Thanks, Dan.
Being a father, of course I think she is special and think she has a knack for turning a phrase. She wants to be a writer someday. I tell her she already is...
She does a blog, too.
https://emphasisonthetaco.wordpress.com/
Here is one of her entries:
*In relation to ballet, Broadway, and life
When I was ten years old, my mom and my grandma took me to New York City for my birthday. We spent the whole weekend there, and it was the best weekend of my life – I got my first taste of a real city, and I was absolutely enchanted. But between our trip to the top of the Empire State Building and our tour of the Met, we saw a Broadway show, Mary Poppins, and my life was changed forever.
I’m not kidding. I can remember with perfect clarity the feeling that I got, sitting in the theatre as the lights dimmed, the hopeful anticipation that turned into absolute joy as the music began. I can remember the wonder as Mary Poppins flew across the audience and Bert tap-danced up a wall. I’d never been so excited in my life. I feel like those emotions – the excitement and wonder and joy and hope – were all shoved together into one big feeling, and this feeling is one I’ve been striving to find for my whole life since then. Something latched onto my heart, some sort of inspiration, pushing me to find something – and if I couldn’t find it, create something – that would give me those feelings again.
This summer, my mom and I took a trip to New York City again. This time, our purpose was to see Hamilton, but I’m actually not going to talk about Hamilton right now (for once).
We’d bought tickets to An American in Paris just a few days before leaving for our trip. Third row tickets were available for the evening on the day we were flying in, and, compared to other shows, relatively inexpensive, so we decided it would be a mistake to pass up the chance to see another show. I was expecting to like it, of course. I’d been to Broadway shows, and I knew how incredible they were. I was looking forward to it – though, of course, not as much as I was looking forward to Hamilton later in the week. An American in Paris was just an added bonus, thrown in at the last minute.
I had no idea how much I was going to love the show. From the first notes of Gershwin’s Concerto in F, the opening for the show, I was breathless. I was filled with adrenaline; I was so close to the stage, I felt like I was a part of what was happening. I cried during the sad scenes, and then I cried again during the not-sad scenes because I didn’t know how else to react to loving something so much.
There were a lot of things poised to make this the perfect show for me. The dancing was exquisite and central to the story, and I’ve taken dance my whole life. The music was composed by Gershwin, who I’ve appreciated since my days in middle school band. I easily fell in love with the main characters – each was an artist, and the questions they posed about art and its purpose created an important, if somewhat cliche, portrayal of art as something that should be used to share joy and and excitement and wonder and hope.
But bigger than all of that was the way it made me feel. That feeling that had latched onto my heart when I’d seen Mary Poppins when I was ten years old, the one I’d been subconsciously always searching for, was back.
In my ballet class a week or so ago, my teacher, Bobby, was giving us one of his signature ballet lessons/life advice, and he said something that triggered this train of thought: “A feeling is better than a memory.” In the ballet context, he meant that once you execute a perfect pirouette, or a perfect fouette turn, or whatever else, you probably won’t remember exactly what you did to make it happen – but you’ll remember what it felt like. And from then on, you’re just working towards that feeling again.
I don’t remember the details of the Mary Poppins show that I saw when I was turning ten. Heck, I don’t even remember a lot of the details of An American in Paris. But I remember the feeling. And even other, simpler memories – the day I sat with my friends on front lawn doing absolutely nothing, the nights spent watching The Office with Marie until two in the morning, the times going to see Bella in her plays – these memories are made special not by what happened, but how they felt.
I carry a journal with me pretty much everywhere I go. For a long time, I filled my journal with factual, accurate descriptions of things that happened, places I went, just daily events that I felt were notable. But in looking back at my old entries, I realized that I wasn’t talking about the important things. I was keeping track of my memories, not my feelings.
Now, I’m trying to shift my writing. I don’t necessarily need to write down every little thing that happens to me; in the long run, I’m not really going to care about that. Like Bobby said, a feeling is better than a memory. The more I think about it, the more I see how my life has always, on some level, consisted of me searching for that feeling again.
Sometimes the feeling is stronger, more concentrated than at other times. Mary Poppins and An American and Paris stick out as being moments where there was little more in the world than that feeling, latching onto my heart. It was fairly strong on that perfectly simple day, sitting on front lawn in the sunshine with my friends; stronger than it is, say, when I’m alone in the car, singing along to the radio at the top of my lungs, or when I’m writing.
I don’t think I’m ever going to stop searching for it. Fundamentally, my ten-year-old self and I are the same: we are both looking for excitement and wonder and joy and hope. Sometimes the feeling eludes me for months; there are times when it never seems to go away. But whether I find it on a day spent in the sunshine with good friends or in a darkened theater, I know that it stays with me more than any memory ever could.
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