Balleducation

by Riley Grim

At 10 years old I would don my ballet shoes, nervously, in the waiting room of my rural town’s only dance studio. The chatter of the dressing dancers would echo under the cracked brick ceiling with increasing pitch until, inevitably, an instructor would pop their head out of a classroom and reprimand the gaggle for inflicting such distractions. I believe the studio is where I first learned that I am, in fact, a girl’s girl.

I loved everything about that studio. The yellow oak floors, thick with reflective lacquer. The buzzing of the distorted fans jammed precariously in window sills, a feeble attempt to ventilate the tall, historic building. Up on the second floor the heat could be relentless, but I never minded. I loved that the beams of headlights in the dimming after-school light were far below us. I imagined that this must have been what the Rockettes felt like in their towering New York studios. But what I loved most was the girls.

Growing up in a largely masculine household the magic of pink tights and hair bows felt like an exotic luxury. At home it was all basketballs and wrestling and going real fast down big hills—a thrill I never quite found a taste for. In the studio the girls taught me grace, delicateness, and the art of a cunning whisper. I would tug anxiously at my leotard, not used to the tightness of feminine cuts, and marvel at how the other girls seemed to wear it like a second skin, never bothered when the finicky backside hiked right up into their rear—a proud symbol of their fluency in the art.

The older girls became my teachers in all things feminine and beauty. They taught me how to paint my nails, French braid my hair, and bat my eyes to make the boys linger outside the studio. They became my radar for what was cool, who was cool, and how to be cool. Eavesdropping on their conversations was how I grew to understand that while the feminine body was glorious and powerful, it was also under constant warfare. Subjected to rashy skin-dyeing creams, burning hair removers, shiny shoes that scarred your heels and “cleanses” that left you doubled over the toilet. No matter how high your leap or how flat your split, if you weren’t sharing half your meals with the trash can you weren’t putting in the real work required to be an esteemed woman. But behind every painful standard and gossip circle was a camaraderie unique to any cohort I’d ever known. We were the vanguard of vanity. A pact in the pursuit of perfection. My sisterhood of shared secrets.

Time went on, as it tends to do, and I outgrew that little studio—and that little town. And when I ventured into the world I found my way into new covens. Ones that worshiped at something other than the altar of the mirror and illuminated new dimensions of what it meant to be a good woman. There were soccer teams that lifted weights heavier than the men, art collectives that burned bras at the stake and book clubs that removed gender from the conversation entirely. Through every company the fashion and the body standards varied. What made you more of a woman in one group made you less of a woman in another. Have muscle definition, don’t look too masculine, grow out your armpit hair, pluck your eyebrows into a new shape, buy the expensive skirt, wear only clothes that are thrifted. It’s dizzying. But at the center of it all are women who will welcome you, look you in the eye, and help you remake yourself into whatever image you might fancy this month. The standards might change, but the sisterhood never does.

Now I’m staring down the barrel of middle age and motherhood has ravaged my body in a way that no gut-wrenching cleanse can repair. The luxury of contemplating what version of woman I want to be today seems a far off memory. Every day I do my best just to be the sort of woman that gets out of bed and provides. And every day I am finding myself a little further out of arm’s reach from the supportive sisterhoods of my past. Isolated in the depths of professionalism and childrearing.

Then, something serendipitous—I noticed an ad at my local gym for an adult ballet class.

I arrived early, my heart racing as I fought with my ego, begging her not to chicken out. “You’re not too old for this. It’s okay if you’re rusty, and it’s okay if your body doesn’t look like the other girls’ anymore.”

As I pulled on my dusty slippers and stretched into my protesting muscles the other women began to arrive. I heard the joy in their voices before I saw the age in their faces. Suddenly I was swept up by a flock of grey hair and wrinkles. They embraced me, the young newcomer, with open arms and kudos for ‘getting myself out there.’ They warmed up their bodies with care and humility, nothing like the flaunty nature of lessons past. A sense of homecoming and contentment flooded my soul as I settled into the familiarity of feminine whispers bouncing off yellow lacquered floors. But this time the scuttlebutt wasn’t full of cunning beauty critiques. As we took to the barre they complimented my form and offered tips on how to protect and honor my aging joints. They inquired about the health of both my body and spirit. They recounted the many years that had passed since they were my age, gently encouraged me to take what had served them and leave behind what had shackled them—the mirror, the scale, the boys lingering outside the studio. I sensed there was something different budding in this new circle of sisterhood. Once again these women in ballet slippers were my real-world tutors, but what these new mentors were offering was something different. Something that spanned beyond the lighthearted camaraderie of girlhood. Something that only rises to the surface once you’ve waded deep enough in the murky tides of age, life, and loss. An invitation of sorts, to see and be seen for the soul that you are instead of the performance you can showcase.

“We’re all just a sack of guts anyway,” muttered my sun-wrinkled barre-mate with a clever wink. And just like that, as I removed my slippers in my little town’s only ballet class, it dawned on me that this circle of womanhood isn’t really a circle at all; it’s a lyrical round stretching limitlessly into the future. The same melody overlapping with newly layered voices, each landing a little differently than the one before until, finally, it becomes a harmony. A harmony I’ll never tire of dancing to.

I tied on my streetshoes and walked out into the evening, a little wiser than when I had walked in.