Bye Bye, Ballerina!

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Is there any deity who doesn't love dancing? If so, send that deity to the perimeter with an Etch-a-Sketch and a bag of those rice cakes that taste like paper!

When my daughter The Heir first went to high school, she was so unhappy to discover that none of her middle school friends had lunch the same time she did. She was faced with the prospect of sitting alone at a lunch table all year long.

So I told The Heir, "Look around the room and find someone who looks like you and is sitting alone, or almost alone. And then just ask that person if you can sit with them."

That is how The Heir met Seitou the artist and Giselle the ballerina. Seitou and Giselle were seniors, but they welcomed The Heir to their lunch table, and before you know it, lunch was The Heir's favorite part of the daily agenda. (As it is for so many high schoolers, nothing rare there.)

Right out of high school, Giselle moved to Indiana to pursue ballet. She was in a company there for awhile and then went to another in Texas, and then, finding Texas curiously inhospitable to her blue politics, she moved back to Indiana.

This past week Giselle attended auditions along the East Coast. She stayed with us.

Oh my, my chin grows quivery and my eyes fill with tears as I contemplate the two beautiful young women who have grown to young adulthood together, Heir and Giselle, sitting and laughing over some silly YouTube posting, or sharing tidbits of advice on how to get on in the world! Giselle is so admirable, trying her best to live her dream at extra-long odds. That's what we're supposed to do when we're young.

Heck, I'm still doing it at ... emmm ... old as dirt.

Seitou lives nearby, but circumstances make it difficult for her to join in merry endeavors. This was particularly disappointing to Giselle, who so wanted a true reunion. But Seitou also pursues art in her quiet way. In fact her faeries are so exquisite that they could almost be ballerinas.

I feel my age watching these young ladies come into their own, but I wouldn't have it any other way. At a moment when my daughter The Heir could have sat down at a cafeteria table full of heavy metal stoners, she looked around for someone who looked like her and found ... artists. And that's what she is too. And no bored deity of any pantheon the world has ever known could ever love anyone more than I love my daughter.

So I guess that makes me something like a Goddess, only they've got prettier hair and never get gingivitis or stains on the upholstery.

Bon voyage, Giselle -- may Queen Brighid the Bright guide you back to the Great Blue Northeast on a toeshoe and a prayer!

FROM ANNE

THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS