Willows and Oaks

Well, that’s my dancing days over for now and I’m a bit sad. It was amazing to be afforded the opportunity to perform with such wonderfully talented people so thanks to Christine, Jude, Skye, Lulah, Andy, Tony, Robin, Luke and all of the crew for allowing this ugly duckling to experience a taste of being a swan.
I was bowled over by the strength and athleticism of the dancers in particular – how effortlessly they moved and how they seemed to fly as if lighter than air. The two women, Christine and Skye, were small and hadn’t an ounce of wasted fat or muscle on them. How I wished I were that lithe – I have often longed to be lifted and carried as if I weighed no more than a dandelion seed being carried in the wind, to feel arms around me and lift my feet off of the ground.
As I have said on this blog before, my dancing days ended when, deemed too tall and stocky to dance among the tiny ballerinas of my own age, I was moved up an age class. As much as I enjoy dancing and carried it on into my twenties, I knew I’d never be leaping into the arms of a waiting Nureyev.
I was bemoaning such to Skye after last night’s performance. And then it struck me – we can’t all be like that. What a strange world it would be if women were all less than 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighed less than 10 stone! Sure, we’d be able to duck and dive and weave and get into tight spaces and make ourselves small. And we could be carried off by Richard Gere in his white uniform or swept up like Rhett Butler. But we need women like me – women who are built like defensive walls, who provide shelter and succour, who have our feet planted firmly on the ground. I’m not saying that smaller women are anymore delicate or less substantial, less able to hug or comfort. They have masses of strength and fortitude - Christine danced with an injured leg and had an ice pack on her knee right up until the beginning of the first show and they all had plasters and strapping on their feet. What I’m talking about is from my perspective. My own mother was tiny and weighed sometimes as little as 7 stones. She was physically undemonstrative and I never remember her carrying me around. As a young-ish mother, I hardly ever used a pushchair, carrying Vee around at in first a sling, then in a backpack carrier and often in my arms, asleep. I swung her around, threw her up into the air and picked her up.
I have carried round 25 kilogramme sacks of flour, moved pallets and loaded trucks. I have provided event security. I have stood firm against police horses and fascists alike. I have moved furniture. I have held friends and family tightly to my more than ample bosoms as they cried. I hug and squeeze tight.
I am a rock and a foundation. I am a buttress against life’s erosion. It takes a lot to knock me over and I get up again and plant my size 7 feet as firmly as before.
We can’t all be beautiful tiny dancers. Some of us are here so that others can dance.