Confronting The Wall of Mirrors

A few weeks ago I started Monday night belly dance lessons in Ossining, about an hour north of Manhattan for those of you who live elsewhere. I have always wanted to take belly dance and so I was thrilled when I found a class that was affordable and conveniently located directly between my office and home.

Our teacher, Nahara, is talented, lovely, gentle, encouraging and fun. I can’t imagine a better way for me to confront the dreaded wall of mirrors.

My first wall of mirrors was in a ballet class when I was 5 years old. A room full of little girls in leotards all excited to move our bodies like the ladies we saw at the ballet. Honestly, I think the thing we were most interested in was playing pretend ballet dancer because it’s not like any of us was thinking about a career. Sadly, that room full of little girls came complete with a room full of disappointed mothers, desperate to push their pretty little darlings into the spotlight. I remember being pushed to the back of the line by mothers more competitive than mine, stepping in to move their darling to the front.

There was also a dance teacher who told me that I would be the only kid in class not allowed to do the “Falling Leaves” movement that the other little girls practiced. All the girls would line up at one corner of the room and we were supposed to flutter. Quickly moving on the balls of our feet, our arms raised up high over our heads and then fluttering up and down, like falling leaves. I wasn’t allowed to be a falling leaf because the teacher said I didn’t have the right body type for that movement. That was the day all the other kids in class stopped talking to me. For fuck sake, what kind of miserable hag singles out one little kid in front of the entire class for having a “wrong” body?

I remember tearfully looking over at my mother fully expecting to see a look of outrage on her face. I fully expected her to come running over to defend me. I fully expected her to insist that every kid who paid for the class got to practice every movement that every other kid in class practiced and they got to do it with a smiling and encouraging teacher. But that isn’t what happened. Instead, I saw the face that I would see every day from that moment, until I finally moved out of her house and stopped talking to her for several years. That was before we got a few issues handled. But back then, when I was 5, she was ashamed of her chubby daughter with the frizzy hair and the wrong body type to be a falling leaf. Hell, maybe she still feels that way but now she knows not to tell me, not even “for my own good.”

So here I am facing the wall of mirrors again but this time it is wonderful. I know that my muscles aren’t familiar with these movements and that I am clumsy, but the brilliant Nahara tells me that I am doing great. I know that I am the largest body in the room but all the girls in this class smile and chat before and after the class because our body shape has nothing to do with our friendship. There are no pushy stage mothers here – just women looking to feel good and have fun. I love the music and the scarf with coins that I wear around my hips. I love to watch myself shimmy and shake and learn choreography. And even if no one else outside of that classroom ever sees me I feel like I have finally gotten to be a falling leaf, and I am the prettiest leaf ever of all time.