The path to our dreams can be wrought with ups and downs, stops and starts, successes and seeming failures. Like I did, you may find yourself leaving the scene of your dream with your tail between your legs, embarrassed that things did not go as planned. Shake that shame off as soon as possible. You get beaucoup points for trying, for putting yourself out there, for taking the risk, for making “mistakes.” It all counts for good. And, unlike many people, you were brave enough to give it a try. Pull that tail out from between your legs and start wagging it with excitement, because all your efforts are getting you closer to your dream. Make the necessary adjustments and keep on dancing forward.
Enjoy your next excerpt from
by Kristi Lynn Davis
New York City, Fall 1987
One day I overheard a conversation in the dressing room at Steps, which not only dampened my already fading quest for stardom, but also sent me into a mini panic attack. As I was changing out of my dance clothes, I heard an aging woman remark to another dancer, “I’m thirty and I’m just starting my dance career. In fact, I just got a job with a company called Celebration Magnifico.” My ears perked up. “I’ve always wanted to dance, so I finally decided that I had to give it a shot.” I loved her go-against-the-odds-screw-the-age attitude, but one terrifying thought made me sweat: “What if I’m still here when I’m thirty, prancing around hotel ballrooms in a carousel horse costume asking hormonal teens to hand jive?”
That horrifying vision sent my head spinning. Sure this whole dance adventure was kind of fun and interesting, but where would it get me? I couldn’t bear the thought of wasting my education. I wanted to move up in the world and get a respectable job that utilized my potential.
To top it off, New York City was simply overwhelming to this ingenuous, suburbanite chicken. The crowds. The derelicts. The fear. The loneliness. If I stayed I might end up a mental patient escapee hiding out at McDonald’s with the other defectors. Maybe they, too, had come to NYC with dreams of grandeur only to freak out and go off the deep end. I had to leave before it was too late. I ran hyperventilating to a Manhattan payphone and called my mother, sobbing, “Take me home!”
Telling my parents and Jenny that I was already giving up on NYC after less than six months was devastating and embarrassing. Going home with your tail between your legs stinks. The irony is that I had been one-hundred percent successful from the time I moved there. I auditioned five times and landed every job. I won a dance scholarship from one of the best-known studios in New York on my first try. I got into a modern dance company the day after arriving despite having never done any modern dance before. I got right into the Celebration Magnifico A-team and was traveling around the country. I never had trouble paying my rent. Really, I did “make it there.” Unfortunately, I just couldn’t take it there.
Next I had to break the news of my departure to my boss, Bart. I was afraid he’d be furious. I was booked solid with parties in December, a busy party month, culminating in New Year’s Eve. New Year’s was a big deal as performers got paid triple their usual salary and Celebration Magnifico had so many parties booked they needed each and every performer. If you turned down New Year’s Eve, you might as well say sayonara to the job and leave your glitter gel behind. I was reneging on a whopping seven parties while I drove my stuff home to Michigan, but I had decided to fly back to do New Year’s Eve. Scared stiff, I pulled Bart aside at a party and bravely spilled my guts. Luckily, he liked me and was overwhelmingly compassionate.
With exit strategy in order, I took advantage of the few weeks I had left to do some sightseeing. Following a book touting free things to see and do in New York City, I set out solo to see Battery Park, the view from the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building, South Street Seaport, the Frick Museum, the Whitney modern art museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Guggenheim. Meandering down Wall Street, I sampled street vendors’ gigantic doughy pretzels and piping hot sausages draped in grilled onions and green peppers.
It was Christmas time, so Jenny and I strolled around Fifth Avenue window shopping and admiring all the bedecked buildings, some wrapped like presents or donning giant candy canes. We marveled at the lavish displays of Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s. We melded into the throngs of people at Rockefeller Center for the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony, where the police surveyed the crowd from horseback like Canadian Mounties. I felt uncomfortably trapped in the crowd. “I’m really going to miss you,” Jenny mourned. “Me, too,” I sighed. We had become close friends, she softening her opinions and I becoming more street savvy. Somehow the city mouse and the country mouse had met in the middle.
My parents arrived, and we once again packed up my belongings. Sadly, I had to leave my new dial-a-bed in the apartment, as we had no room in the van. The drive back to Michigan was icy and snowy. With my eyes closed, I sat listening to Garrison Keillor’s “Lake Wobegon” stories on the radio—tales of the comforts and security of life in a small town surrounded by family and friends. I relaxed for the first time in months. Woe, be gone!
A couple weeks later, I flew back to New York, as I had promised, and rode the Celebration Magnifico bus to Atlantic City for our New Year’s Eve gig. As I limboed in the New Year with drunken strangers, I knew the coming year would be very different for me. And that’s about all I knew.
Final Scene: New York City, August 9, 2002
“I certainly never expected to end up back here again,” I thought, staring out the cab window, my eyes squinting from the glare of the summer sun. I had gone to New York a youngster, but was coming back a star. “We’ve been through a lot,” I whispered to The City. I wanted to hug the place like an old friend. “Sure our relationship was short and somewhat rocky, but thanks for everything,” I silently offered in sincere gratitude. “I’m not the same scared, naïve girl I was fifteen years ago, and I wish I could have seen you back then like I do now.” Because, in spite of its involuntary, 9/11 maniacal make-over, New York looked better to me than ever before. The City shone brightly, and I could clearly see the diamond beneath the rough—the excitement, splendor, and beauty of this place of extremes, its wealth, poverty, and everything in between.
The yellow taxi cab dropped me off in front of Jenny and her musician husband’s four-story, red brick brownstone. “Have a beautiful day and keep cool,” I said, over-tipping the driver in honor of this special occasion. “Thanks very much. You, too, Ma’am. God bless.” The people here are so nice.
Jenny was at work when I arrived but she had left a key for me under the flowerpot in the charming, tiny, back garden. This place was a palace compared to the small, two-bedroom apartment she and her friend rented back when I lived there. I set my suitcases down in the living room and plopped down on the comfy sofa. A cat wandered in to check me out. “Well, who do we have here?” I bent over to pet her. “Nice pad, kitty,” I said as I scanned the room. Jenny had done well for herself here. She had abandoned her performing career, opting for stage management instead, and had worked her way up to the pinnacle of the profession. How impressive that she was a Broadway stage manager for Chicago (the steamy, jazzy, Kander and Ebb and Bob Fosse musical about Prohibition-Era murderesses). It didn’t get much better than that.
“New York’s not so bad; is it?” I asked the cat, who started to purr from all my petting. “What if I would have stuck it out a little longer? I didn’t even audition for any Broadway shows. I should have taken more advantage of my scholarship at Steps and trained hard with all those amazing teachers. What do you think, kitty-cat?” No answer. “Cat got your tongue?” I chuckled at my own stupid joke. “Woulda. Coulda. Shoulda.” Second guessing my decisions was pointless and a waste of precious time and energy. Had I stayed in New York I would have missed out on some pretty bitchin’ California adventures. My rad move to the West coast had gotten me where I was today. “Cowabunga, Dude!” I kicked off my shoes and laid down on the couch for a quick catnap while I waited for Jenny to come home.
I had a lot of growing up to do before I was ready to tackle the Big Apple with gusto. But it was my first “failed” attempt at living there that helped me to learn, grow, and expand into the successful professional dancer that I became. Bless your so-called “failures” and you, too, can move from shame to fame. Thanks for reading.
Waggle on,
Kristi
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