Firsts

Dave was out of town in Atlanta, GA training for a new position with Philips so Jenny and I took advantage of doing all the things we wanted to that we knew Dave wouldn’t want to do if he were home. You know things like eating cereal for supper, keeping the unfinished Christmas decorations out every night until it was finished and watching Hallmark movies. Oh yeah, and going to a ballet.

Neither Jenn nor I had ever been to a ballet before and we chose to begin our ballet repertoires with The Nutcracker performed by the Canadian Ballet. The musical score was of course familiar and wonderfully played by a live orchestra which we could not see from where we sat. I was familiar with the general plot of the ballet, “19th century girl at Christmastime receives a Nutcracker doll for a Christmas gift and dreams of her toy as her boyfriend”. That’s about all I knew of the story line. Although dated from a culture the 21st century no longer embraces, the story line in the Nutcracker is a timeless message about family and love. If you want a more complete summary of the play, click here http://www.nutcrackerballet.net/html/nutcracker_story.html .

I sat with a fixed gaze towards the front of the theater, amazed at the grace and agility of each dancer. I was especially fixated on how effortlessly the men, with ripped muscles, lifted the women in the air or held them in mid air at shoulder level without even a grimace, as if the ladies didn’t weigh more than an infant. The dancers lifted themselves in vertical jumps while crossing their ankles several times before landing again, leaving me shaking my head amazed at how they did that.

Jenny and I decided that night the Nutcracker would not be our last ballet. We also decided that plays, musicals and other theater events would make it into our schedules as well. It took me almost a half a century to see my first ballet. I am thrilled that I was able to be a part of Jenny experiencing it at a much younger age and am grateful for an event in my life that made me decide to not put off doing the things I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve had those rare firsts in my life like my first hot air balloon ride, but starting with The Nutcracker, those firsts won’t be so rare from here on out.