Haiku Heights Day 5 - #85

Lime light flashes bright

Imagine child's delight 

Swift leaping dancers

Warning: There is no poetry beyond this point.  You have been warned.

Today is September 5.  Haiku Height's prompt today is "ballet."

I have always liked the ballet.  When I was five, my mother was a junior seamstress for the Alabama Ballet.  I would watch her work throughout the night, after coming home from waitressing, and sew these beautiful Tu-tus.

One of the last ballets she worked on was the The Nutcracker.  A side benefit of her work was she was able to get us tickets to the show.  Here I am, a 5 year old boy, going to a ballet.  I told no one.  I was embarrassed to be there, but I went because I was made to.  As I sat their in the back of the auditorium, I watched the ballet.  When the Nutcracker finally arrived, I was amazed.  Here was this man dancing. Launching himself into the air and spinning wearing this monstrous nutcracker head, mind = blown.

I watched every dance, and by the end I wanted to be a ballet dancer.  I was able to go back stage and meet the dancers and I found out that most of the dancers who I thought were women were actually men.  Again, I was so amazed by this.

Fast forward 20 years, I never was able to take ballet or dance classes, to expensive, I took my wife to the local rendition of The Nutcracker.  I was quietly enthusiastic.  The lights went down and the curtains opened and...it was not the same.  Oh, it was fine, but...the ballet was not what I remembered.  The Nutcracker himself was a deflated memory.

Now that my daughter is growing up, I want her to experience that wonder of the ballet that I did.  I hope she can.

Till tomorrow,

Thomas