Life @ Number 8

There is a beautiful day out there. Blue sky, sunshine, fresh air, birds singing, just enough breeze to move the leaves ever so slightly… a wistful kind of day. A Jane Austen walk a country lane kind of day.

I am, however in here. And I shall be here all day.

When I was 15 I had a silly accident. It seemed a small thing. But not long after I needed surgery. I had already left school & was working. Actually I think it was on my way to my 1st job, but not the 1st day. I don’t recall how long I was off work. I do recall a few years later there was a flare up of the pain, & a great deal of distress for me,  as I tried to explain that my legs felt like the bone was crumbling. It seems my legs have been an issue all my life. I was sent to ballet, though I never felt sent, I thought I was there because I wanted to be. I did want to be. It was decades later that I found it to be otherwise. I danced from age 4 1/2 to 15 when I fell in a car park. I danced seriously. I did formal examinations. I still have the result cards. I learned the traditional Royal Academy style of ballet. I had long hair. But I also had headaches. When I was 7 ‘they’ instructed my mother to have my hair cut short. (They being Doctors) I was heart-broken but I didn’t recall the heartbreak until decades later.  I had wanted to be a ballerina. I was a ballet student. But now I had short hair….so I gave up ballet, but the love was still there, so I returned. After the surgery I set about killing the love of it. This was tough going. At 16 I wanted to go see Nureyev dance but my mother told me the ticket was expensive beyond my means. (It was more than one weeks pay for me, back when I was 16) I didn’t go. I added the feelings of not going to see him dance to my this is not meant to be attitude. And worked harder to kill my love of ballet. My mother gave me 2 videos of him dancing. I exchanged them for other films.

These things come to mind as I sit inside, my legs up resting painful joints and limbs. As I smell the deep heat & comes to grips with the disappointment of today. I am not where I want to be. Again. I reflect upon the time & energy to kill that love, which I can acknowledge is not totally dead. I can watch without the sorrow now. But also without the deep joy. Though to be fair, there was unexpected delight in seeing Miss 9 & Miss 7 take ballet classes. And the wonderful experience of taking them to The Nutcracker last December…those experiences revealed niches in my heart hitherto unknown to me. In them was my little-girl love & passion for dance. Unexpectedly these other little girls healed me, through their delight.

I freely acknowledge that the detours my life has taken due to the accident, have been rich & rewarding. They taught me that detours were not, and are not 2nd best. A lesson I needed for when an even greater detour would be required.

I think of all these things today, here inside, resting. I think of them because yet again I have had a bad haircut experience. Oh, the cut is great. Well done. But yet again I had confirmed that hairdressers do not listen. Except to themselves.I am not traumatised this time. Just annoyed. And grateful for fast growing hair. Which was not the cause of the headaches. It was 17 more years before I knew what was causing the headaches. Then came a detour that was to be my life’s path.