Dancing Through It: My Journey in the Ballet

by Ringer, Jenifer

  The second act began, and it was time for me to go onstage for my first entrance, a solo. Somewhere in the middle of that solo, I felt those old, negative thoughts falling away from me. You are disgusting. I dropped the thought on the stage. Everyone watching you is horrified by your appearance. I let that thought fall off too. I felt beautiful. I was dancing for God, and I knew He was pleased. God had given me a gift, and I was using it. I felt joyful and free. I was really dancing, really performing, and really loving it in a purer way than I had in a long time.

  After the weekend was over, I felt such a sense of accomplishment. I was proud of how I’d danced and proud of how I’d overcome, with God’s miraculous grace, certain emotional mountains I hadn’t even realized I would have to scale. I was sad the performances were over. I’d enjoyed the company of James and Peter and Lisa, and I’d enjoyed feeling like a dancer. Then, to my surprise, after the last performance had ended, James asked me to dance with him at the World Financial Center downtown on New Year’s Eve. This weekend was not, after all, the last time in my life I would get to perform.

  The train ride back to the city felt short as James and I talked and enjoyed each other’s company. By this point, we were very comfortable with each other, and he felt like a close friend. I’d never felt this kind of friendship with a man before. We got on the subway from Penn Station, and suddenly, as we approached the Seventy-second Street stop, I realized that James’s stop was before mine. He would be getting off the subway. Our weekend was really over.

  The subway began to slow, and I hardly thought before blurting out: “I’ll miss you!” Panicked by my honesty, and afraid of how he would react, I tried to turn it into a joke by batting my eyelashes and looking wistfully at him.

  James gathered up his stuff and turned toward the sliding doors.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be calling you. We have to rehearse for New Year’s Eve! How about next Thursday?” And with a wink, he was gone. The doors closed, and I sighed.

  Soon enough, it was Wednesday. James called to make plans for the next day.

  “So,” James said, “I’ll pick you up around seven.”

  My breath caught. Seven o’clock? That seemed late for a rehearsal. And why was he picking me up?

  “Okay, sounds good,” I said calmly, trying to be cool.

  “All right, see you tomorrow,” James said, and we hung up. That was it.

  I stood in my bedroom, staring wide-eyed at my phone. This wasn’t a rehearsal. This was an actual date! I immediately called my sister, my go-to person for anything important or interesting that happened to me.

  I started talking the moment she answered the phone.

  “I think I’m going on a date with James!” I exclaimed, trying not to squeal. Becky gasped. She knew me better than anyone, and she knew that I’d never shown any real interest in a man before. James was the first guy I’d actually wanted to ask me out on a date since Gary from Spanish class back in high school.

  “I think you are going to marry him!” she exulted.

  “I think I am!” I replied, not caring that I was getting ahead of myself.

  And Thursday, December 18, was indeed a real date. I had no idea what to wear. James picked me up at my building right on time. I was so happy to see him that I felt jittery when he smiled at me. He didn’t tell me where we were going, but struck off immediately in the direction of Central Park. Since it was winter, it was already dark, and I wondered why we were going to the park after sundown. Wasn’t that a no-no?

  Was James taking me to Central Park to murder me? No, I told my imagination. This was a date, and it was going to be fine. We walked through the park, which was actually well lit and surprisingly crowded, until we came to Wollman Rink, the ice-skating rink.

  “I thought we would go ice-skating,” said James, turning to me. Surprised and delighted, I agreed, even though, from the evidence of my only previous attempt, I couldn’t ice-skate at all.

  After we survived on the ice with much laughter and flailing on my part, James led me out of the park on the East Side so that we could walk along Fifth Avenue and see the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and the famous Christmas windows in Saks and Bergdorf’s. My clumsiness chose this moment to rear its head, probably because I was so excited to be on a date with James, and I kept tripping and bumping into things. Finally, after my tenth near face-plant, James grabbed my hand with a laugh.

  “I think I need to hold on to you,” he said. And we held hands the rest of the night. It felt perfectly natural.

  We fought our way through the tourist crowd for a while, stopping when something interesting caught our eye. After a while James asked if I was hungry. Since by now it was around nine, I was starving.

  “I want to take you to one of my favorite restaurants, but it’s a subway ride away. Is that okay?”

  I would have been okay with anything he suggested, I was so glad to be with him, and I happily agreed. We got on the subway and rode down to the Fulton Street stop. When we came up out of the station, we walked toward South Street Seaport, which I assumed was our destination. But at the seaport, James turned left and we walked across the darkened cobblestone streets of an older New York to a tiny restaurant under the Brooklyn Bridge called Bridge Café. It was late but we were shown a table immediately and had a great dinner of fresh seafood.

  After dinner we took the subway home. We both got out at Seventy-second Street, but I was still thirteen blocks from my apartment. James was going to walk me home, since by now it was almost one in the morning.

  We were laughing hilariously at something—I think my gum had shot out of my mouth, my awkwardness at work again—when James stopped suddenly and looked at me.

  “Do you want to go somewhere and get a drink?” he asked.

  Of course I did. I never wanted this night to end. We went to a favorite haunt of City Ballet dancers at the time, a little pub called the Emerald Inn that was a few blocks from the subway stop. It was smoky and full of people, but not so crowded that we couldn’t get two stools at the bar, and no one from City Ballet was there that night. The people in the bar were in a festive holiday mood, and everyone was talking to everyone else as if we were all long-lost friends.

  There was a portly man in the corner of the bar holding a glass of whiskey with his eyes half closed. From time to time he would take a sip of his drink, place it carefully on the bar, and then sing parts of beautiful arias and Christmas hymns with a surprising professionalism for an Irish bar crowd. We soon learned that he was a singer for the Metropolitan Opera.

  James glanced at me teasingly and said, “You should sing something, Jen.” I’d sung the role of Rosalia in City Ballet’s production of West Side Story.

  I refused, saying the only Christmas song I knew was “The Little Drummer Boy.”

  Someone called out, “Sing it!”

  And there was enough craziness in me that night that I did. I started to sing “Drummer Boy” loud enough for the entire bar to hear me, and soon the patrons around me joined in for the pa rum-pum-pum-pums, beating their glasses on the bar in time to the music. When I continued on to the second and third verses, they looked at me with consternation for a moment but then went back to their jobs of rum-pum-pum-pumming with seriousness and dedication. We all finished loudly and triumphantly. Someone began another Chrismas carol, and we were off again.

  Finally, it was past 3:00 a.m., and James and I reluctantly headed for my apartment. It had been a wonderful night. James walked me all the way home, holding my hand. I thrilled in the moment, never having felt this way about anyone. I wondered if he would kiss me at the door.

  He didn’t. He told me he had had a great time and that he would call me soon to rehearse for New Year’s Eve. And then he smiled and left.

  I thought I might go crazy. And I did drive myself crazy for a little while, going over the night and wondering what it a
ll meant and WHY he hadn’t kissed me, but finally I just had to let it go and see what would happen. I did my best not to be a “freaky chick,” as I’d heard James refer to girls who were too clingy and desperate. I tried to be patient and play it cool; I didn’t want to make the next move. Eventually James called me a couple of times just to talk, and I knew that I would be seeing him again very soon for our next performance.

  We didn’t have any more dates before our New Year’s Eve gig. James had a busy schedule with City Ballet’s Nutcracker, and when we did get together, it was to rehearse the pas de deux from Balanchine’s Stars and Stripes for our performance. Stars is one of those ballets that is challenging but fun, with music by John Philip Sousa, and James and I had already performed it together in Vermont. It was relatively easy for us to put it together. During our rehearsals we were flirty but professional, needing to use our available time together to make sure we would dance well.

  New Year’s Eve arrived, and we went to the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center, which was located very near the Twin Towers. We were performing as part of First Night and were just one of many acts. After our performance, we headed to a restaurant across the city where we were to meet James’s sister Deena and her friends. We quickly changed and jumped into a cab so that we could make it there before midnight. I was eagerly anticipating twelve o’clock—surely I would get a kiss from James then, even if it was obligatory!

  We were still a few blocks away from the restaurant when I glanced at the taxicab’s dash clock. It read 12:04! We had missed it.

  “Well,” I said to James, a little deflated, “Happy New Year.”

  “Happy New Year,” he replied. Then he said, “Can I give you a kiss?”

  Finally! I tried to say “Yes” like a sophisticated New Yorker would, but I’m not sure it came out that way. After that night, when the year turned 1998, my heart was taken and I never looked back.

  Chapter Six

  Dancing Through

  James and I continued dating throughout January and February. My life was settling into something of a routine; I took ballet class with Nancy Bielski in the mornings and worked at All Angels’ in the afternoons. I taught regular New York City Ballet Workout classes at various New York Sports Club locations. I was no longer in therapy and had finished all of my course requirements at Fordham; I would be graduating in May. James popped up in every area of my life—he visited House Church, picked me up after work, took my Workout classes, and came to All Angels’ with me on the alternating Sundays when we were not visiting his Catholic church. Since he was making such an effort to come to me on my turf, I also wanted to make an effort to share in his traditions.

  I was also working as a dancer again. James had asked me to be the Juliet to his Romeo in Francis Patrelle’s production of Romeo and Juliet at the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse. I was thrilled to be asked, since I had always dreamed of doing a full-length Romeo and Juliet. Francis had founded his own company, Dances Patrelle, in 1988 on the East Side of Manhattan and specialized in dramatic dance. He wanted to see me before agreeing to cast me, since we had never met, and after I’d taken a class with him, he told me that he would like for me to be his Juliet. He said that he would love it if I lost some weight, but even if I remained at the weight I was, he would enjoy working with me. Francis was extremely kind to let me be in his production after my history, and was the first person from the New York professional dance world to take a chance on me after my “disappearance,” for which I’ll always be grateful.

  Indeed, I was still overweight for a dancer, but I’d made so much progress with my weight loss and, more important, my general relationship with food. Somehow, through all the many different areas of my life in which I was changing and growing, God was slowly healing me of my eating disorders. My compulsive episodes were dwindling, and I was beginning to feel that I could handle whatever life threw at me with God’s help, not with food’s help. I knew where my identity and true worth lay, with Christ, and I had a rich life with good work to do and good friends to laugh with. Plus, for the first time in my life, I had a boyfriend.

  James was fun and smart and gentlemanly, full of integrity and honor. We spent time together both as two normal people in love and as dancers working on the various gigs James found for us. Though he was Catholic and I was Protestant, we went to church together, and many of our discussions revolved around God and our faiths.

  One of our favorite places to spend time together was Riverside Park. Both of our apartments were closer to the Hudson River than to Central Park, and I’d always loved walking by the river whenever I could. I found something peaceful and healing in looking out at a large body of water, especially when coming from the hard cacophony of the city. James would call me and tell me that he was leaving his apartment on Seventieth Street, and I would then leave mine on Eighty-fifth. We would both start walking through Riverside Park along the river, James heading uptown and me heading downtown, meeting somewhere close to the Seventy-ninth Street Boat Basin. Then we would see where our fancy would take us.

  I knew that James was the one for me when I realized that I never got tired of his presence. With other people, my introverted nature would eventually take over, and I would need some alone time to recharge my batteries. No matter how much I liked someone, I always needed to get away for a little while, or else I became cranky. My sister was an exception to this rule; with Becky, I could always be myself and never required a respite. It dawned on me one day that I could be completely myself with James as well, and that being in his company never tired me out.

  I tried to communicate this to him. To me, I was paying him the highest compliment I possibly could. I took his hands and looked at him tenderly, letting him know that I was about to say something meaningful.

  “Jim, being with you is even better than being alone,” I told him earnestly.

  James didn’t take this well. He blinked at me and said, “What?” sounding a little miffed.

  “Being with you is better than being alone—I don’t need to get away from you. You don’t wear me out.”

  I wasn’t making things better with my explanations. James continued to be slightly offended—to him, it was obvious that being with good company was better than being alone. Didn’t that just make him like any other guy? But to me, he was unique in the world; when I was with him, I was as comfortable as if I were alone. The more I talked, though, trying to make him understand, the more he just started laughing. I still today cannot get him to fully comprehend the huge compliment I pay him when I tell him this truth. He just shakes his head and looks at me, exasperated.

  By the fall of 1998 I was back to full dancing strength, and almost back to a good dancing weight. I’d spent the summer doing gigs with James and had rediscovered my love for dance. My eating was normalized, I was dancing well, and I felt that I was standing on solid ground, basing my worth on things other than ballet and not needing outside affirmation to feel valued or valuable. I felt that I needed to give dancing professionally one more shot, this time as an adult fully aware of what she was getting herself into. Though I knew that City Ballet might not take me back, with James’s encouragement I began to think about trying to rejoin the company. It seemed important that I try to conquer this area of my life that had so thoroughly defeated me. As James pointed out, no matter what the outcome, it was vital that I at least confront the scary beast that the ballet world had become for me.

  James offered to approach Peter on my behalf, and I took him up on the suggestion, still feeling a little anxious about making the initial contact. Peter said that I could come and take a company class that he was teaching so he could take a look at me. The day arrived, and I felt as if I were gearing up for battle as I walked down the sidewalk from my apartment. I was certainly afraid to go; I knew I was going to be stared at and assessed by everyone in the studio, from the dancers to the ballet masters. I’d lost almost all of th
e weight I needed to lose, but I still had five pounds to go before I was really ballerina weight. From all of my experiences, I knew that the last bit of weight would not come off in a healthy way unless I was dancing a ballerina’s schedule. So I would have to see if Peter was willing to take yet one more chance on me.

  There were many people praying for me, and I had studied Bible stories about various courageous individuals, such us Daniel and David, who had relied on God’s strength to get them through difficult periods. I had a strong sense that God wanted me to take this class and stand up to my general fear of the condemnation of those from City Ballet. I didn’t know whether it was going to be God’s will that I actually dance there again.

  The morning of the class, I vacillated between fear and peace. For me, I was about to face the monster that had warped and twisted my spirit until I was almost destroyed. As I walked down the sidewalk to the studios at the Rose Building, near Lincoln Center, I imagined a legion of angels accompanying me, ready to fight for me and bolster me up if I needed them. I did feel confident and proud of my growth and progress, but I knew that I would be reentering a world very different from the one I’d inhabited the past year. Whereas I’d been in charge of my days and surrounded by Christian friends, I was now going into a secular environment where ballet was god and individuals were often sacrificed or destroyed in the pursuit of an indefinable and subjective ideal of art and beauty.

  Perhaps the most difficult part of the day was the long walk I had to make across the ballet studio from the doorway to a spot at the barre on the other side of the room. I had to pass by all of the company members, most of whom I hadn’t seen or talked to in a year. I was greeted warmly by many dancers, just stared at by others, and ignored by still others while they murmured to the dancers around them. But everyone seemed to take a moment to look at my body, and they certainly made their opinions very quickly. I knew I’d already been judged by all the dancers, but I reminded myself that I was a Child of God, and no matter what anyone thought of my appearance, my true worth was unchangeable.