Waltz Time — Entry 10 - The Weight of Where I Came From

 Waltz Time — Entry 10 - The Weight of Where I Came From

“Sometimes the hardest journeys begin with the smallest steps, even the ones we take at five years old.”

Before tea at two, before the promise of “interesting news,” there was always the weight of where I came from.

I grew up in New Jersey, the eldest daughter of Italian immigrants. That role — eldest daughter — came with an unspoken contract. Responsibility was braided into my hair as tightly as the braids my mother pulled each morning. While other kids might have lingered over cartoons or begged for rides, I walked myself to ballet class from the time I was five. My legs were small, but my determination was bigger, carrying me down sidewalks lined with chain-link fences and laundry waving on back porches.

Navigating the one phone and one bathroom in our house was like a football field tackle. On top of the four of us, some cousins came to stay for months at a time. It was mayhem, but my mother kept order with a toughness that wasn’t always sweet.

Home was never unloving, but it was strict. My mother, fierce and often weary, carried her own burdens of sacrifice. Her voice could be sharp, her expectations sharper. She believed in survival above softness, in respect above rebellion. My father worked long hours, quietly and steadily, but I can’t remember him ever telling me I could be anything I dreamed. What I learned instead was that if I wanted more, I had to prove it with sweat.

That’s what dance became for me,  not just art, but escape. A place where no one could scold me for dreaming too much, because dreams there took the form of discipline: pliés, tendus, aching muscles, blistered toes. Each movement was a tiny rebellion and a devotion at once.

By the time I reached the city in my twenties, that duality was already etched into me. I could smile through rudeness at the restaurant, deflect the chef’s lewd remarks, brush off customers who thought my body came with the meal — because I had been trained my whole life to endure, to keep moving, to hold myself together even when everything around me tried to chip away at my softness.

That morning, ballet had been only the beginning. After class, I rushed uptown for my voice lesson, still sweaty, my leotard hidden under layers, scarf wrapped tight against the city wind. The studio smelled faintly of polish and old wood, a piano always waiting in the corner like a steady companion.

My teacher never let me off easy. Scales first, breath control next, vowels stretched until they felt like muscle and bone. He had a way of stopping me mid-note with a raised hand — not unkind, but insistent — reminding me, "The voice was not just about sound, but about honesty. Sing from where it hurts,' from where it hopes, he would say.

By the time I left, my body was tired but my spirit sharper, as if voice and dance together had carved out a space where I was more myself than anywhere else.

And still, underneath it all, Marc’s invitation replayed in my head. Tea at two. Corner of 73rd and Amsterdam. Interesting news.

And I was running late!

The girl who had once walked herself to class at five years old still lived inside me — cautious, dutiful, never wanting to disappoint. But the woman I was becoming? She was ready to say yes to possibility, even if it frightened her.

💓