I wish I had more memories from my ballet career, but I started at 3 and retired at 11. Most of those years left me long ago (who needs em?!). I do remember Miss Wendy, my first teacher, a beautiful mother who was very adamant that we not sit in our hip joints. To this day I think of her modeling an exaggerated slouch, crossing her arms and sticking her left hip out to the side like a fed up teenager.
Like everything at that age, I took ballet class very seriously. I loved the pink leather slippers with the thin elastic band that stretched across my pointed feet. I embraced the leotards and the stringent hairstyles. During warm ups, I’d savor the cold metal barre that made our hands smell like iron. I carried all my ballet stuff in a vinyl bag shaped like a sun, which (unlike many of artifacts of my youth) I still have to this day.
The classes took place on the large basketball court at Rustic Canyon Park. Yes, my entire ballet career took place at a rec center—but I didn’t care because our recitals always felt so grand. We’d dance on a giant stage that overlooked the court. I felt like a true ballerina, performing for an intimate audience. This fantasy was easy to indulge, as the park staff would turn all the gym lights off so we couldn’t see our families sprawled across aluminum gym bleachers.
Up on stage, it was very important to find a spot to look at. You didn’t want to be caught staring into the abyss of a darkened audience or worse—lose your balance in the middle of a twirl. When a dancer spins, their head whips around before the rest of their body. Their eyes return over and over to a single point, guiding the body to center. It feels like magic, finding stillness in a spiral.
You need that point outside of yourself to anchor every movement.
If you’ve ever taken a yoga class with one of those teachers that loves using Sanskrit, you’ve probably heard the word Drishti. Okay, full disclosure I used to be one of those Sanskrit-loving yoga teachers but my teaching career was a lot shorter than my time as a ballerina.
The concept of Dhristi escaped my mind for many years, but it came back to me the other day as I found myself staring at a tiny fragment of a leaf on my yoga mat. I was holding a difficult pose, struggling to find a reserve of calm. When I noticed the speck, a wave of relief washed over me. Suddenly I had a landing pad for my entire existence and I poured my consciousness towards it, full tilt.
So much of existence is surrounded by a swirling of thoughts, chance happenings and fights with distraction. In the face of all this, we are expected to hold our position, keep twirling, or even gracefully leap without looking down.
I got through the yoga pose and pulled myself into a fold, breathing deeply. My heart pounded as I was flooded with gratitude for that little speck, remembering all the spots I’ve stared at over the years. Little knots in floorboards, nicks in linoleum, even stains on carpet.
Beyond the physical focal points, there have been so many that I can’t lay a finger on. Despite their lack of material form, these offer more concrete relief, because they travel with you while holding a slight distance. These spots are always just beyond the immediate chaos that hoovers in close proximity.
Does this ring any bells? Because you definitely have a point, if not many. We’ve all seen the moon float alongside our car, no matter how fast our speed. Maybe you return to a greater power outside of the little mind, a ritual that brings you into presence, an abstract ambition that keeps calling your name. Inside of all these points is a form of trust, a belief that beyond every finite difficulty lies guidance and meaning.
On the surface these points will change, some fade like a blanket left too long in the sun. Others are replaced in a blip by something new, but each of them serve the same purpose. To sustain us without opening the door to some sort of dependency or attachment. The nature of the point is that it is beyond the self.
We look towards it, but just like sunlight we cannot reach out and touch.
Yet just like sunlight it may come to embrace us, in movements unseen.
Today I’m going to start thanking my little points and giving them the credit they deserve. My anchors in the midst of any and all storms.
xx
James