What to do with memories that make you cringe?
On Sunday the little one and I went on an awesome girls' date to my friend Tara's place to watch FAME (I'm gonna live forever!). LO played with the cat toys, ate lots of apple slices and spit out the peels, and repeatedly tried to get the cat to play a game on my iphone. The cat wasn't into it.
Tara and I started talking about what we'd focus on if we got to go to a performing arts high school now (theater for her, voice or dance for me), and I flashed back to my ... erm..."previous dance experience".
It was fifth grade. I suffered from that charming sort of crippling shyness that leads to selective mutism, a marked lack of first kisses, and a future career as a YA author. Anyhoo. I signed up for an after school dance class with some girls that I desperately wanted to be friends with. One of them was super good at the head moves that went along with Walk Like An Egyptian. I thought the worst part of class was when we had to leap one at a time across the dance floor. I wasn't a leaper. I sort of hopped once, and then scurried like a mouse looking for its hole. I was wrong, though, because the worst part of the class happened when the teacher sprung it on us halfway through that we were going to have to perform. On stage! How could she not have mentioned this on the first day so I could have promptly dropped out? She kept it a secret. A cruel, shy-kid targeting secret. I informed my mom immediately upon pick-up that I would NOT be performing in the recital.
She disagreed.
I contemplated faking small pox, but lost my nerve.
Our outfits for the recital were lime green spandex biker shorts with sparkly suspenders. And we weren't allowed to wear underwear! OR a bra! The horror, I tell you, was profound.
If the recital took place in a book, instead of in real life, it would have gone like this --- girl shakes her shyness, takes the stage, performs beautifully, standing ovation ensues.
Instead, it was more like -- shy girl messes up the steps, someone on her left hisses "What are you doing?!" after being stepped on by shy girl, shy girl prays for alien abduction.
I was so embarrassed that I rode home in the trunk. It was a hatchback, so it wasn't like I was going to suffocate, but it felt like a sufficiently terrible place to start serving my term as disgraced junior dancer. I watched the moon and stars through the defrost wires in the back windshield and told my parents that I was definitely coming down with something, and definitely needed to stay home sick the next day. Which I did, totally ashamed and feeling very much alone and oh woe was me.
Blarg.
What the heck do you do with a memory like that? I mean, it's not even so terrible --- I mean, no one died. I didn't lose a limb or a loved one. But still, it nicks at my insides. So what do I do with it? I mean, besides tell my friend Tara and then blog about it? Do I need to do anything about it at all?
Of course, the writerly answer would be to put it in a book. But really, I wouldn't want any of my characters to go through the horror of a lime green bodysuit with no underwear. I could change what happens of course, but that feels like a betrayal of my former self, the one who made it out of grade school and lived to tell [blog] the tale.
What do YOU do with the memories that make you cringe?
xoxo
AMV
Tara and I started talking about what we'd focus on if we got to go to a performing arts high school now (theater for her, voice or dance for me), and I flashed back to my ... erm..."previous dance experience".
It was fifth grade. I suffered from that charming sort of crippling shyness that leads to selective mutism, a marked lack of first kisses, and a future career as a YA author. Anyhoo. I signed up for an after school dance class with some girls that I desperately wanted to be friends with. One of them was super good at the head moves that went along with Walk Like An Egyptian. I thought the worst part of class was when we had to leap one at a time across the dance floor. I wasn't a leaper. I sort of hopped once, and then scurried like a mouse looking for its hole. I was wrong, though, because the worst part of the class happened when the teacher sprung it on us halfway through that we were going to have to perform. On stage! How could she not have mentioned this on the first day so I could have promptly dropped out? She kept it a secret. A cruel, shy-kid targeting secret. I informed my mom immediately upon pick-up that I would NOT be performing in the recital.
She disagreed.
I contemplated faking small pox, but lost my nerve.
Our outfits for the recital were lime green spandex biker shorts with sparkly suspenders. And we weren't allowed to wear underwear! OR a bra! The horror, I tell you, was profound.
If the recital took place in a book, instead of in real life, it would have gone like this --- girl shakes her shyness, takes the stage, performs beautifully, standing ovation ensues.
Instead, it was more like -- shy girl messes up the steps, someone on her left hisses "What are you doing?!" after being stepped on by shy girl, shy girl prays for alien abduction.
I was so embarrassed that I rode home in the trunk. It was a hatchback, so it wasn't like I was going to suffocate, but it felt like a sufficiently terrible place to start serving my term as disgraced junior dancer. I watched the moon and stars through the defrost wires in the back windshield and told my parents that I was definitely coming down with something, and definitely needed to stay home sick the next day. Which I did, totally ashamed and feeling very much alone and oh woe was me.
Blarg.
What the heck do you do with a memory like that? I mean, it's not even so terrible --- I mean, no one died. I didn't lose a limb or a loved one. But still, it nicks at my insides. So what do I do with it? I mean, besides tell my friend Tara and then blog about it? Do I need to do anything about it at all?
Of course, the writerly answer would be to put it in a book. But really, I wouldn't want any of my characters to go through the horror of a lime green bodysuit with no underwear. I could change what happens of course, but that feels like a betrayal of my former self, the one who made it out of grade school and lived to tell [blog] the tale.
What do YOU do with the memories that make you cringe?
xoxo
AMV