I miss the easy days, when one-soled ballet slippers barely scuffed fit loosely on my three-year old feet. When a plie was as simple as bending my knees or jumps and turns didn’t look that hard from my childlike view.

There isn’t a time that I can remember when ballet was not a part of my life. That’s not to say it’s been a smooth road, but it’s one that I’ll always be grateful to my parents for starting me on. Music has been the focal point of my expression in the art, as it is for many dancers. What I love about this artform is that despite its technicalities and classical repertoire, each artist has a unique expression of ballet that molds to their sense of movement and taste in music. In all honesty, as much as the classics written by Tchaikovsky or Prokofiev are beautiful and intriguing, another fount of music inspires me. Movie soundtracks, I discovered, are what I imagine myself dancing to. The works of Max Richter, Dario Marianelli, Thomas Newman, and Hans Zimmer amongst others, are invigorating and alive with their own purpose. From long fingers plodding soft keys of a piano to the languid, tormented sound of a violinist the music resurfaces from the movie and becomes a new story in dance. Life is not a fairytale, but movie scores and ballet compile my storybook.

Ballet will always be my imaginary friend. It watched me attempt bouncing steps, triumphed in my first jubilant skips, and chuckled at my foibles. Like a tag-along friend it’s seen my greatest desires and stolen moments. I can remember asking to have a pass to the restroom during science or math class and when no one was in the halls I would gallop and leap to my hearts content, giddy with my secret ballet companion. The long halls of Walsh Middle School never felt so free. I remember earlier days in elementary school when I was too shy to tell friends how much I loved ballet. For some reason I never thought I was good enough to call it my own, it was a borrowed flame I had to shelter before anyone blew it out. Heart pounding, fingers twisting, toes curling, I would wait until it was my turn to talk and think Maybe they’ll see, maybe I can tell them how much this means to me. It seems before my social butterfly landed, the inner muse decided to put pen to paper and express my hopes through poetry and short stories and ideas. These were almost as exciting as learning a rond de jambe. I mark my love for dance in poetry. My head has been filled with fantasy and adventure, my limbs became magical wands when Harry Potter discovered his potential. I dared to travel across the floor farther and turn faster when Anne of Green Gables released rampant passions concerning red curls and irksome boys named Gilbert. I was a heroine, an actress, a princess, a four-legged furry friend. I am all of those things still and more. So much of ballet is imagination, seeing the fantastical worlds in my books and movies are most easily translated into dance and prose.

I’m grateful to the teachers who widened my eyes to the world of ballet and made the sophistication of my training more difficult than I could have ever imagined, and I don’t expect it to stop. Hard work can sound grueling, but there’s something about ballet that snatches me and takes my breath away (of course, remembering to breathe). To me, it’s the thing closest to expressing the aspects of life that I love most.

Staring at those tiny pink slippers now, hanging by a green satin ribbon on my bookshelf, it seems surreal how far I have come. To many the achievements in dance are astounding and yet they are hindered by the limits of your body. I’ve come to learn that seizing inspiration is better than deferring it; believing in boundless grace will help me grow more than accepting those limits will.

Ballet teaches me to be fearless, focused, and faithful. I can attempt going through the motions; stretching, staying hydrated, taping that toe and patching up the other, but if my mind isn’t at attention, I can’t expect amazing results.

From how I understand it, it is only achievable when the courage to harness my individual expression finally fits like a second skin. I imagine that to be the pinnacle of anyone’s dancing career. I imagine it to be the feeling I get when I’m dancing center stage with friends or alone, in front of family or a vast audience. It isn’t witnessing perfection, or even ethereal grace, it’s a sentiment that connects us all onstage to those in the furthermost seat. It makes me feel whole, happy, and awestruck. To those who love dance, don’t let the challenge bully you into submission, raise your own bar(re) and innovate your own path to reach soaring heights.

Nadja Peschke