sometimes i dream...

...of satin pointe shoes

...and how i'll never dance in them.

Quitting ballet was probably one of my biggest regrets. Deciding to get back to it too late is another. every sunday after class, I have to walk past the pointe class in the next studio on my way out, and I can't help but linger a while. I always feel a teensy twinge in my heart, thinking about how I could have been one of them but I gave it all up when i was so close.

Of course, now I just don't have the same strength in my ankles anymore, and a 1.5hour class a week is hardly enough to re-build that strength. I read about girls outside Singapore, never having danced before and then starting ballet in their 20s who find studios willing to let them go on pointe after a couple of years, and am filled with envy. It's so difficult to even find a studio in Singapore who will take adults seriously in class, much less consider pointe. Most classes are progressive, non-syllabi, recreational classes where the teachers aren't so strict. I miss the rigours of intensive training, repeating the same exercises just to perfect technique. I miss my nit-picky teacher, who nudged the back of our knees to test if we are holding our positions properly, smacked our butts, called us clumsy kum-suahs (her funny name for embarrasingly ungraceful little girls), and measured our waistlines monthly. I've never harboured thoughts of going professional, of course. But I at least want to be graded! (and yes, the meanie teenaged girls will prolly just laugh at old auntie me.... haha...)

At the end of the day, I know pointe isn't everything, and ballet is still beautiful without (at least to me). I love the music, the discipline, the graceful lines, the poise, the painful stretch in my aged muscles, the heady feeling of a piroutte (even if I can't do doubles anymore), the breathlessness after a series of jumps (getting old), and the tingly tired feet after. I love it - pointe or no pointe. And for all the wistful longing and aching regrets, I'm just happy knowing I am dancing again.

Thank you, darling, for egging me on (and bearing with my incessant, obssesive ballet talk)...

[Pics from (?) and Pond]