Dance While You Can

by Shirley Maclaine

  Then, at eight o’clock, I pictured myself at the theater about to do my show. I would be perspiring in demi-plié after one hundred repetitions, the straps of the underdressed leotard digging into my shoulders.

  I would be swigging down gulps of water and sucking on a Halls cough drop, which was good for clearing the throat.

  I would peek around the corner of the bandstand and check the patches of maroon fabric in the audience, which would indicate empty seats. I would “will” them to be filled.

  I would make my rounds of the gypsies and the musicians from our entrance positions backstage, asking how their day went, but not really hearing the answers because I didn’t want to break my concentration. If one of their stories got too detailed, I’d move away with a warm-up step, longing to be left alone.

  Eight-ten … the first musician (drummer—Cubby) would make his entrance, followed one by one by the others. Then would come the dancers dressed in rehearsal clothes, and finally me.

  Eight-twelve … the spotlight would be hitting me, and over the vamp I’d begin to sing of how I was nervous about live performing.

  I puttered around in my kitchen in Malibu. I had to eat before midnight. Nothing allowed after twelve, so as to prevent nausea from the anesthesia. I hated anesthesia. It always made me sick, even if I didn’t eat for a whole day before I had it. I remembered an operation for an impacted sinus I had in Bombay, India. They gave me sodium pentothal, and I cried for hours afterward. Tomorrow it would be Versed, a derivative of Valium.

  Eight-thirty … while eating a salad, I silently went through my hooker-victim medley. I’d be wrapping the red feather boa around me in an attempt to change the look of the basic costume without having to go offstage.

  Hooker-victims—why had I inherited so many of those tarts with hearts of gold? Was there an aspect of me that spoke to that identification? Had I seen myself as a victim in those days, and was I simply reflecting my own self-image in my work?

  And now I had made a transition, with age, to playing parts that were not only not victims but more like victimizers—women who could be extremely difficult, commanding, and demanding … women who saw to it that things were done their way or not at all.

  And I had felt as comfortable with these women as with the victims. As a matter of fact, the older I got the more cantankerous I was becoming. If someone didn’t do something “right,” I didn’t even bother with the pretense of patience and understanding anymore. I said what I thought, and I no longer cared about getting more flies with honey. As someone said, “Who needs flies?”

  In my professional associations, I tried to maintain a level of diplomacy; but it was becoming more and more difficult for me.

  In my private life with everyday contacts, errands, and casual relationships (grocery shopping, tradesmen at home, fans, answering service people, secretaries, airline stewardesses, etc.), I was fine and happy until I tangled with people who didn’t give a damn about how they did their job or how slow they were at doing nothing. That kind of attitude drove me crazy.

  I found myself turning into some of the characters I’d been playing lately. I was becoming “Ouiserfied” (Ouiser was my curmudgeonly character from Steel Magnolias) in some respects, and I wasn’t about to change.

  Eight forty-five … I’d be launching into “Rose’s Turn”—the number that best exemplified a mother who had done everything for her children and was bitter about never having had her own turn. I couldn’t find anything in me to identify with in those feelings, but I did find myself expressing emotions my mother would have felt.

  This was the hardest number for me—to sing about my mother, pace my breath, climb stairs, at the top of which I jumped up on the piano, and throughout the number, thinking about how to warm up for the choreographers’, which followed it.

  Nine-ten … I sat down to eat my dinner and massaged my knee. I would be dancing now—carefully aware of each body movement, wondering when the powerful hand of destiny might strike again.

  How would I really be after surgery? Was Dr. Finerman pessimistic or accurate about the “possibility” that I could dance again? Was it all basically up to me?

  Nine-thirty … I’d be heading into a story about Peru and seeing a great master who would give me a mantra that sounded like Jimmy Durante’s theme song. I would make fun of myself, my beliefs, and my books.

  Did some people resent that, while others appreciated the “don’t take it all so seriously approach”? What were they all really thinking when they watched me sing and dance and tell stories after having heard the umpteenth Johnny Carson joke about me the night before? Were they searching themselves, or did they not care about anything but just having a good time that evening?

  Nine fifty-five … show over, applause, standing ovation (they were common for anyone these days), spotlight off, backstage empty, audience gone … magic in limbo till the next night.

  I loved having my traveling show. To me it had always been something I could depend on when nothing else seemed to be going right. For all the anxiety and hassle, ultimately the immediacy and vitality of the living connections to dancers and musicians, the expertise with choreography, staging, lighting, sound—the whole complex creation that climaxed in the overwhelming vibrancy of a live audience—this was what I loved. I didn’t want to be prevented from doing it. I was finally beginning to understand how much it meant to me and how I really did want to do it. Yet, I had tried to prevent myself in every conceivable way. Did I need to construct a format of disaster in order to learn? I seemed to have been conditioned to feel familiar with negativity—obstacles to overcome. Perhaps I really identified myself more with the spirit of overcoming than the spirit of balance and serenity.

  My physical body would reflect that consciousness. If that was true, I needed to shift the emotional values by which to measure my identity—how to do that when you’ve been in the habit of expecting trouble? That was the nub of the problem.

  My mother and father had lived their lives in anticipation of the worst scenario, and I had inherited the habit. Money was to be saved for possible future troubles. Life today must be sacrificed for the future, because one never knew what tragedy might come.

  I remembered giving my mother $1,500 on her eighty-fourth birthday. She refused to spend it, claiming she’d put it aside for her old age!

  My father never wore the cashmere sweater I gave him. He also was “saving” it until sometime later when he might “need” it more. A sweater to enjoy wasn’t part of his emotional equation. A sweater to “need” was. He wore his moth-eaten wool sweater until he died, never once enjoying the cashmere.

  I was much the same way, in fact. I possessed some finely tailored clothes made of exquisitely woven fabrics, but did I wear them much? No. I was saving them too—saving them for a time that might never come. I would choose something from my closet that I should “get some wear out of” until it fell apart.

  And did I throw anything away? That was as difficult for me as allowing myself to buy anything new that was really expensive.

  Mine was a truly middle-of-the-road mentality, at least where money was concerned. I came from middle-class values and would probably always read the menu right to left and order something in the middle. I didn’t deserve the best. Nor did I deserve nothing. I was somewhere in between.

  My parents were not unaware of their retentive value system—on the contrary. They spoke openly about how afraid they were about letting anything go, because they had been through the Great Depression. Such an experience was not insignificant, and I knew it. The prospect of material poverty rendered them paralytic. Perhaps their fears about so many other things stemmed from that, so that they could never really relax and be happy. Trouble or potential disaster was only a “stone’s throw away.”

  This kind of thinking meant that I was also “moderately” prejudiced against things going well. Sometimes, if I found myself overcome with a sense of peace and satisfaction, I’d wake in the morning fo
cused on a small imperfection going on in my life and magnify it until it became so explosive it needed resolution. I suppose that is the definition of a perfectionist. I was beginning to see it was also the definition of institutionalized turmoil.

  Perhaps my turmoil was more mild than most; but with the evolution of my spirituality, I should have given it up altogether some time ago. I couldn’t simply “accept” that this was the way I was anymore. I had to change, if for no other reason than having only two knees!

  I couldn’t keep doing this to myself, using such physical adversity to point up what was unresolved in my desire for happiness. I had refined pulling the rug out from under myself to a fine art. So fine that most observers would empathize with the “accidental” troubles I was having.

  No one seemed to notice that I had gone out of my way to create everything myself out of a deep longing to confront the obstacles from childhood and solve them once and for all as an adult. I had drawn the shoemaker to me. I had attracted the sound problems in the beginning. On some level, I knew the stage in Denver would be cement, contributing to the wear and tear on my knees. I had chosen to fall in Seattle, so I could recuperate in my home. And I was sure, in some way that was positive, I had prevented myself from playing L.A. until the time was right.

  Why, I couldn’t quite grasp. But the spiritual guides had picked it up. Everything that happened was for a purposeful good. Even I understood that. I just had to make the decision whether I wanted to continue to work out my problems through adversity or finally give it up. How much longer would I need to undermine my footing, so much that I had no other choice than to ultimately stand on my own two feet?

  I faced the surgery the next day with a spirit of everything happening for the best. I needed to trust the bureaucratic incompetency of the hospital staff. Thank God it was only a knee operation.

  Sachi and her best friend, David, came with me—plus Dr. Perry. Some form they had given me insisted in each paragraph that I was only to have one person with me in the waiting room. They put me in a chair that was meant to be comfortable; but instead, because it tilted back of its own free will, it actually contributed a great deal to more “torquing” of my knee.

  I was told by a nurse, whom I was never to see again, that I should take my clothes off and be ready in my hospital gown for the stretcher people who would come by shortly. She didn’t know what I was having done.

  I elected to wait until the stretcher people arrived before I sat around in the drafty holding room in a little, thin open-backed gown. I was right. They came three hours later. The nameless nurse had also expressed a preference that I wait alone with no relatives or friends (because of noise), but I told her my lonely screams would be louder than our conversation. She let me talk with my group.

  Another nurse came by who instructed me on how to walk with crutches. It was scientific and useful, although intended, of course, for someone who had never ever used crutches. I asked her what kind of rehabilitation therapy I should do after the surgery. She said, “That’s not necessary. Just learn to use your crutches properly, and you’ll be fine.”

  I looked over at Dr. Perry. He deadpanned an eye roll. I wondered if Dr. Finerman knew what the nurse was recommending. I wondered if they had a rehabilitation department at UCLA.

  As I waited in my tilting chair hour after hour, I was so grateful for Sachi’s and David’s and Perry’s presence. I would have gotten very nervous had I been alone. I thought of all the people in the world who endured really serious maladies without the love of anyone standing by. Nurses can be sweet and attentive, but they have too much to do and too many people to do it for.

  I remembered a doctor telling me once that one should have a personal friend attend a hospital stay twenty-four hours a day just to keep an eye on the nurses’ dispensation of medicine and instructions. He said they don’t always read the patients’ charts correctly; and in many cases, the patients themselves catch an error. If they’re in shape to do it.

  I thought of the nineteen thousand deaths in New York City in one year alone that had occurred through hospital inefficiency. I knew the medical profession itself was sounding the warning signals. There just were not enough nurses and doctors to fully operate a hospital, and not nearly enough money. Our government had trillions of dollars committed to killing enemies but not enough to save its own citizens.

  Never mind, I thought, as I chatted with Sachi and David and Dr. Perry. I must trust that everything will be fine. You get what you expect. You draw to you what you’re afraid of. I was not going to accept fear anymore. I was going to expect the best.

  The stretcher people finally came and, just like movie directors, wanted to know why I wasn’t ready. I always felt guilty keeping anyone waiting. Then one of them said, “What are you having done?” I told him. He seemed disinterested.

  I kissed Sachi good-bye. She looked into my eyes, patted my hand, and said, “I love you.” David cocked his head and said, “You know everything will be all right.” And Dr. Perry came with me, because he was going to attend the surgical procedure.

  As I was being wheeled into the elevator, I suddenly had to go to the bathroom. But it was too late now.

  The elevator seemed to go to the basement … I don’t know. And when they wheeled me from it, the corridors seemed more narrow. People were walking around in green surgical outfits.

  Another nurse leaned over me. “What are you having done?” she asked. I told her. I was beginning to wonder if anyone knew what I was having done. Would the surgeon ask me too?

  I began to lose my sense of consciousness, although I can’t remember having been given any sedative. Dr. Perry appeared with a surgical mask on his face.

  I didn’t remember seeing Dr. Finerman. The anesthesiologist appeared. “Are you allergic to anything?” she asked. “Codeine, I think,” I answered. “What are you having done?” she continued. I told her. “Which knee,” she asked, “right or left?” I was really worried now. We had talked the night before, and she had asked me the same questions. Why was everyone so uninformed?

  I was on the operating table in the operating room, which was gray and antiseptic and impersonal. The anesthesiologist was beside me. I know I had an intravenous drip, but I can’t remember how or when it happened. As I drifted off, I only hoped they’d operate on the right knee.

  Coming out of the operating room I was awake enough to know that I was nauseous. I vomited. Some nurse was upset because I had vomited during the surgery also. She said I had moved around a lot because of lower back pain, so the anesthesiologist had given me more anesthesia (Versed) than she thought would be necessary.

  I don’t remember dressing to go home. I don’t remember leaving the hospital, except for standing on my crutches in the sunshine almost asleep. I don’t remember who drove me home. (It was Sachi.) I do remember vomiting about nine times during the trip in the car. (I had a plastic dish on my lap.) I was in a time warp—a lost weekend.

  My knee was covered in a bandage that kept slipping around, and I was wearing an elasticized white stocking that held the swelling down. I don’t remember who was with me or who helped me into bed. I only remember that Dr. Perry said I should take three things for my nausea—vitamin B6, chlorophyll tablets, and Coca-Cola syrup.

  Someone—Sachi? David? Yvonne (who works for me)?—gave me those remedies, and in five minutes the nausea was gone. The nurse at the hospital had given me codeine tablets for pain, even though I told her I was allergic to codeine. “You should have told us,” she said. I said I had.

  I have since learned that the hospital’s idea of double-checking its procedures was for all personnel encountering the patient to question what the problem was and how it was supposed to be solved. I could understand the checklist procedure, but I felt the least capable of understanding what needed to be done, and it produced a decided feeling of anxiety.

  With the nausea gone, I was able to sleep. When the anesthesiologist called to ask me how I was feeling, I g
ave her the “vitamin B6, chlorophyll, Coke syrup remedy.” “It might help others who vomit all the way home,” I said. She thanked me, said she’d never heard of it, but if it worked, fine.

  Dr. Perry was on the phone bright and early the next morning to insist that I get up and move around on my crutches. “You can’t let yourself rest on this type of injury,” he said. “The surrounding muscles will atrophy quickly, in a matter of days, and besides the knee itself needs to be worked.”

  Thus began my rehabilitation period. Sachi stayed with me, relieved by Yvonne—who took care of my apartment and the apartment building—and Bonnie, who came to give me massages.

  I used crutches for one day, hardly worth the lesson I was given in pre-op. The second day, I began weight-bearing walking. The third day, walking and exercise, which consisted of Perry-Band bicycling movements. The fourth day, walking, bicycling movements, exercise with weights, and yoga.

  Perry brought his muscle stimulator machine to me, which I was to use at least twice a day. Electrical impulses surged through the muscles, providing deep muscle stimulation.

  And, of course, ice. “Ice is your best friend,” said Perry. “And it will be for a long time to come. Whenever you dance, you must ice immediately afterward.”

  Perry came to see me every night. Sachi made us dinner. And then for four nights in a row we watched the restored videocassette of Lawrence of Arabia. It was a study in emotional, physical, and Spiritual endurance. I knew I was going to need all three. And in the coming days, my capacity for balance in each of those areas was to be tested.

  Because I felt no connection with Dr. Finerman and was not even sure where to call him, Dr. Perry became the expert I trusted in postoperative matters. Since the surgical bandage continued to slip down my leg, I took it off the second day. Then I removed the Band-Aids that covered the fine and expert surgical work Dr. Finerman had done.