Footloose and fancy free.

These photos have been making the rounds, but I can't help it -- I had to share!  Feast your eyes on The Ballerina Project and the many photos of ballerinas doing their thang in various spots of New York.  I'm obsessed with the juxtaposition of ballet and city.

Have I ever told you I used to dance?  I was a competitive dancer for fourteen years of my life [well, not competitive for fourteen years, I was probably in company for six or seven years] and still swoon when I see good dancing.  Ballet was never my forte and my studio mostly excelled in other aspects of dance, but beautiful pointe work can still take my breath away.  I was in The Nutcracker every year and made my friend promise me that she'd see it with me this year, finally.  The thing is, when you are in The Nutcracker and it becomes this chore and annoying thing you have to do every year, you're definitely not stoked to see it as an audience member.  But, I feel like I've come far enough and am nostalgic enough to ooohhh and ahhhh this year.  I WILL make it happen.

I actually took a ballet class a few years ago for exercise and, more likely, to see if I could still do it.  It was the most discouraging thing ever.  My brain was all, "I know how to do this!  I remember this!" and my body was like, "Hell no!  You might as well be speaking Greek."  The teacher told me I was being too hard on myself, but she had no idea -- I used to win awards for this sort of thing and now I can barely pirouette!  I told you:  Depressing.

I am afraid I am relegated to audience member and gawker of the beauty of dance from now on.  I am ready to embrace it as a relic of my childhood [don't even ask me about dance camp] and I'll happily do so here.

*First seen on For Me, For You