Today I was in a strange mood and I pulled the pointe shoes out of the back of the closet and prised them onto my feet. They were the last pair I bought before my “retirement”–hardly broken in. They are the same shoes I used on the cover of Mercy, because they were the only thing I kept from my less-than-stellar dance “career”. Sadly, after four pregnancies, my Capezio 7C’s only fit if I wedged them on without tights.
I don’t know why I felt I needed to dance today, such as it was. I haven’t danced in almost twenty years now. I’ve been thinking about Mercy a lot. It’s partly because it’s recently finding a new audience and greater sales. I’m so happy about that, but that’s not the main reason it’s on my mind. I think the real reason is because, like Lucy Merritt, I am struggling to move past a phase of my life that I don’t really want to see go. Not dancing, but something else that has defined me for such a long time. And like Lucy, I’m not handling it very well.
I think part of the power of Mercy is that we’ve all been there, done that. We’ve all had to move past life stages, with varying levels of regret. The hope is that you move on to something bigger or better, or at least different in a positive way. I thought about ordering some 7.5C’s (or, let’s be honest, 8C‘s) to stow in the closet just in case I want to start dancing again someday. But the truth is, my dancing days are over and they should be. Life moves on, and the stage I’m leaving now was fun, just like dancing, but it’s over. I need to turn my energies to finding what’s going to come next.
Still, I enjoyed putting those old shoes on today, like meeting up again with an old friend. Within about fifteen minutes of barre and hopping around blissfully, I had a bitch of a blister on my left big toe. Remember the good, remember the bad, I suppose. I used to have blisters on every toe. When I took the shoes off and started to fuss over my blister, my little dog Walter grabbed one by the ribbons and began to gnaw on the toe box. I could tell by the look in his eyes he was blissfully contemplating how best to systematically destroy that shoe. I thought of pulling it away, and at one time I would have, but instead I let him chew it for a while. Why not? All he managed to do was fray the satin of the toe a little bit. And honestly, I won’t need them again.
And now, because it amuses me, I shall subject you to a lengthy slideshow prominently featuring pointe shoes and my dog Walter.
