During\u00a0the pandemic, when I was doing some introspection, I began investigating my\u00a0past to figure out how I had become who I am today. Who was this person sitting\u00a0at the computer? How had I gotten here? What came next? I wandered around my\u00a0house, picking up familiar objects and holding them in my hands. A hand beaded\u00a0eagle feather I got from an Indian medicine man. A small bottle of \u201choly oil,\u201d\u00a0blessed by a Philippine faith healer. A stuffed animal that I bought for my\u00a0mother when she was recovering from cataract surgery.<\/p>\n
When\u00a0I opened the door of my linen closet, there were two pairs of pink pointe shoes\u00a0with shiny satin ribbons, sitting on a narrow shelf. I hadn\u2019t looked at them\u00a0for a while. I picked up a pair, I inhaled the scent of cardboard, satin and\u00a0glue and a host of memories encircled me. The scent of Jean Nate cologne coming\u00a0from the women\u2019s dressing room. The musk of sweat that poured off of us when we
trained. The wild makeup. The excitement of being backstage in the wings,\u00a0dripping in sequins, jeweled tiaras, and tutus while we waited to \u201center, stage\u00a0left.\u201d<\/p>\n
A\u00a0few days ago, I was lying on the floor of my living room on my back on a blue\u00a0yoga mat, wearing gray sweat pants and a white t-shirt, doing a workout with my\u00a0online trainer. My hands were clasped around my right leg as I lifted it over\u00a0my head and my shoulder and stretched it backwards, flexing and pointing my\u00a0toes. I raised the other leg \u2013 when I stopped in the middle of the stretch. I saw
myself when I was sixteen, lying on the ground in a dance studio in the exact\u00a0same posture, this time in a pink leotard, tights, black leg warmers and pink\u00a0ballet shoes. There was a fireman\u2019s pole to my left (this will make sense\u00a0later), I could smell the scent of the sea and I recalled both the gnawing loneliness\u00a0of missing my family and the magic that was all around me.<\/p>\n
\u201cAndrea,\u201d\u00a0my trainer called out. I snapped back into my body. \u201cYes,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019m here.\u201d I\u00a0went back to flexing and pointing my foot, stunned that I had time traveled.<\/p>\n
Being\u00a0in the past gets a bad rap. It can make us feel stuck at times, but it can also\u00a0spark our memory to show us what we did to end up where we are. It can show us\u00a0what we want to repeat and what we want to abandon.<\/p>\n
These\u00a0memories come unexpectedly. They get triggered by a smell, a taste, an object,\u00a0an article of clothing or a familiar feeling. In my case, the day before my ballet\u00a0memory jolt, I read that Taylor Swift had purchased an estate in Watch Hill, Rhode\u00a0Island, on the Atlantic Coast, for 17 million dollars. It was previously owned\u00a0by Rebekah Harkness, the creator and owner of the Harkness Ballet Company of
which I was a member from 1965 to 1969. Mrs. Harkness who died on June 17th, 1982, was a wealthy eccentric heiress who, in her youth, hung out with a sub-culture of debutantes who called themselves \u201cThe Bitch Pack.\u201d They enjoyed disrupting society events by lacing punchbowls with mineral oil and performing strip teases on banquet tables.<\/p>\n
In\u00a01966, soon after I joined the company, she took us out of the heat of a\u00a0Manhattan summer and transported us to Watch Hill to train and rehearse from\u00a0June to August. She had bought the old firehouse in the center of town and\u00a0turned it into a rehearsal studio with the firepole intact. That was where we\u00a0showed up every day to train and where visiting choreographers staged ballets\u00a0for us that we would be taking on tour.<\/p>\n
I\u00a0recalled weekends when the other dancers and I climbed on the back of a\u00a0firetruck in front of the firehouse. We sipped champagne and rode up the hill\u00a0to the estate where we had a lavish lunch and hung out at Rebekah\u2019s swimming\u00a0pool. I also recalled being in a phone booth, (remember them?), talking to my\u00a0parents, when a good-looking young man, a teenager like me with long unruly\u00a0hair, slowly loped toward me and knocked on the glass. The area was home to old\u00a0wealth, dotted with massive estates and when I saw the jaguar parked close by,\u00a0I realized that this guy was clearly a member of an extremely wealthy family. I\u00a0finished my call and opened the door with a questioning look on my face. He spoke\u00a0slowly. \u201cAre you a ballet dancer?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
I\u00a0nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat,\u201d\u00a0he said. \u201cMy name is Perky.\u201d (He was anything but.) \u201cYou\u2019re an item on my scavenger\u00a0hunt list.\u201d He showed me a piece of paper that said, \u201cOne ballet dancer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u00a0found a gull feather,\u201d he went on, \u201cbut I need a ballet dancer. Will you come\u00a0with me?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay.\u00a0But I have to bring my girlfriend.\u201d In a few minutes, the three of us climbed\u00a0into Perky\u2019s car and he drove us up the hill to meet his friends. Needless to\u00a0say, he was the only person who had gotten a real live ballet dancer, actually\u00a0he got two, and he won the hunt hands down.<\/p>\n
These
events live in my memory like silent movies, playing over and over as I start\u00a0remembering details. How I felt. How I looked. What I was wearing. When we get triggered\u00a0by a memory, it\u2019s a piece of the puzzle of how we got from there to here \u2013 the\u00a0victories and the losses, the things that we regret and the things that we\u00a0celebrate, the mistakes we made that put us in harm\u2019s way, and the lessons we learned\u00a0that remind us to pay closer attention.<\/p>\n
Now,\u00a0in 2024, I find that I\u2019ve become a mentor. I\u2019m not talking about being an\u00a0arrogant know-it-all and telling people what to do. Life is too challenging to\u00a0think I have all the answers, but I\u2019m someone who has been through a lot, who has\u00a0endured some hard lessons and who wants to pass on the knowledge. My memories have\u00a0helped me understand myself and how to heal my wounds. They have reminded me not\u00a0to criticize or judge but to have compassion for people who are making the same\u00a0mistakes that I made. My memories have made me feel useful when I offer\u00a0suggestions that might save other people some suffering. And it all makes me\u00a0wonder, what am I doing right now that will become my memories in the future?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
During\u00a0the pandemic, when I was doing some introspection, I began investigating my\u00a0past to figure out how I had become who I am today. Who was this person sitting\u00a0at the computer? How had I gotten here? What came next? I wandered around my\u00a0house, picking up familiar objects and holding them in my hands. A hand beaded\u00a0eagle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2489,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488\/revisions\/2489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}