is to yearn, and therefore they are subject to indifference, smugness, and they do not appreciate what they have.”
She said this to me because I was often flippant about my training. There was never an ounce of nervousness about what my body could do. Instinct told me I could do it, my body backed up the claim, and that which comes easy is just that. Easy.
My struggle always came in the darkness, when the hours spent doing what never had the power to complete me returned in painful, slow seconds. Is this it? I would think, my heart in panic. Is this all there is to life? The beating pulse in my purple and blue—bloodied—feet was a sad reminder that, yes, this is your entire life. And had been, for as far back as I could remember.
What was even sadder to reflect on—I had been experiencing a midlife crisis all my life, and I was only eighteen. Grandmother Poésy had called me an old soul in a new body. Translated: boring.
After our time in Evelyn Rose’s Secret Cabin, I admitted to Brando that I had never quit dancing. I’d perform for my teachers, my grandmother; I would do the job expected of me.
After Elliott’s death my mother had said that my focus had been shattered—I refused to pick up the same grueling training regime, I refused to travel to other countries to learn, or to show them what I was capable of (though she still sent me, kicking and screaming), and I refused to be taught school lessons at home, or abroad.
I danced when I wanted to, for however long I wanted to, and still, I had never been better. The sadness inside of me seemed to stir my soul; the talent seemed to take this and turn it into something that moved Maja to tears. A rare sight, if there ever was one.
Maja Resnick had been hardened to her core by a communist Slovenia, where she danced for her freedom, escaping to Italy, where she had fallen hopelessly in love with an Italian painter who didn’t find fame until after his untimely death.
Their amour didn’t last. There were times I sensed more there—I couldn’t decide which had made her tougher, a communist dictator, or the loss of her great love. After Italy, she escaped to America with a famed ballet teacher who made her into the legendary star she still was.
It wasn’t just her dancing that dictated her stardom. It was the woman. Who she was and what made her become.
I had always assumed this was why Maja had decided that I was worthy of the prestigious title of ballerina. From her mouth. The dancer lived inside of me, so there was never a stretch to find her and bring her home—she could be awakened with the sound of music, the placement of hands, the rise of feet. A sandstorm that ate flesh and bone, and out from its whirl emerged an entity that made me watch from afar as the muse moved us both.
My mother assumed Elliott’s death had shattered my focus—true. But there was more to it. It had been more than one stone thrown by life. That night in the snow, with Brando, had changed me. I had been acutely aware of him. He was out there, watching, his eyes on me as I moved. In all my years as a dancer, I had never felt what I did from him.
To a certain degree, all dancers hold to Apollo’s standard. They work hard to achieve a state of grace, a harmonious flow, calling on him to ease these through the mind and blood. He is the god of civilization, healing, prophecy, and, of course, poetry, art and music. No, not the kind of music that sets a man’s muscles to seize, but the kind that puts them at great ease.
Apollo’s aristocratic appearance and his perfect proportions could easily be translated into the ballet—and ideal to achieve. But to the dancer Apollo has to become more than an ideal; he has to become a solid presence. He has to manifest and then immortalize from the inside out.
Brando had, to some degree, become immortalized in my life as an Apollo—a presence that had been with me all of my life. I could understand his language on a deeper level. I had always understood. This man, to me, was the measure of all things. And of course, it made sense; he was the leader of the Muses and the