"Thowd Position"

I've held on to my first pair of pointe shoes all these years, I suppose for sentimental reasons. Certainly, I haven't kept them for practical purposes since my feet have grown 2-whole shoe sizes since I last wore them and secondly, my feet are too lazy to tolerate that kind of abuse anymore. Anyway, I keep them in my sock drawer where I can look at them everyday and sigh. When I was a teenager, awkward and a bit ugly with very poor posture, I could put my pointe shoes on and feel myself transform into something beautiful. Some of the culture of being a ballerina is difficult on the psyche, but for me it empowered me and gave me a bit of a reprieve from the loneliness of having a tough adolescence. Petra loves ballet, she loves to take ballet and she loves to watch ballet. She skips around the house humming the Nutcracker and has taught Soren and Annike all sorts of dances from that ballet. She is not currently taking ballet because she had a very busy fall with soccer and gymnastics.
Yesterday, when Petra came home from school she went running into my room with great purpose and came out with my pointe shoes. "Mommy," she whispered while handling them like they were the most beautiful things she'd ever touched, "may I put them on?" No, no, no! Don't let her fall in love with this. In a flash, a thousand images of Petra raced through my mind - Petra with blistered feet, Petra with broken toes, blood stained pointe shoes, tender ankles, sore back, feeling fat, feeling heartbroken when she doesn't get the part, and so on. But also, my heart skipped a little beat with excitement. She still likes ballet! I then pictured her on-stage in NYC, perfect turn out, great leg extension, curtsying to the city's elite as they tossed bouquets of 3-dozen roses to her. Ahhhhhh . . .
I had to laugh later, as she was doing handstands on the wood floor in the family room with my pointe shoes still on her feet, because she said to me, "do you know why I like Johnson and Johnson shampoo so much? Because, I bet that's what Shawn Johnson uses. She's my favorite." Now I'm thinking, if she brings it up, we'll sign her up for ballet again otherwise we'll just hang out with the rest of the Olympic hopefuls at gymnastics.