Monday, 29 January 2018

My First Pair of Ballet Shoes

Every now and then I am so thankful that my mother was one of those mums who never threw anything away. Sometimes I am amazed with the things that she comes up with, like this pair of ballet shoes. It is all I have left of my ballethood as a child. I only did it for a term. After that we had to call it quits as my parents said it was too expensive, with the uniforms and the shows and so on. They said they were already paying for my piano lessons and I showed no aptitude at dance. I was really crushed and I still remember that day, that very last day when I did ballet. They are soft leather both inside and out and in a very pale pink. There was a pair of ribbons per shoe and we learned how to tie them properly.

Heartbroken, I hung on to the shoes which my mother also did, as a souvenir of that time. I remember weeping into them. 41 years passed. When you are born and raised in an ugly, post-industrial working-class mess of a city called Johor Bahru, (which is like saying you are from Hull) there is a certain hopelessness and ennui in realising any whim, fancy or artistic dreams or to enjoy a culture of sophistication. At least there was one school of ballet and a public library at the time, which gave me a glimpse of that other world, the one that I should be in.

However, today as an adult, fortunately I have the benefit of hindsight which is that I am super-proud, excited and happy to have grown up in a city of such vileness because I now realise I have escaped. Johor Bahru made me who I am, it is my identity and my self-worth.

"I made my living writing about the beauty of ugliness." - Jack Kerouac



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