Tiny Dancer

Edgar Degas- Two Dancers On Stage



 Do you have a bucket list? I have a sort of free-form mental list I carry around. Things I'd like to do and see, places I'd like to visit. For my birthday this year, I was able to scratch off one of those things: a trip to the ballet. A real, proper, grown-up ballet. Swan Lake, to be exact.

Edgar Degas- Dance Class At The Opera

Edgar Degas- Ballerinas In Pink

I suppose there's that tiny part of me that still dreams of growing up and being a ballerina, spending my days twirling in a tutu. But there's a much bigger part of me, the part that practices yoga and pilates and is happy just to be able hold a half-moon pose for three solid breaths, that thinks perhaps that wouldn't be so much fun. That part of me saw the tight muscles, the dripping sweat, the strength and training required to make it all look so easy, so effortless.

Edgar Degas- La Classe de Danse

I spent the entire performance going back and forth between those two parts of myself. In the end, the little girl part won, and I spent a few hours on a lovely Saturday night watching the ballerinas, in their pink toe shoes, tiaras and tutus, twirling around effortlessly.

Here's to realizing childhood dreams, my sweets.

xo



Edgar Degas- L'Etoile