Wanderlust Chronicles: Das Ballet
A little about ballet and a lot about life.
“I will show him,” I thought in my German language class. I had moved to the southern tip of the language’s native country with my spouse, daughter and two dogs in the 2021 stretch of COVID. The new dependencies I had on my husband were instigating fights, not new levels of intimacy. The temporary flat was very small - my daughter’s Murphy bed extended into the kitchenette - making his yelling feel like it was reverberating off the walls and putting me into a dissociative trance when I was there.
I could not change the vibe there, no matter what incense or fresh flowers I brought home from the market, but I could make myself scarce. I was making friends in language school during the day and kept my phone beneath my desk in lecture, secretly scrolling for something to do at night. I rarely could convince my partner to change his behavior in the moment, so I had a habit of leaving instead. I weaponized new calendar invites during a fight as if to say, “act this way all you want but I won’t be home.” This mystified and also thrilled him, somehow putting even less accountability for connection on his plate.
The trick to moving, abroad or elsewhere I believe, is to find the new group. My friends I grew up with who still practice Catholicism speak to the ease of settling into a new place by looking for their new parish. Friends who play rugby have tried teams around the world. My search term was “Freiburg Germany adult dance class.” I started going through the returns - phrases a bit broken up by putting a Google translate on my browser - but there were stand outs.
Germany loves dance, especially anything a boy band member would do. Fast pop classes are angular, precise and quick. I wasn’t ready for that kind of heart rate elevation yet. Before the pandemic, I had been teaching up to six classes of cardio dance a week, sometimes sold out to groups of over one hundred while wearing a mic. I found a listing further down Next Steps Freiburg, a German ballet school with an English name. Ballet will be easier, I thought.
I had taken ballet and tap at the Paducah, Kentucky Parks and Recreation Center from ages four to eight before moving to South America, where I got to move and play but it was harder to find formal classes. The gap in training put me behind the curve for formal ballet when we moved back to Texas, but I found my step as an adolescent in musical theater. The first time I walk into Next Steps, it is the dead of night at 6:30 pm in February 2022. I have never danced the Royal Academy of Dance’s barre routine before this. I look like a drunk baby deer as the girls around me lift up elegantly. The instructor is welcoming but her brows come together. “It’s the middle,” she says, poking her finger into my soft waist, “that we are concerned about,” she explains to me. I need a different class to create a better foundation and prevent injury. How about Thursdays mid morning for the ninety minutes with Next Step’s master instructor? My schedule certainly allows it.
The Thursday class is like a painting, like a movie. Women of all ages - younger than me and up into their seventies - are dressed for themselves and each other in intentional, beautiful performance garb. Elegant, streamlined leotards, neat tights, skirts that match their barrettes that match their lipstick. No one would ever be so crass as to get out their “handy,” the common phrase for an iPhone. We “machen die fensters” which means “to make up the windows” for our fresh air as the studio has no AC. A live pianist walks over to an ivory baby grand and gets her sheet music out. The instructor takes me in.
“Are you a widow?” she asked me. It seems less and less common that anyone taking me in would guess I was in a happy marriage. I explained no, not a widow. Just a wanderer wanting to learn a new thing while she was learning everything else for the first time anyways. She promises to try her best to keep her German basic as a courtesy - for the first week or two at least.
Soon the music begins and I can count to eight in German so that helps. Everything else is foreign - the French terminology that instructor cues goes in and out of my ears unregistered. I crane my neck to try to mimic the moves of the woman in front of me. It is a blur of tiny motions, but my body feels open, stretched. I am into a better part of my mind. I have accomplished something today. I have something to work on for next week. I feel hooked, like this is my new group.
As the weeks progress, so do I. However, it’s slow enough progress to plant myself as the comic relief for the class. As the instructor teaches me how to port de bras with a clean, “dead” thumb in front of the class, she makes it for everyone’s entertainment.
“Lilly!!!” she scolds across the room, walking into the middle of the space to have all attention for her impromptu demonstration.
“Dist ist keine Broadway!!!” the room erupts into naughty laughs. “Keine JAZZ HANDS, bitte!”
There were things I started to understand, like where to close your feet if it’s a three or four count. The girls right under my age were good. They were fast, high and strong. With all the walking in a pedestrian town and emotional stress I was underweight, not an asset in class. I bought a mat, hand and ankle weights and got back to training every day. I personally love the German tone. It’s sharp, honest and makes me better. I get used to showing up and expecting notes.
“DIE SHOULDERS LILLY.”
“HERTZ FORWARD LILLY.”
“DANCE WITH YOUR EYES LILLY.”
“YOUR ENERGY THROUGH DIE NASE LILLY!”
( I think of that one all the time, “your energy through your nose.”)
Socially, I made small strides too. The women who giggled at me began to see the tenacity in my return each week and to cheer me on - with the maximum amount of German enthusiasm. I remember feeling a chill up my spine and realizing it was one of the sweet ladies tucking in my tag. It occurred to me that I hadn’t been touched by another adult in months.
As more and more of the Royal Academy of Dance words and movements became understood to me, I failed each week at the relevé - the lift in ballet onto the tops of the toes that ascends the body into one, beautiful, levitating line. It requires tight precision and alignment, not just physically but I learned mentally and emotionally as well. Each week I lifted with confidence, thinking this time would be it. My inhale into the position only brought forward flashes of what I was avoiding by dressing up in my set and stretching my toes - words of hurt from my husband, fear for my daughter, worry about our future. The moment I gave into any one of them I would collapse, sometimes tears breaking out in the struggle for physical composure.
The worst part of leaving Germany was that after the Holidays, we were gone. I never got to have a formal last class at Next Steps,or acquire a coveted hooded fill zip sweatshirt I intended to wear for life. There was no time for goodbyes, but I don’t know how I would have danced knowing it was my last class there. I packed my leotard, tights and shoes up instead with a vow to keep dancing.
In Dallas it is harder to get to ballet amongst the pace and offerings here. During my divorce, I could barely sleep which made evening classes a reality. At least I was doing something productive with my time. I was barely moving at that point, complaining about having to shower or wash my hair. But the ballet barre felt familiar and the sequences were entrancing, then soon I was home and ready to close my eyes. The lift was still the hardest for me, and as I’d wobble, I’d make a note when I heard an instructor say, “You cannot balance thinking backwards, only in trusting forward.”
In January of this year, I received a call that changed the course of our lives. There had been an accident. My daughter’s father, which is how I know him now, was in the hospital. This was his girlfriend calling. Did I know his insurance? (Yes.) His social security number? (Of course.) Could I help and take over care for our daughter while this all got sorted out? (It would be my honor and a pleasure.)
From that moment on I have been on, 100% of the time. It’s a privilege and it is easeful. We sat in the scary, early liminal space of the situation together and, when it was a good time, I took her south to see her family - on a school day no less. My new boyfriend watched my dog. Everyone cheered us on, relieved with the outcome for now.
My former husband’s family has never been close according to my perception. They do not celebrate holidays together and my ex did not attend either of his parents’ funerals. But many are here now, which is nice, and I understand a recent rekindling is due to the divorce and the tidy new common enemy intimacy they have around the narrative that I was the problem. Let them or whatever, right? I try to think of what I need to keep my good senses on this trip, what is best for me. I’m going to need a group, even if it’s for an hour or two. I sign up for a Friday morning intermediate ballet class in town.
As I press the elevator button at the rehab hospital, I can feel my tights and leotard under my jeans. I tell myself whatever happens as I hand off my special visitor can be handled with dignity and then, I have my own thing to do as I am off to ballet. As the doors open, a woman widens her eyes and runs up to Heidi. This must be the girlfriend. I recognized her immediately as a woman I saw lock eyes on my husband and approach him at a school function we were at together a few years ago. At the time, he was demanding a full trial to sue me for sole custody of our child in court. I offer a hospitable smile and say hello. “And I am so sorry,” I tell her. “He has never told me anything about you, or your name.”
I get the new first and last name. I am open enough to admit I text it to a friend. Seconds later, she sends me a photo of a close up breast feeding an infant and an update that the new “co-mama” in the family, as she described it to me, goes by the professional title of “sacred sexuality guide” online. It is exactly what I was expecting, which is both comforting and mind boggling. In the next few weeks she would move his home into hers without the formality of a proposal or conversation but to better suit his patient needs. She dedicates herself to his recovery, rarely leaving his side, which is good for a man like him. She is now my point person for child communication which is honesty fine because the customer service is better. I remind myself that while I needed to go back to people who had known me forever, he needs people who have known him less than three years. This is uncomfortable today, but what I thought would happen. The more objective I become I see everyone’s needs being met. I can’t wait to get home and kiss my own new boyfriend straight on the mouth. Life goes on, I guess.
There’s only time for pleasant intros and acceptance. I drive straight to the studio, check in and begin people watching as the room fills with beautiful women dressed to feel their best in movement - intentional still, though not as formal as the Freiburg gals. It’s been a minute since I’ve faced the barre, but I consider everything else I do training for when I get to go. Everything feels good, capable and aligned. A live pianist runs her fingers down the scales and then it is time to start off - the same gentle cues I know from my classes in Germany and Dallas. The same rhythms, stretches and breaths in new company.
The prompt for relevé comes and I breathe and lift. The scenes play before me. My daughter is with me and happy. Her father is well taken care of. Her mother is genuinely youthful and blissful, in a partnership based on equality, pursuit and dignity. A new dog to come home to. I pop into position effortlessly and float, my toes feeling strong and nothing out of sorts on me in body, mind or spirit. The descent is slow, light and controlled. I change in the locker room, and I pick up a daughter who is happy to have seen her father. I am refreshed and happy. The girlfriend asks about my class and I can tell her it’s something I found for myself when I was married. I give her a big smile, the energy coming out of my nose.
Here’s my accountability post to keep me in my ballet group here in Dallas, and continuing to throw my shoes in my bag as we go see more and more of the world. The international language of the dance is one of my favorites to practice.
What’s your group? Thanks for reading. <3