He told me his ex also danced the role of Myrtha.
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I’m becoming skin and bones; my ribcage is jutting through.
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They say they’ll be shipping him, along with all the other boys, off to war. Why would they do such a thing? Would they dare make a widow in this reality too?
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Myrtha, queen of the willis (which rhymes with lilies, for the dead). The willis, according to the romantic ballet and Wikipedia, are “the ghosts of unmarried women who died after being betrayed by their lovers and take revenge in the night by dancing men to death by exhaustion.” The more simple version, generally told to most dancers when they begin working on the ballet, are that willis are the ghosts of girls who have died before they got married. It’s less bloodthirsty that way.
Myrtha, as the queen of the willis, is not the lead of Giselle, but is still a mighty role in the ballet. I began learning the role today. I might even be performing it in a few months.
The queen of the willis is a wily lady herself. Stoic and cold, she is determined to see that all men rot in the ground where they belong – or so she opines. Nonetheless, she leads a horde of undead spirit women all bent on revenge. So what if they seek that revenge in tulle tutus and pointe shoes and flower crowns? Dead is dead. And Myrtha’s heart seems the most dead of all.
For something to die, something must have been alive to begin with. And oh, Myrtha’s heart was more alive and full of passion than anyone’s. There’s a reason she became queen after death.
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I like my eating disorders ordered. The chaotic kind, like bulimia, just feel more dangerous. Not to mention they tend to come with a side of heart malfunctions. I guess possible death is always an option when a body is a living body, but I like my death to come at me from a distance, not sneak up behind me with the random anonymity of a heart attack in my 20s or 30s.
Calorie counting it is. I know calorie counting is not technically seen as an eating disorder, especially as it is the most scientifically accurate – and only scientifically proven – way to lose weight. Nonetheless, it still feels like an eating disorder to me. I starved myself for much of my early twenties and didn’t like it. I made the most of my worst life decisions in that time and still chalk it up to my brain not having enough calories to properly energize it into making smart decisions.
But in the intervening years, I’ve tried numerous other methods, including but not limited to keto, intuitive eating, fasting intervals, and only having beer, tacos, and burgers and little else the rest of the time. None of those methods really worked for me after the first few days or weeks. Counting calories is the only tried and true method that still works over time.
Ballet is one of those strange art forms that seems like its current mode of operation would have been outdated a long time ago. Being willow thin, nymph thin, twig thin, those aren’t signs of strength, necessarily or generally. But in the dance world, they are. You aren’t good enough, you don’t work hard enough, you aren’t dedicated enough if you aren’t small enough. You are inherently less valuable if you are not thin. The less of you there is, the more valuable, like gold, jewels, or other scarce commodities.
I was middling, maybe a bright shiny silver, my first year in the company. Then happiness, contentedness, and strength-building all led to me turning into passable copper: valuable in its own way, but only in very select circumstances. I got tired of being copper, though. I wanted to go back to being bright and shiny and valuable, maybe even golden. The directors like their golden favorites, after all.
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World War III is just on the horizon. Which horizon, they haven’t said yet, but it could be any horizon. Tomorrow’s? Perhaps. Or maybe not until next week’s, or next month’s, or next year’s.
Aren’t they always talking about World War III arriving soon though? Ever since World War II ended, we’ve been expecting World War III. The Cold War was a break from that, but only a small break. Wasn’t mutually assured destruction part of the underlying fear and assumption during the Cold War?
Anyways. Nuclear disarmament never happened, at least on a mutually assured level. That doesn’t mean World War III can’t happen though.
If we do go to war, I’m pretty positive my husband will be enlisted. He’s of that age of those fine young men in their mid-twenties that is seen as the ideal soldiering age. He also almost joined the military some years ago, shortly before we met. He would certainly be on the short list for government-mandated enlisting.
Our country’s fighting with all the other countries, at least ideologically speaking. We seem to have decided to try to reverse time and reverse our progressiveness along with it. It’s a pity. I have more feelings than I can stand to let out about that, so I just simmer instead.
At the end of the day, the point is that, if we fight with enough countries, we’ll make ourselves some real enemies or else some real allies who are enemies with everyone else, and that will make us enter a war. Now, the United States has not formally declared war since 1942 after the attack on Pearl Harbor. I doubt we’re about to start now. Nonetheless, that doesn’t stop our need for soldiers, especially if we enter some serious combat zones with our allies.
We might even declare war soon. No one knows. Every day these days is feeling different, terrifying, as if we’re approaching a brink of precipice we’re about to fall right over into the chaos of uncharted new territory ripe with enemies around every corner.
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I got home from rehearsal today straight into the arms of my husband. He was in the kitchen, making shepherd’s pie: black apron tied around his waist, his best knives out for vegetable cutting, and stew already simmering on the stove. He embraced me hard and I breathed in the scent of his skin as I nestled my face into his neck.
“Hi,” I said softly.
“Hi, my love. How was your day?”
“Ugh,” I groaned. “Everything hurts. My body hurts, but mostly my brain hurts.”
“That bad, huh?” He turned back to his work at hand: mashing potatoes. “Here, try some of this.” He handed me a spoon full of beef and tomato stew. Technically, he makes cottage pie, not shepherd’s pie, but we colloquially call it shepherd’s pie anyways.
I blew on the spoon more times than probably necessary. “Mmm, that’s so good. I can’t wait for it to be done.”
“So, what was bad about today?” He asked, as he turned back to the business of cooking.
“It wasn’t bad. It was just a lot of information all at once. I don’t think I really learned most of it. Especially all of the pantomime. There’s just so much. “You, dance. Second you, dance then die. You, just die.” And it’s all blending together.” I groaned again as I leaned into him from behind.
“You’ll learn it all though. You’ll get it. Plus, it will help to have context when you start working with the other characters. That should help a ton.”
“Thanks, love.” I kissed his cheek. “I’m going to change out of my dance clothes. Don’t eat everything without me!” I called over my shoulder.
I didn’t end up eating much that night. His shepherd’s pie was one of my favorite meals, but counting calories doesn’t lend itself very well to home-cooked meals. Well, maybe I could help myself to just a small bowl. It was exquisitely delicious.
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I never really compared myself to his ex. We seemed so different in nearly every single way that it almost felt like a relief to know we had this role in common. Maybe my husband’s type is the type of dancer who can pull off a good steely eye on stage.
I thought about this quiet girl, the girl that he courted for months before she even realized he was interested romantically in her right, before we started another Act II rehearsal a few days later. From what he told me of her, she always reminded me of a little woodland bird. She must have felt at home with this role. Myrtha exists practically perched above everyone else, starting from her very first entrance in the second act.
I bourréed across the front panel of vinyl marley in the studio, trying hard to keep my gaze straight ahead through the veil’s gauzy texture while also making sure I was still angling straight across. I almost stepped on the lilies laid on Giselle’s grave on my way off stage.
The second bourrée entrance took me further upstage and across. The third bourrée entrance was one I almost missed the music for – again – and it took me to center during the brief silence in the music. No more veil for the penchés, thank goodness.
By the middle of Act II, my dancing was done but my legs were done as well. Myrtha’s last entrance was the hardest; the saut de basque manège led straight into the final set of jumps with the corps de ballet. And then… stillness. Myrtha remains steely-eyed, supposedly unfeeling, and regally cold for the rest of the ballet.
But don’t be deceived. She feels everything: every miniscule cramp, every feeling of despair on behalf of those who have loved and lost, every moment and breath still on stage. There is so much more to her than meets the eye.
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This administration’s war plans are becoming apparent to the general public. One only needs to read the headlines. “Troops sent in retaliation to NATO’s plans,” “Administration’s diplomacy fail accidental or deliberate?,” and “Modern war requires modern weapons – and the humans to use them” are just some of the headlines gracing the interwebs every single day. We’re teetering closer to the edge. People are saying all-out war is coming and is as close as weeks away.
Officially, nothing has been declared. While full-on warfare feels like something of the past, there’s a danger to romanticizing it and believing something like that can’t happen again in the present. That romanticization makes it less tangible and less real, something without actual stakes in the here and now. Lives, for instance.
My husband has talked about enlisting for the National Guard for some time. He feels it’s a way to give back to the community. I’ve warned him off of doing so a time or two, with the main reasons being those related to mental health. A very high percentage – compared to the civilian population – of those in the military get PTSD. Even the National Guard, used sporadically as they are, have a much higher rate of developing PTSD than the average person. With my husband’s depression that comes and goes, I don’t feel like PTSD would necessarily be a good thing to add onto that.
At the end of the day, though, it’s ultimately his choice. I wouldn’t stop him if he feels strongly enough about it.
I don’t know how he’ll feel if we actually go to war. Will he want to join and enlist? Would he rather stay home with me and find some other way of giving back to the community? god hoping, he’ll get a choice in the matter and not be mandatorily drafted.
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Men and women alike get drafted in ballet. We do self-select into it, but once we’re in a company, we’ll be used, and by used, I mean we’ll be cast as something or other no matter what. Most of the men for Giselle are only in Act I, but the few in Act II almost physically die for it. And us women, we all play the spirits of dead women in Act II. There is no other choice. If you dance, you will die.
At least that’s what Myrtha keeps telling the men, if you misinterpret the pantomime.
Misinterpretation can be easy, when you have no calories to keep your brain operating at full capacity. I see it all the time. In fact, I’m starting to see it in myself, and that’s the scary part.
I feel slower picking up new choreography. I feel less capable of fully managing my emotional intelligence. Maybe this is part of why directors love starving dancers. We’re less likely to raise our voices or fight back when our bodies are literally fighting for their own lives. Under-nourishment should be seen for what it is: starvation.
My jumps haven’t suffered yet though. The keyword here is “yet.” It’s a fine line between losing enough fat to jump as efficiently with less muscle and losing enough muscle that one can no longer jump. Those jumps are important for Myrtha. The single thing that might be more important than the jumps is the glare. As Myrtha, you cannot smile on stage. You absolutely cannot smile.
I have to say, I think my burgeoning cheek bones have been helping with the glare.
At this point, we know the whole ballet. We’re starting to run whole acts at a time. The stamina for surviving Myrtha is there, but I want to get to a thriving state. Sweat poured off my skin earlier today when I ran all of her variations in the context of Act II; in other words, I ran all of her variations back to back to back to break to back to break to back. That’s three variations in a row, a short break, a variation, another short break, and then the breathtaking coda variation.
Adrenaline really does help one get through seemingly impossible things. Just now, though, I started feeling all that dancing in my body. My left ankle now feels crunchy anytime I stand on it while turning out. I could probably keep jumping, if I needed to, but standing in a b-plus position, god forbid.
I always spell “god” with a lowercase these days, even when I’m not referring to “gods” plural. A singular god wouldn’t send people off to war, and war is coming, like it or not. I danced through rehearsal today and watched as the men died there on the studio floor. Soon I’ll be going home to turn on the news and watch men and women die for real overseas. We women are lucky in that we get to self-select into it. But this country made sure to continue required registration for service for all men ages 18 through 26. My husband still falls into that category for a few more years.
So, yes, god forbid a lot of things. My broken body, my other half sent off to war, the need to compare ourselves with those that came before… yes, these all have different levels of seriousness, but, as humans, we can rarely stop and see the difference between the trees unless we’re intimately acquainted with them.
I’m starting to see the trees, but only barely.
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So how does this end, you ask? I’d like to ask you the same question.
The ending of the ballet is death. So is the end of war. So, to, is it the ending to life.
These skin and bones of mine make me human, but underneath their emaciated exterior, there is nothing left to give. I’ve given my all to ballet, to this life of art and glory, in pursuit of something greater than myself. Why should my body be saved when so many dancers’ bodies aren’t? Why should I be special?
It was two weeks before opening night for Giselle when they drafted my husband. He had to ship off mere days before I went on stage, dancing for him. In a strange way, I guess he still got to see me perform, albeit years ago in the past. By “me,” I mean he got to watch his ex perform Myrtha when they were together, so he’s already seen his love embody the spirit of a woman made harsher by the cruelties of life and men.
Since he left, I’ve barely eaten. I made it through the shows with the last of my strength, but I’m so glad it’s the end of our season. I have no responsibilities for several weeks yet. I’ve no energy to eat, no desire to eat, nothing left to live for in this moment except for what may come in the future. The war is deadly on a mass level. What a great and terrible unknown that is.
I partake of water like I partake of hope, now. I won’t eat until he returns home safe and sound.
The End