A couple days ago, I met up with a friend (socially distanced, of course). I was wearing one of my old Nutcracker cast sweatshirts (I was in the Atlanta Ballet's Nutcracker for four years when I was a kid). My friend commented on the shirt, and we talked about the year that she had also auditioned for the same production. She was 12. She was rejected because, as one kind judge put it, "you're too good-looking." The children's choreographer, who was more blunt, elaborated, "you're too mature-looking," and finally, when this 12 year old still didn't understand, "your breasts are too big."
Obviously, my friend was very upset by this at the time, and still remembers the sting of being turned away from a production she desperately wanted to be in, for a reason that she couldn't do anything about.
Later, as a 20-year-old college student, she was in a dance class and realized, watching in the mirror as her short, curvy self danced in a line with taller, willowy ballerinas, that, yes, the visual difference between herself and other dancers did disrupt the line and flow of the choreography. She said that realizing this for herself as a college student - realizing that she couldn’t "fit" in a professional dance company - was hard, but also drastically different than being told at 12 that your body is a problem.
As another curvy former ballerina, I completely understand this. “Curvy” is being kind - I was fat. (No, this isn't body shaming, fat shaming, etc. When you're 11 years old, not quite five feet tall, and weigh 111 pounds, you're fat no matter how you slice it.) My ballet teacher who, yes, was the same blunt children's choreographer from that audition, always gave me grief about my weight.
Most of the girls at my ballet school started pointe (dancing in toe shoes) at 11. My teacher had me wait a year; she said my ankles weren't strong enough to support all my weight on my toes. Not that I was any better at 12. For some strange reason, I gained approximately 10 pounds a year in middle school - weighing 111 at 11, 123 at 12, and 132 at 13.
Miss Joanne might have had a point, as hard as it was for me to hear. I destroyed my ankles; after a year on pointe, I had not progressed in my pointe work. Rather, I had gotten to where I could not rise up onto my toes without pulling myself up on the barre.
I also neglected to mention that the year I was 12 was the last year I danced in the Atlanta Ballet's Nutcracker, and the last year that my sister and I attended their ballet school. We didn't get into the Nutcracker the next year and, rather than continuing to drive almost an hour four days a week (between the two of us) to class, we found a new ballet school closer to home.
This was also around the time that girls my age were deciding whether to continue in the pre-professional classes - four, five, and eventually six days a week with the intention of one day auditioning for a professional dance company and making this a career. There would be no time for any other activities - I would have to drop drama club, which I had been in for a couple years.
Ankles aside, this was about the time I started to notice differences between me and some of the other girls in my class. They were thin. Some were too thin. Some of them were already talking about how all they ate between breakfast and going home to dinner - late, after all their dance classes - was low fat yogurt and an apple.
I didn't really understand yet what eating disorders were. But I also knew that 1. I couldn't commit to that kind of lifestyle, and 2. it wasn't healthy.
Around the time I turned 14, toward the end of 8th grade, unable to dance on pointe, and unwilling to drastically change my lifestyle in order to do so, I decided that I would drop ballet and instead continue with theatre.
Dance - ballet in particular - is one of those arts that's known for the extremes the artists push themselves to. To some extent, it's necessary. The human body wasn't designed to support 150 pounds on a single toe; some people can make it work with 90, though.
But dance isn't the only art that seems to produce health issues. There is, of course, the whole concept of the starving artist; the person who is so dedicated to their art that they live in poverty and squalor, making art rather than money, neglecting their health, burning their manuscript to stay warm, and dying tragically young. It's not just something you see in an opera. Jonathan Larson, creator of Rent, died younger than I am now. The night before his magnum opus was to open, he collapsed on his kitchen floor with an aortic aneurysm - something that could have been prevented had he seen a doctor in the past decade, which of course he couldn't afford to do, even working full time as a waiter.
Jim Henson died of abscesses in his lungs because he was “too busy” to go to the doctor for the flu.
And these are looked on and admired as the great tragic artists of our time. They gave all for their art.
On the other hand you have Stephen King. Prolific author, has "made it big," and is still alive and kicking. Is he less of an artist because he's still OK?
There came a time that I had to decide between theatre - and by theatre, I mean working 3 part-time jobs, driving a car held together by duct tape and mold, going to auditions but never getting called back, living with my parents, having no health insurance - and getting a full time job so that I could live something better than an abjectly miserable existence. Did that make me less of an artist than those I know who did continue with that starving artist lifestyle?
I've been writing for years. I still don't dedicate the time to it that I "should." I've been to conferences and workshops, taken classes, and read books on how to be a novelist. Many authors - so many authors - suggest staying up late, after everyone goes to bed, to write, or getting up before dawn to write... or both. And... I can't. I have insomnia. I have anxiety. I had post-partum depression not quite a year ago. (Oh, yeah, I also have a toddler.)
Sleep is non-negotiable. My own nutrition is non-negotiable. My picky, teething 16-month old's nutrition and physical therapy are non-negotiable.
Does my putting my well-being, and that of my daughter ahead of my writing make me less of an artist? Maybe. But if I never finish my novel, if I live to see my daughter grow up, if I live a decent life in comfort and good health and never publish another story... if those are the only choices, then I'll live with that.
12-year-old me and my 8-year-old sister in all our mid-90’s giant sweatshirt glory.