This park and long ago.

Here is the park closest to my studio, it is huge!In the evenings my neighbors all walk around the park after dinner, the naughty ones counter-clockwise! The building at the end is a high school, one that I attended for one day just to hang out with a friend. Yes, I played hooky. I'll admit it. The school seemed foreign, smelled different and was scary and overwhelming. But I knew many girls who went to school there even though it was far from my home, they were my ballet classmates. It is strange and beautiful to be in this hood again as I attended dancing classes close to this park for probably 15 years.

3 BUSES!!! from my home, and the same long 3 bus rides back, and the waits at the stops! Then the dark 15 minute walk to my door. Cripes I was eight years old! And was followed, left at a bus stop during a snow storm, and generally hated the ride along the 8 block Mountain View graveyard after dark.

But I loved my ballet teacher, Miss Jo-Anne and would have crawled through flames to get to her. Her school was in her modest basement and very crowded and tight with young girls. She was the very best and very stern with me. We could only wear a black body suit with pink leotards and pale pink Capezio ballet slippers, our hair in a neet little bun. We also wore this "uniform" when we competed against other schools. I was shocked when I went to my first competition to see some students wearing the full ballerina gear! Ribbons around their ankles, long "tu-tu" skirts, tiaras on their heads... and abysmal technique. Very big on image and very low on substance. We stood apart and quietly won all levels.

Miss Jo-Anne was sick with kidney problems and was always so frail and thin, like a dying swan. She was distant and demanding, but fair with very high expectations of us. We were often spoken to and responded in French, the official language of ballet and easier than Russian. I was often clumsy and withered under her raised eyebrow, I was a mouth breather! Ballerinas only breathe through their noses, and only when they absolutely must. Even after 5 years of hard work and riding those damn 3 buses 4 days a week, my legs were too short, my fingers stiff, my derriere stuck out when I landed a jump and I struggled!

One day though, that all changed! A glorious, beautiful, unexpected thing happened! At the 7 year mark our ankles were strong enough and we were fitted out with our first pink satin Capezio toe shoes! The toes were hard and stiffened with resin and we wrapped our toes in lambs wool to cushion them. Pink satin ribbons held our slippers on and cut tightly into our ankles. All around me my classmates wobbled about as they took their first tiny steps. Some actually fell over, or careened into each other shrieking in pain. They were the nose breathers no longer!

And I, me, moi? I went up, up straight and strong! And did a spin, a pirouette...whee! Like a swan! A natural! And Miss Jo-Anne Foster smiled and I became happy.

So today and every day the Victoria bus, that very bus that took me to her house, trundles by my studio window. And I see myself as a child on that bus looking at this house, as my family has always know the owner. And now I own that house. And things have come full circle for me. And I am happy. And I often think of that frail east side housewife, Miss Jo-Anne, a prima ballerina who cared enough to teach many little girls to be modest, to be correct, to be subtle, to be mannered and aspire to be refined. Thank you Miss Jo-Anne.