he sides? That has to happen from inside the hip and carry consistently the entire length of the leg and foot. It’s unnatural, and takes years and genetics both to master. Turnout is not essential in gymnastics; in fact, squared off hips prevent more injuries and provide more power. So a gymnast’s lines often look more squat.
I struggled with that.
My cousin had studied for six years before she got pointe shoes.
She came to visit that summer. My mother promptly bought a three week intensive for each of us- both of us. Pointe shoes were mandatory.
We did not enter the studio identically. She positively wafted. Lissome. Her hair silky, thinning, the initial blush of lifelong starvation veiling her brow. She was so hungry coolness rippled off of her in waves like dry ice. Lip skin sheer, her pale tights, her crossed ankle bones, the half moons on her purplish nails. I had a tan on the top of my arms and pink sunburn underneath and a hole beginning in the toe of my Capezio. The class was fascinated with their new pupil, and I quietly, with brave gratitude, recalled those mere days earlier when I had stalked this same studio proud of my dirty, powerful frame, practicing the belief I was unique, a belief that had just started to take until. But oh. But well. But family.
After barre, we all sat down with our pointe shoes to break their soles and sew their ribbons. Here the teachers gave us good instruction. There is a witchery to stitching amid other stitching women in a mirrored room, and we all thrilled at the necessary use of the Bic lighter to seal the cut edges of the ribbons, so they would not unravel. Most of the girls had worn pointe shoes before. There was a lot of flexing and stomping.
It felt so interesting to me right away. Immobilizing my toes like that put such emphasis on my foot to lift from the arch. Even standing flat I could feel the physics. I didn’t even touch the barre much. I just pointed why feet hard into the ground and rose right up. It did hurt; it hurt exactly the way I expected it to. There was a mood of mouths dropping. Some glow followed my relevé right into my soul.
This is what I miss about my feet. How they were once cats.