in dubious ballet

Apr 26, 2005 17:39

Today was ballet. I spent the better part of last night trimming into shape my little purple and blue swatch of chiffon and hand-stitching purple ribbon around the edges to make it look more finished. I stitched a patch of silk lilacs near the collar of my leotard and two at the elbow and stuck some more in my hair this morning. It's rhythmic and methodical, mind clearing, stitching in a straight line creeping from one end to the other, or in circles around the centers of flowers. Because it has some semblance of mandatory attached to it, I indulge in it despite having a paper due last Friday that still is not finished and two exams tomorrow. So I allow myself to take it seriously, as seriously as anyone in their right mind takes a gym class in college, because...because. I worry about how far behind this homemade chiffon skirt, which will be worn for an hour and trashed, is putting me in my legitimate coursework, but it has to get done because of the flu and missing a week of class and how bad having a C in a cupcake class will look.

So I get to class with my beautiful, pathetic little outfit, expecting to have outdone everyone, and I see 22 girls in full dance-troupe regalia. Sequins and fringe and velvet and rippling hemlines, all factory fresh and spanking new, and I feel like a damn Walton bumbling in there with my stupid homemade shit, stitches all visible and crooked and no sequins. "Pa says we cain't afford them ol' storebought things..." but we still have rhythm and our legs move just as well under our simple cloth.
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