Absence
I've been travelling for work. I had been away for about a week, and still had about five days to go when I received an email from our son: Daddy. It is like I am living in a parallel universe in which you don't exist, but you are still in my head somewhere. I went into panic, a paralysis - I was unable to process this simple sentence, and the explosive nature of its content. My initial reaction was one of distress at the notion that he was somehow suffering; in pain that I had been gone for so long. I felt sick and my inclination was to pack my bag and return home. Then, I calmed down a little, my ego became less inflamed and I saw this sentence for what it really is: an effective strategy for managing separation - he has developed a way of coping. Some of you might recall how it was in the beginning. Our separation seem irreconcilable to me only eighteen months ago: the over-riding experience of having a child at boarding school was, at first, my agony at our son living away from his home during the week. This severance was terrible for me. Even when it became more comfortable for him, I still felt abandoned; a type of emotional cauterisation. I was numbed - unable to face up to the experience of the pain. Each week, this sensation would gradually decrease as Friday approached, but it would return again on Monday morning after I had dropped him off. Unlike our son, I was unable to shift into a parallel universe in which he didn't exist but was in my head somewhere, anyway. Had I been able to make this leap of faith, perhaps I would not have caused myself wallow so much. As an 'enmeshed' parent, I was stuck - unable to reconcile the feelings that I was having with the idea that the situation might be something that our son desired. I was unable to separate my own needs and feelings from his. I imagine that this is a typical parental mistake, and the result was confusion and living my life in a terrible muddle. His idea of shifting into a parallel universe is helpful. When it comes to an emotional intelligence our son displays some promising traits. The construct of another universe allows me to live and acknowledge two separate truths: I am a caring dad who is deeply loves his my children, but I am also physically absent from one of them most of the time, and unable to look after him in the way I had imagined I would. The rhythm of the week has been exhausting for me. Without a parallel universe, I was involved an enervating three stage spiral: - Bonding with our son at the weekend - An extreme sense of loss on Monday mornings - My mood lightening as Friday approaches At its worse, this weekly cycle left me with little energy to do anything else, but I can now replace it with two simple transitions - one shift into a parallel universe at the beginning of the week and one jump again at the end. I will develop a futuristic ability to quantum leap. I've commented on the Zen nature of our son's world-view before now. His awakened heart often exposes my foolishness - my inflated sense of self and my ego-driven ways. If he were a judgemental type, he would find me ridiculous. In Buddhism, there is a notion of something called Boddhichitta - a practice which involves acknowledging that we are all in some way connected. Or, as our son expresses it so simply, shifting into a parallel universe - one that involves a recognition of the presence and the absence simultaneously. It is possible that in the event that he does not become a dancer, he will instead explore the world of science - quantum mechanics, in which particles exist in two states at the same time. Or perhaps his sanguine acceptance of the world will lead him to a very different environment, and he'll become a Buddhist monk.
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Attitudes to learning
I originally wrote this blog at 30,000 feet - on a plane. A couple of days later when I tried to find it to edit it, it was gone! It was a good blog. Rather than be consumed with fury and the unfairness of life, I decided to see this as an opportunity to rethink the original. I have re-written it. Ironically, rage, fury and the unfairness of life is one of the things that the blog touches on. Our daughter is finding school a little difficult. I adore her, and her anxiety about school is a serious cause for concern. She is witty, engaging, challenging and fun. She has a highly pragmatic view of the world, and often makes suggestions about how to circumvent a problem with astonishing perception. She is a genius at Minecraft and a terrific swimmer. She is a child full of surprises and vitality. Primary schools have changed a great deal owing to the harsh Gove-ean philosophy underpinning everything. The issue that we are having with her, I do not recall having with our son. The problem is that the class is ranked, and she is painfully aware of the place she is positioned in the class - not far off the bottom. She is bright, thoughtful and affectionate. She writes quite well, and she enjoys being told stories; but her times-tables are slow, and her spelling is mainly miss, occasionally hit. The rigid assessment criteria determine her as someone who is below the median of the class. This unnecessary and fascistic structure does not take into account her passion, creativity or natural love of learning. I see little point in learning stuff by rote, so I am not going to force a six year old to chant her times-tables as if they were some meaningless spell or incantation. I have sat and done maths with her. She has a good grasp of the concepts and what the various functions mean; she just doesn't see the benefit of learning anything parrot fashion. This does not prevent her being joyful when she discovers something new. Her excitement to learn make her a pleasure to work with. And I agree with her about the parroting of maths ... for the time being. Sometimes she rages. The perceived injustice makes her furious. At the root of this injustice is the way her expectation does not match reality. In her mind, she deserves a place at the top table with the children who are reading novels and doing all their times-tables at calculator speed. The fact that she is somewhere near the bottom means that the whole world must be wrong. Her class teacher is talented and kind. He has inherited a way of working which is brutal and dehumanising, and he is doing his very best in helping her to mind the gap between subjective and objective world view. Our son has a completely different attitude. Even though his environment is highly competitive, he is not interested in where he might rank above or below the other dancers. He sees his progress as something personal and private. It is something for him to assess under the skilful gaze of his ballet teacher. He is a zen ballet student - he observes himself as he is working, and his assessment is without judgement. His faith in his own process protects him from this perilous gap between expectation and reality. Whatever he can't do today may be done in a couple of months, or years, as long as he just proceeds, taking the right steps now. The path may be long, but he is an assured traveller without regard for how far ahead or behind anyone else might be. Despite any physical ability, or limitation, this is the perfect temperament for a vocational training in classical ballet. Come what may, it might even be the key to his survival. I can sympathise with our daughter. I think that of the two attitudes to learning, I am more similar to her. She might even have her impatience and preponderance to rage from me and my side of the family. Throughout my schooling and even at university, the gap between expectation and reality was difficult to navigate. In fact, often it was a chasm rather than a gap; one that I've fallen into many times. When I consider any of the slight de-railings that I have experienced in my life; at root lies the discrepancy between what I expect and what is really the case. It has taken me a long time to learn not to fall or even jump, and now, finally, in middle age, I consider myself more accepting, more yielding and kinder; and I still sometimes tumble down into the chasm. It is now my task with the help of our son, to gently show his sister another way - to help her manage her expectation and not trap herself in overwhelming feelings of frustration and rage. And while I am trying to teach her, I am, of course, also trying to learn this myself. We'll start on the times-tables another day. The Real Cost of Ballet
You want fame. Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying... Lydia Grant in Fame I wrote about taboos in my last blog, so I thought that I would just keep going with this one too ... The car just had to be fixed, again. It was starting reliably from cold, but then failing to restart an hour or so later. Just before Christmas I spent about two hundred quid on it because the hot air blower had broken - there was no way to defrost the windscreen. This time it was the temperature gauge - which, I am told, controls the choke. The symbolic implication is not lost on me: inefficient hot air and an inability to gauge the temperature. Perhaps, it is time I face up to things. There has been an elephant in the room for a long while. You may have noticed an issue that I very occasionally skirt around, but am too scared to mention outright: the real cost of ballet. Eighteen months ago I left a prestigious but relatively badly paid job to become self-employed and hawk myself out as a consultant. Ironically, while I have sacrificed a sense of financial security, and a degree of self esteem, I make the same amount of money as before but with considerably less effort. Now I just go into a place, do my job and leave; before I was dealing with political issues, staff issues, and matters of personality. I have been set free. My days are spent fulfilling a new intrinsic sense of purpose: I write, I swim, I walk the dog, I work, I procrastinate, I notice the life that is going on around me. There are also days in which I work; I 'consult'. I am simultaneously more at ease and more on edge. I know what I am doing there is a risky plan. My main source of anxiety is whether I will have the courage to see it through. Doing all this at this time of my life was foolish. Giving up the security of my poorly paid job was stupid, because the huge nagging fear at the back of my mind all the time is the literal cost of ballet. The sword of Damocles will eventually descend and crush my skull, and it will be in the form of a ballet-school invoice. Our son and I am involved in a sort of financial trade-off. I have decided to take some time to invest in my own quite risky venture at the same time as we are investing in another risky venture - the professional ballet career of a twelve year old. I am now nearly at the end of my second year of paying for his tuition, so it is only now that I really understand the financial implications. By now, I could have bought two new small cars. I wouldn't be involved in the false and futile economy of patching up my twenty-year-old pile of rust; we'd be driving around in something that still purrs when it drives and still smells of the factory polish. Once a year, I take my car to the Albanians down the road, it comes back smelling of cleaning product, but let's face it, even with their 'gold' service, it still looks crap. Every night I go to bed dreaming of the car I would drive - how as a family we are sailing through the British country-side in something sleek, smooth and silent. And every morning I wake up to the harsh reality of a stumpy clunky hatchback which is slowly being replaced entirely, part by part. But, it is not all about the money. We are involved in another trade off. We are reaping value from the investment in the moment. We have a son who is fulfilled and positive - he has a belief in something greater than himself, and understands the importance of keeping his dream alive. He is playful, curious and focused. He is learning that effort brings its own reward. He climbed into an institution as I climbed out of one; he, too, is learning to deal with some quite complex situations and surprising personalities. He is growing in strength and independence, and learning the value of being resolute and single minded. If, for whatever reason, it all ends tomorrow, it will not have been a waste of time, effort or money. He is carving out an experience for himself that is unique. My real concern is for my daughter. I dread the day that she says to me: It's okay, dad. You can pay me my money in two instalments - the first when I turn eighteen, and the second when I graduate. This conversation occurs every night in my nightmares ... just at the point when I see my brand new car disappear into the sunset. Another Blog About Bodies I've discussed bodies before, and this blog once again involves talking about the human body - especially my human body. There is no gentle lead-up. I begin from the outset. If this is something that offends or disgusts you, I suggest that you skip this blog - the next one might be less graphic. I had been swimming, and I was in the changing room. In the mirror I caught sight of a naked body standing there. There was nothing remarkable about this body. It was a man's body - that is all. I was very surprised when I shut the locker door to see that my own head belonged to this unfamiliar nude figure. Last time I had bothered to look; this wasn't what my own body looked like. This is not so surprising to me. When I was growing up, we never really made any reference to the fact that we were corporeal beings. Bathroom doors remained locked at all times. Beach holidays meant the boys changing under towels and the girls changing underneath this toilet-tent-like garment with an elasticated neck. Both methods involved contortion and wriggling and fear that someone might be looking at us long enough to catch something pink flop out unexpectedly. There was a cognitive dissonance in how we thought about our bodies - we never acknowledged the fact that being inside them was the only place we could inhabit; there was little mention of flesh or function. Even the word 'fart' was forbidden. In fact, I don't think anyone ever passed wind throughout my entire childhood - and I am certain that no one ever 'farted'. Changing rooms have never been happy places for me. At school, I would physically shrink behind the locker doors and get out of there as soon as possible. Nothing traumatic ever happened - as far as I can remember. I was never the victim of any changing room cruelty. We had one PE teacher who would insist on us parading into the large communal showers, and would stand there until he could guarantee that all the boys had gone through. I don't think his motives were suspicious; he also took us for maths and he probably didn't want the smell of adolescent body odour during a double lesson. Even now, I feel a bit sick whenever I go into the changing rooms. Beyond the ordeal of going to an all boys' school, the stress involved is simply all about getting naked in front of strangers. Times have changed. My own children both know how to unlock the bathroom door from the outside. The idea of the bathroom being a sacred or private place is unknown to them. I could be in the shower, or sitting on the loo, and if one of them wants something then they see it as perfectly normal to just unlock the door and come in. The implication of this is that there is nowhere in the house where I can get some piece and quiet. So, if I choose to extend my visit to the bathroom because I want to read a newspaper article, or I'm mid way through a game of scrabble on my iPad; I have to scream at them when I hear them approaching the door as if my life depended on it. They are slowly beginning to realise - the bathroom is a place I go to when I just want to be alone. I take both our children swimming weekly. The freedom which they display in taking their clothes off in a public space startles me. Even before I have unpacked their swimming kit from the rucksack, they are both naked. It must seem strange to them that their father always huddles behind a locker door to get changed and also always showers in one of the few cubicles with a door; they choose the open plan ones so that they can entertain each other doing whatever it is that they do - I honestly don't know as I'm far too stressed to notice, but they seem to involve a lot of splashing and noise and it earns disapproving looks from others using the changing rooms. For our son, getting changed in a public space is a completely natural activity. At school he has to change in or out of ballet clothes at least four times a day. My feelings of shame or embarrassment are something foreign to him. He just wouldn't have time to indulge them. Also, during ballet classes, his body is under non-stop scrutiny: lines, shapes and timings are commented on constantly. When I was his age I would have crumbled under such a microscope of relentless physical dissection. Even now - especially now, as I focus on the beginning of middle-age decline - I wouldn't survive comments about how I look or the way I move. And yet our son seems entirely comfortable with this culture of physical exhibitionism and continual assessment. He has an ease with his body of which I am envious. Already I have learned much from him. While I am not nearly at his level of physical comfort and kinetic precision, I am happier living in my God-given body and taking up my rightful amount of space than I have ever been. Even though feelings of shame and embarrassment still linger, it is not nearly as bad as it once was. I wish that in my awkward and cumbersome twenties our son had been around to lead by example and show me the way so clearly. But, that of course would have been impossible. Strangers I adore our daughter. She is feisty, perceptive and challenging. Time spent with her can be exhausting and frustrating; but it can also be entertaining and rewarding. Her powers of perception astonish - surprising me again and again with her ability to assess pragmatically and clearly. I also adore our son. He exhibits a temperance that I find admirable. He can stop one of my rants with the bare suggestion of a sigh. He has the driest of sense of humour; the speed of one his repostes can be unsettling. His mind is as nimble as his body, and he always appears so sensible. Both of them inspire, amaze and entertain. Before I knew them, 'unconditional love' was just an abstract concept; now it is something tangible. I feel it endlessly. It is a joy and privilege to be parenting our daughter, but I experience pain and frustration that our son is being brought up by people who are essentially strangers. I've said this before: this is not an ideal situation for me. It is not what I had imagined being a parent would involve; and there isn't a day of my life that it doesn't strike me as absurd. The staff of the school are given to us. We do not choose these surrogates for our children. We have to take it on trust that they are the best for the job. Mostly, I approve. These people are passionate, focused and caring. However, they are also human, and we all have our flaws. I have unsubstantiated anecdotes which suggest there might also occasionally be behaviour towards our children that is capricious, neglectful, and even, very infrequently, cruel - we can't all be perfect all of the time. If our son lived at home, we might stand more of a chance. When needed, we could dismantle or deconstruct what is happening to him in the evenings. Like most families, we would be able to offer support - or mockery - of each other's neuroses over dinner. His anxieties would have a voice and he'd have an immediate response to this sometime teaching methodology, which - reaffirming ballet stereotypes - might be considered a little brutal. It makes me question who is fulfilling this role of parent-adviser-negotiator during the week while he is away: a sympathetic teacher, or a 'house-parent'? I suspect that each group of children - with its naturally divided subsets - is, in a way, bringing themselves up. They are plunged deep into a Freudian nightmare: in the absence of the bolster of their families, they are having to parent each other - the adults are either absent, or even worse; they cannot always be relied upon. At the weekend we help him when it's needed. Now and again we spend so long unpacking the baggage that I wonder what signal we are sending out to our equally precious daughter, or if she notices how much time it is taking. I wouldn't feel resentment if it were our son's baggage, or even our own; but often we are dealing with an issue that belongs solely to an adult we've hardly met, and I get irritated that these adults do not know any better than to keep some of this stuff away from our children. The information that he needs to hear over and over again is that it is not his fault. He's twelve and he is in an environment where we would expect the psychological contract to be such that the teacher teaches and the pupils explore and learn. This clear line of communication seems to become muddled sometimes. It possibly becomes something we might otherwise assess as hectoring: the children attempt to perform a task at hand and are chastised or shamed. Their expectations become warped with uncertainty, as an adult 'having a bad day' reinforces a culture of fear. On those weekends in which some unpacking is needed, we remind him - the teacher is a grown-up and you are a group of children. There are ways we expect adults to behave, and when they don't, it emphasises a deficiency in the adult not in the child, because at the end of the day, we would like all our teachers to behave with kindness. We also try to be compassionate and see it from the other perspective: They have a demanding job; This is a stressful time of year; It must be hard teaching children; Perhaps you've misunderstood the situation. For his sake, I'm slow to criticise and efficient at concealing my biased sense of injustice. I've worked tirelessly to become one of those types of liberal middle class that many are understandably scornful of. My education came at a cost, and my ongoing years of searching and self-development come with an even greater price tag. I pay this price willingly because I was under the illusion that it would equip me to become the best parent I am able to become. It's a tough job and now it would appear that someone else is doing it - people who, to me, are essentially strangers. Catching up #3
Another blog that would have been posted last year, before our internet provider decided temporarily to put a stop to it all. Out of My Depth: Learning how to Tumble Turn. I wondered what it must be like to learn something new. By this I mean something physical, rather than cerebral - I have a 'Learn Spanish' app on my iPad which I've used twice. Kinaesthetic learning is what our son does every day. As his ballet training progresses, he has to learn increasingly complicated techniques and sequences. It becomes more demanding at every(literal) turn. I cannot imagine what this must be like; I've not really succeeded in learning anything physical since learning to ride a bike as a child. Ballroom dancing was out of the question - I'd only worry about the tightly fitting sparkly shirts - so I decided instead to learn how to tumble turn. This is what some swimmers do when they reach the end of the lane. Instead of huffing and puffing and doing an awkward restart, they gracefully turn in the water and push off again in one fluid movement. It's a much more elegant way to continue swimming, and it looks a bit like a dolphin. I've seen a couple of people do it in the pool. They are dynamic, accomplished and efficient - a higher type of being. I want to be one of them. I had no idea of the mechanics of how to do this - but that is the point. I wanted to engage with a physical skill which presented itself as initially impossible so that I could experience the stages of incompetence, competence and then hopefully mastery. The journey of the unknown unknown passing through the known unknown and becoming the known known - as Donald Rumsfeld or the managements experts refer to it. It might have been a good idea to pick a incompetency which didn't involve the sensation of drowning in the early stages of development. The YouTube video that I watched made it look like a simple and natural movement - like skipping or jumping. This is not the case. I learned two things immediately. The first was that when you actually do the turn, you lose all sense of where you are, and which way is up. The second is that water goes up your nose and painfully hits the back of your throat. Counteracting the first of these difficulties involved preparing for the turn by visualising the position I would be in, and then initially doing it with my eyes closed. Combatting the second was easier - I just had to remember to breathe out through my nose as the turn was taking place. I began to dread getting to the end of the lane. I would challenge myself to do it this time, and if I attempted it just twice on any day, I would feel a sense of exhaustion mixed with fulfilment. It took a week before I could execute the move without coughing and spluttering and feeling a burning sensation somewhere in my pharynx. I was always hesitant and many times I terminated performing the turn seconds before it was due to occur through no other reason than fear. Over a period of about a month this is what I learned: - You have to be mid-breath or at the top of the breath in order to turn. The feeling of running out of air in the middle of a turn induces a primal sense of panic. - If you start the turn too far away from the wall, you have nothing to kick of against, so you just lie there under the water - excuse the pun - floundering - Only push off from the wall when you are certain that you are aiming your body in the right direction. Launching yourself across someone else's lane, or towards the bottom of the pool results in embarrassment - Flip back over onto your front as soon as possible after the turn. The videos that show people gliding effortlessly on their backs are all clearly CGI. My own long glides have always ended in a spluttery and ungainly gasping for air. The most interesting element about this adventure involved a point in time about three weeks in. As I was becoming more familiar, and my confidence was burgeoning, I began to start making mistakes and having to stop mid turn. In fact at some points I had to re-remember the technique that I had learned initially. Habits were creeping in or I was forgetting the strict order of the sequence of moves which meant it felt like I was back at the beginning all over again. This was the most frustrating stage, and the one that made me most angry with myself. However, after a month of work, my tumble turns are now graceful and precise. It is my preferred method for turning around at the end of the pool. I do it almost automatically. It is the nearest I am ever going to get to feeling like a fish, or an astronaut ... or a ballet dancer. I have two final thoughts: - If our son has such a rich inner dialogue for every new technique he is mastering, his life must be exhausting. - I bought some cheap mask-style goggles a while ago. They are fluorescent yellow. They were reduced. No one else wanted them in that colour, I presume. I also always wear a swimming hat. It occurred to me a couple of days ago that, even though my tumble turns are magic, I must look like a minion splashing around in the water. It's not over until the Sugar Plum Fairy stops spinning ...
It finally finished last week. I imagine that thousands of parents around the world breathed collective a sigh of relief. It is now no longer possible to see a production of The Nutcracker until it all begins again next December. So, if you've missed it ... Bad Luck! It strikes me as a strange tradition; The Nutcracker is such an enduringly popular ballet that it guarantees any company a full house at Christmas. It is a risk free money-spinner which stops up the gaps caused by riskier expenses at other times of the year. Apparently, forty percent of all annual ticket sales for US ballet companies comes from productions of The Nutcracker. That is not to say that it is a cheap production to stage. Numerous sets are required to illustrate Clara's descent and journey from the court-like world of middle class Prussia into something more anarchic and reckless in the pine forest and Land of Sweets. This is a miniature world packed with the dangers of warring mice, war-crazed gingerbread and spiteful black magic. Maintaining the costumes - never mind making them - must require the sort of budget which could keep a large family fed and clothed for several years. Not only does the production require a full company of dancers, it also demands a small army of supernumeraries, and - this is where we are involved - about 40 children for each performance. The cast is vast. If ballet is an industry, then, during the Nutcracker, our children are workers on a production line: it's tirelessly repetitive, the hours are long and anti-social, and in terms of hierarchy, they are a strange underclass treated mainly with suspicion. Our son did nearly as many performances as there are days in the month, and all this was happening around normal family life at a time when we are completely stressing out about Christmas. We watched his mood change and his physical state deteriorate. He was jubilant, initially, with the applause of the audience ringing fresh in his ears. He enjoyed being part of a company - watching the dancers interact off-stage and listening to the make-up artists gossip. Despite the amount of sleep we were encouraging him to get and the vitamin supplements we were insisting on, he became paler and paler as time went on, and the rings around his eyes darker and darker. On one day he got up and suggested that he was unable to dance that day. It was a two-show-day just after Christmas. He was dancing a matinee and an evening, and he looked terrible. I took him to the stage door. It may seem cruel, but this is the life he has chosen. I want him to understand the reality of it as soon as possible. To be fair, he wasn't complaining and throughout this arduous period, he never expressed reluctance or regret. I explained to one of the chaperones that he was looking unwell and that she could call me if he was too unwell to perform. I fully expected a call between matinee and evening performance, but none came. He danced in both. I stood with the other parents that evening - shivering at the stage door and huddled for warmth like Dickensian characters outside a work house - and he appeared smiling and relieved. He was still jubilant, but this jubilation was muted. For the performances, our children are drilled over and over again. Every day off requires a rehearsal before the next performance, even though the children have danced it numerous times before. There are people who are paying hundreds of pounds for their tickets, and they are not paying all this money to see a load of kids mucking around, and missing their cues. For their hundreds of pounds, they expect precision and a flawless perfection that is beyond most youngsters; and for performance after performance, our children deliver. People often express horror when they learn that our children do not get paid to dance. I understand this reaction, but this treatment of our children does not surprise me. I may have learned to appreciate ballet, but I am under no illusion about how this particular world works. Beneath the beauty lies excruciating pain. And I do not think our children are really being exploited. It might have been relentless, but the rewards were immense. He has gained understanding and insights that otherwise would have been unlikely - he has witnessed the adult world of work, and experienced ballet company life at its most busy and involved. There's no comparison with the children in Indonesia mining metal for our smart phones.I hope that all the other children in other Nutcracker companies all over the world have had such a positive experience. Also, I find it curious. The Nutcracker is a story full of darkness. It is full of cruelty - a father and son separated, punishment for the oppressed middle classes, tyrannous mice, and a child lost in an anarchic and confusing world. It concludes with a clear moment of sexual awakening. If the story hadn't been oddly appropriated by the cultivated ballet world as their Christmas money maker, it would probably lurk in the shadows of story-telling like the fairy-tales of the brothers Grimm, or Alice in Wonderland, or the stories of Saki. I'll go and see it again next year, and think about it. But for now the Sugar Plum Fairy has stopped spinning. Catching up #2 Here's another blog I would have posted last year, if our internet service provider hadn't thought it a good idea to stop providing us with broadband ... The Camaraderie of Ballet This blog is based entirely on observation and speculation ... There are just a few elements of our son's life that inspire envy in me. The main one is that he seems to have found his vocation so young and is showing such tenacity and strength as he continues to focus on his goal. I don't think I have ever shown such determination and discipline. Recently, I became aware of something else of which I am a little envious. Like the proverbial thieves, there is an code of honour among dancers. It would appear that despite the rivalries and competitiveness, they do all they can to help each other get through a day full of the expected hardship and trials. It seems that even though they can do nothing about each other's physical pain, they can help to alleviate each other's emotional trauma. The long term is at odds with the short term. Ballet is a competitive world, and as the future unfolds they become rivals for the same positions, but from day to day, it would appear that they do all they can to stand united. One Monday morning, he forgot his ballet shoes. He had spent Sunday at school, and we picked him up just so he could have a bit of the weekend at home - a few hours on Sunday evening are better than nothing. Whereas a year ago, this slip in memory would have caused an emotional meltdown of a size which might predict the end of the world; now he just shrugged and announced that one of his classmates has the same foot size, he'll see if he can borrow a spare pair from him. More recently he left his track suit at home for the entire week. This is an essential part of his school uniform. It is what they are expected to wear when arriving and leaving ballet class every day. A year ago we would have got a phone call and felt duty bound to somehow get the track suit to school by any means possible. Now, we don't even know about the missing item until he returns at the weekend. He borrowed someone's spare top, and improvised by using a pair of his own non-regimental tracksuit trousers which were a similar colour. He sounded almost boastful as he announced that he has been doing this for a week and 'no one had even noticed'. I suspect that when it is his turn to share and support that he willingly steps up to the mark. I know this because the shorts are still missing. I imagine that he has learned something that some people never really learn: genuine camaraderie can eclipse many of life's worries. Even the punishing austerity of classical ballet crumbles when faced with tacit friendship. Their bond affords resistance and, when needed, subversion; it helps each of them to survive in an environment which to twelve-year-old boys must sometimes seem as hostile sometimes as a battle-field. Instinctively they know that the key to survival is offering help and standing united when the collision occurs between human error and a grumpy dissatisfied ballet teacher. Tribal allegiance, kinship and historical arguments become insignificant. The instinct for collective survival dominates in the moment, and this instinct has altruism at its heart. Apparently vampire bats function in a similar way. They are hard-wired to share when they perceive a fellow bat in need. It has been observed that they are willing to regurgitate food for a needy bat more often than they are willing to receive help. Assistance is offered regardless of family group and independent of any harassment. It amuses me that somewhere in their DNA, young dancers share a tiny strand of it with vampire bats. This response to their environment is instinctive. They are unaware of the 'leave no man behind' credo of the American military, or the 'bind and drive' mantra of the rugby player. They have probably not read or heard Henry V's 'for he that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother'. Their bond is intuitive not intellectual; and I find it even more inspiring and enviable because of this. It is our son's confidence that the bond will support him that I find so moving. There is a chance, however, that it is not instinctive, but a well-known moment from film that has taught them these deep rooted ethics: If you've got troubles, I've got 'em too There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you We stick together and can see it through Cause you've got a friend in me You've got a friend in me Catching up #1
Our wifi broke before Christmas. I continued writing but stopped posting. I have some catching up to do. Here goes: Choice I suggested in a recent blog that I often dilute the information that our son is at a ballet school with the excuse, "But I didn't have a choice." This needs some thinking about. I wonder if it is really true. I have a mild suspicion that I might no be taking full responsibility for the situation in which I find myself. If those 'scouts' had not come to his primary school all those years ago and offered him four years' worth of free classes, life would now be different. There is every chance that he would not have found ballet had ballet not come and found him - something that I sometimes half-jokingly refer to as his initial 'abduction into the cult of ballet'. It would have felt wrong if back then, if I had said no to the free classes. He needed a chauffeur or a chaperone, and I thought nothing of fulfilling this parental role. The reward for taking him to class twice a week was that our child gained an insight into a completely different world - a world that his mother and I would have been unable to give him access. We didn't know at the time just how embedded ballet would become in our lives, and had we known, it wouldn't have changed a thing. We just wanted our child to have a broad range of experience and explore something outside the normal parameters of family life. I would have had the same attitude to something musical, or something to do with acting and drama. Chess, collecting creepy-crawlies, baking, football, swimming or athletics would all have precipitated the same reaction from me - I would have been encouraged him. I probably would not have been so encouraging if he had fallen into rugby or some activity with military cadets; I would not have bought him his first pair of rugby boots or allowed him to put on a military uniform. When he started ballet, we were all oblivious to the impact it would have on him and where it was all leading. I also drove him to all his auditions. This was the point where I could have put my foot down and pointed out the impracticalities of becoming a dancer. However, I played with fire - thinking that we would wait and see if he got in, and then make up our minds. And, as parents have told their children since the beginning of time, if you play with fire, you get burned. Once he'd got into a ballet school, it was too late. The joy surrounding us was overwhelming - he cried, his mum cried, even one of the receptionists at his primary school cried. I didn't cry. I can remember the day clearly. It marked the beginning of a completely new set of worries. I could have been the father who said no - the archetypal father resistant to ballet. But my reasons are perhaps different from the stereotype. I worry about the heartbreak, should the dream end; and I am aware of how few who begin a vocational training at such a young age actually end up dancing as a career. It would have been simpler to end it before it had began - extinguish the dream before it had really caught alight. But then, I would have had to suffer a completely different set of consequences. I would have been known as the person who stopped him from fulfilling his potential. The story would be indelibly written in our family history, and long after my death it would still be spoken about in hushed tones - 'we nearly had a famous dancer in our family, but he was stopped from attending ballet school by his over-protective dad.' Like a cake that was never baked, like flowers that were never sent, or that novel that was never written; the void keeps the fantasy alive. It's just like my career in music: I'd be a rock star now, but I never actually formed a band ... or learned to play the guitar. So, with all things considered, my opinion remains the same: the decision was out of my hands; I genuinely don't believe that I had a choice. I sent my sister a text before the holiday started. 'Let's just aim for an above average Christmas.' The world of ballet revolves around precision and perfection: the line of the foot, the quality of the turn out, the position of the arms. I've been experiencing fatigue of perfection. Witnessing a world in which everyone - regardless of age or gender - is so immaculate and well turned out has been taking its toll. I know that I'm not alone. I often bump into quite a famous dancer - we are regulars in the same café. I recognise her; she doesn't recognise me ... obviously, and I only know who she is because our son whispers at me whenever she passes. Off stage she looks tired. She might be mistaken for an angst-ridden teen in a black beanie on her way to meet her goth friends. There is nothing about her appearance to suggest that she transforms into one of the most accomplished and celebrated dancers of her generation. I imagine that she's a bit like me ... tired of all the perfection. While I am slowly warming to ballet as an art form, I am generally not interested in anything that is perfect. I don't really believe in perfection as a concept, and as an illusion I find it tedious. I enjoy things that are flawed. I like to be disappointed by the reveal at the end of a thriller. I enjoy inadequate acting in films. I like it when singers pitch slightly under the note, or are slightly behind the beat. In turn, I accept my own flaws - they are my only chance at being at least a bit interesting. I am messy. I hoard junk. I can be surprisingly abrasive. As much as I want to become a better person, these are things I will keep until I can unearth deeper and darker flaws which will upgrade me from interesting to fascinating. The pressure to produce a perfect Christmas annoys me. When Christmas is imperfect it becomes more memorable: the fights; the guests that show up late; the disappointment at the present that didn't fulfil expectation; the batteries that run out too quickly. These are the flavours of Christmas as much as cinnamon, chocolate orange, Meltis Newberry Fruits, or mince pies. These tastes linger long after the most expensive gift has exceeded its usefulness. This is what makes Christmas special. Long before we had children - when we were still more carefree than we realised - we once got so fed up with Christmas that we had Covent Garden Soup and champagne for Christmas lunch. It was brilliant. When the relatives finally arrived I was in such a state of bliss that arguments were an impossibility. I'd stopped caring about the food or the company; I was just happy. This is how Christmas should be - but arguably without the alcohol. I will never forget the Christmas of 2015 - the one we have just celebrated: - two family members unexpectedly in hospital - one exhausted child for reasons I'll explain soon in my 'Nutcracker Blog' - hours of driving across the Cotswolds in the dark - the most hilarious Panto I have ever seen. By my own standards, it was unforgettable. Now that it is all over, and 2016 had got its foot firmly in the door, I can resume watching our son struggle with the demands of perfection. His body will grow and his mind will develop despite the centuries old tradition that is trying to exert its full control. So, I hope you had an above average Christmas, and as we all return to work - or life - I wish you a blissfully mediocre 2016. |
Anonymous
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