I've been peaky this week, Readers. Caught a little bug during a
three day trip to NYC and have been just the slightest bit off since. But I'm
on the upswing. So. Highlights of the week since last I wrote:
Well, last I wrote
was from NYC, actually. I finished up and posted from the mother-in-law's
apartment. It was a rainy snowy day. I was in the city because it's audition season for
ballet summer programs, and my ballet dancer had three auditions lined up. I
accompanied her and waited around. This was actually fine with me. Each was at
Lincoln Center, so there was plenty of coffee to drink and shops to look in. I
squeezed into a pair of jeans a size smaller than I expected to, so
naturally I bought them. And I had a lovely drink and appetizer at the bar of
PJ Clarke's one evening with another mom whose daughter dreams of a professional
dance career. That part was nice.
However, to each audition I brought a nervous
daughter and picked up a disappointed one. It's really hard to witness the ups
and downs. These girls are so hard on themselves it's almost impossible to
understand the appeal of this passion. Where is the payoff for all the hard
work they do, if they are always disappointed? I shouldn't say always. Usually.
Mostly. And the road to a company is so hard, too. And there are so many young
ballerinas hoping to dance professionally, all working towards so few spots.
They're like, they're like sperm, programmed to give their all, even though
only one lucky one will make it.
As a parent, is this what I want for my child?
Don't answer that. (She says to herself.)
Let me focus for a moment on the positives. Number one, the child
has a passion that gives shape to her world. People with passions are lucky. Number
two, she is accustomed to disciplined, hard work, repetition, practice, and
incremental progress. These habits are transferrable.
Yes, they are transferrable. (She says to herself, under her
breath, not suggesting that they would ever need to transfer.)
The 15 year old's belief in the transformative power of hard work is
unshakable. Hers is the epitome of the growth mindset. If you’ve
been reading this blog, you know about Carol Dweck and the growth mindset and
how it’s
key to sustained success. This is good, right? Hard work does accomplish a lot.
Unbelievable things, even, sometimes.
But this belief has a downside, because it creates an unrealistic
sense of control over outcome. It means she thinks that if she finds the right
teacher at the right ballet school and works as hard as she can, she will
succeed; whereas, those are incomplete determinants of success. We know that
success depends on factors outside our control. Genetic factors like inherent
talent or flexibility or musicality or body proportions, to speak specifically
of dancers, for example. It also depends on circumstances. On luck. On being
the one the program is looking for.
So I can't help worrying what will happen when she realizes that
hard work won't take her all the way. It'll get her close. If hard work were
all it took, she'd succeed - no question. But those other factors. That random
chance thing. Smack into that at the wrong time and you wind up with an
existential crisis.
So there's that to worry about.
Along with her dancer's feet. Have you ever looked at a dancer’s
feet? They are not lovely, Readers.
In addition to the audition tour with the 10th grader,
here are some other things I’ve been doing this week:
- A drawing a day. Well, not exactly every day. A drawing a day was and is the goal, though. A friend suggested it. We share the pictures on Flickr. The 11 year old is drawing, too. So it's also a mom-daughter project.
- Three book clubs. I know. Don't say it. Three is a lot. Especially since I have a knee-jerk reaction against being told what to read. In my defense, I will say that one of these book clubs is a mother-daughter book club in which we read YA books and always have homemade baked goods; another is really a monthly dinner with old friends during which we pick a book to discuss the next month because we’re all interested in a lot of the same books - which is one of the reasons we are friends. That leaves one more official book club where I'm getting to know the people, as opposed to already being friends with all of them, and since we’re not a community of leaning over the fence chatting, the book club is the official, sanctioned way for women to get together.
- My shitty first draft.
- Meditation. Sort of.
- Yoga in the mornings. Sometimes just the barest of sun salutations.
- Kegel exercises. If you don't know what those are, you can look it up. You should be doing them, too (if you are a woman).
- Plucking chin hairs before they grow long enough to curl around themselves.
- Therapy Dog visiting at the middle school.
- Belonging to the Make-up Committee for the middle school musical (Seussical, Jr), which means face painting a cast of 75 students, one of whom is the 11 year old. She is a jungle animal.
- Wondering if the pain in my side is cancer or gas. Wondering if the intermittent pain in my eye is cancer or fatigue. Wondering if my fatigue is just fatigue, or cancer.
So that’s an update on what’s been occupying my time and my mind -
a lot of different stuff, which always feels like too much and not enough
simultaneously. Periods like these feel like muddle, and muddle
seems like inefficiency, although sometimes it's fertilizer for creative
growth. One can always hope.
Update: This just in. One of the NYC auditions panned out and the
dancer has been accepted for the summer. The dream continues uncrushed for now.