On the Airplane to Hamburg

Sep 18, 2008
Dance

(This is a little out of order now but I wrote this on the airplane when I was first coming out to Germany.)

Right now I can’t help the tears that are starting to very, very slowly leave my eyes and roll over my cheeks. These aren’t the tears you cry when you feel despair, or the tears you cry because you are bursting with joy…I am not sure if I could tell you what these tears are from. Maybe they are from a little fear mixed with pure excitement. These aren’t the kind of tears that come with a simple explanation–that is for sure. I do know that as they come, I let them fall right past my cheek onto my orange scarf, and down past that to the blue-stripped pattern of the chair I am sitting on. I used to try to hide emotions such as this, but I think I have given up hiding. There are things that sometimes we aren’t meant to have complete control over, and emotions are one of those things. I believe that while we do have the ability to control many things in our lives we also have to be brave enough to close our eyes and just let life happen. Right now, I definitely feel that I am ready to close my eyes for a little while.

I was in a light sleep dreaming about all of the exciting things I have to look forward to when I heard a voice tell me that we were flying over the state of Colorado. The pilot said that to the left you could clearly see the Rocky Mountains. Pikes Peak and Cheyenne Mountain were in clear sight and we were right over Colorado Springs. Memories suddenly flooded my mind. I lived in Colorado Springs on Cheyenne Mountain for four years of my life. I was six when we first moved there and it is one of the first places that I feel attached to. Many of my wonderful childhood memories happened miles below me now and they still bring a grin to my face. We continued miles forward because just like I had to, after those four years in Colorado, I am moving on. This will be the seventh time I have moved in my life but it doesn’t make it any easier. I think that change is hard for anyone, but I also believe that it can be an amazing thing. After you go through the hard parts, you will undoubtedly learn some of the most important life lessons along the way. I have found it helps to keep that in mind during the hardest adjustments.

Without question this move will be the biggest, and most difficult change I have ever been through. Not only am I moving to a country where I don’t speak the language– I am starting my very first job! I will be paying my first bills for my first apartment; I will be getting my first paycheck, and I will be budgeting my own earned money for the first time. I finally have reached the starting point in a career that I have been dreaming about since I started taking dance classes once a week at miss Nancy Derby’s Dance School in the place that I just flew over not five minutes ago. Life is an amazing thing. I am so excited and grateful for everything I have had, as well as, for everything coming my way…whatever that might be.

Comments

Emery

Dear Maddie, your post reminded me of something I wrote a long time ago. Don’t worry! Everything turned out well:

“It was September 27th, ____ long ago when God kicked me out of paradise. I remember sitting in the crowded 747 that evening, staring out the plane window with hot tears trickling down my face. Why was I leaving my Hawai’i? Well, ever since I bit into that forbidden fruit called “Dance”…I had set my feet on a path that ultimately would lead me away from the fiftieth state. I didn’t want to go, but I knew I would never be happy unless I chased that improbable dream of becoming a professional dancer. I was scared of waking up some morning, with a fat bank account and an empty soul…(Okay, Okay…maybe not so fat a bank account!) Old at thirty or forty knowing I had never taken the risk…knowing I had been too scared to make that big jete’ across the pond…never risked it all on a single bet on another pair o’ dice.
Hawai’i has much to offer…but not for ballet dancers. I wanted to leave…but I also wanted to play it safe. Spending a month at my brother’s on the mainland, making the rounds of auditions in San Francisco. One offer from a Jazz company that didn’t pay—huh! Might as well stay at home and become a Spats/Pasta with Passion dancer! Some interest—the WRONG kind—from the artistic director of a California ballet company. ______ just wanted to talk about his old boyfriend who used to be from Hawai’i. (I was so naive, I wondered what that had to do with me!) Another time, I guested with the Frank Montoya Dancers in SF. And, later still, with Hawai’i Ballet Theater’s production of Pekelo and Pua’a in L-A. (I later met Mary Kay in Chicago who told me she saw that performance—what a small dance world it is after all!) When we got to LA, there was an audition at Stanley Holden’s studio for Hartford Ballet. I’d missed the Company audition and took the school audition instead as a substitute. The school directors said they were interested…but, I didn’t want to get in a school. I wanted a professional contract in hand before I left my comfort zone in Honolulu. When I flew back to Hawai’i, there was a little girl at baggage claim who smiled the biggest smile and said “I saw you in Nutcracker!” I smiled back and thought to myself, “This is a sign. I’m home. This is where I belong. From now on, I’ll just be content to dance in Hawai’i.” But, the Universe had other plans…”

Sep 18, 2008 @ 18:23

Lana

Madison, that was beautiful. Best wishes and hope everything is going just as you always dreamed it would.

Sep 18, 2008 @ 21:21

Bianca

Dear Madison,
Just reading your experience made me cry. It was beautiful, I felt as though I was sitting right there. I have always had a passion for dance and am finally (a little late in life) getting back to it. I wish you all the BEST with all of your wonderful and perhaps nerve-racking experiences to come.