Monday, Monday...

I started the New Year with a bang -- a new job interview in a doctor's office.  I was so nervous and fidgety...I went to the neighborhood comic book store on the way to Christmas Blend coffee at Starbucks and said to the clerk, I don't interview well.  He asked me if I was introverted and I said people when they meet me don't realize how many-faceted I am and he said he agreed that some people have no depth.  How to bring it out, though...

Well, back to my normal routine now, going to the gym for a swim, having a turkey/ham sub sandwich (special today), going home to get ready for ballet class after two days off.  I told the doctor at the interview that I work out every day since she wanted to hire someone who was sports-minded, but it's always the young perky thing that gets the job and not the serious, deep type like me.  Well, I can only pray and live on.  It was nice spending time in church over the holidays, too -- good for the soul and something I need to do more often, like I used to, in better times.

This neighborhood is so charming, in fact, I happened to walk by a building I was thinking of moving to.  It will be hard to adjust to the peace and quiet after living in the crazy city, but all of that has a way of wasting your time.  Besides, the people in these quiet neighborhoods are more real and friendly, too.  So, I'm going to finish my coffee and get going...or maybe stay for a while.


"Tighten the tuccas..I don't want your spine rounding...the minute you life your spine..."  Class was all about holding the derrierre underneath your center.  She told a girl who was doing a temps leve arabesque to put her fist behind her waistline and push it into herself as she jumped forward.  In pirouettes I especially felt this "long" spine.  "Long spine...and it hurts..."  Yes, it does, but, as the teacher said, you can't dance without engaging the derrierre because it supports you.  Even your working leg needs to have the "tuccas under and up."  Something I really need to work out, to avoid looking like a cushion, ha!

We spent a lot of time at barre doing every exercise this way and so in center we only did a couple of combinations.  Tendu ecarte, efface, temps lie, tendus back, balance, balance, chasse pas de bourre, pirouettes.  Then we did a grand allegro: temps lie arabesque, balance, 3x, chasse pas de bourre pas de chat.  One 14-year-old girl kept laughing because she couldn't breathe, but since I had my swim today, I felt energized, although some water would have helped me feel less wasted away.

At the pool, the swim instructor was there, swimming with paddles and I asked him after my usual laps what the paddles did and he explained that they work your shoulders harder and then you have to use your core more.  He had red ones but he said I needed the green ones, or maybe just the yellow level, which are smaller paddles than his big red ones.  It was so delightful to swim alongside him because the swimming became fun instead of a necessary drill.  I am getting better but now I need to enjoy myself.

Same with dancing.  One thing about the young girls in my class who are sometimes a little silly, as the teacher said, at least you are laughing and not crying.  I hope I am not turning into a grumpy adult, I thought.  Have to watch it...so now I am watching the pointe class with these young girls who are all so young and pretty and slim.  But, in my class, when I did what the teacher said and held my body up, I felt just as young as they are.  It hurts, but the pain is worth it.

Note:  In and forward, it can't be back.  We all have a natural curve in our spine.  It's at the waistline.  It goes in and up, never back.  Now hold the tuccas against this.  Tighten...it hurts.

Then I walked home after a day that seemed to last forever.  The city is the best at night and I will really miss city nights if I ever move.  It is the place to be for night people.  There is an old song, "Night in the City," that goes "there are places to come from and places to go."