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| Peer Gynt. Zenda Smith School of Dancing (Howick, November 1985) |
My daughter had her first dancing exam last
week. Primary Modern Ballet. Three little girls, hair uncharacteristically
neat, go into the studio with their teacher as support, and for 15 or so
minutes run through the exercises and steps they’ve been learning since
September in front of a kindly examiner. The parents have of course paid for
the privilege of this, but money aside, it’s not an especially taxing
experience. Actually, it’s quite fun, because the midday time-slot meant my
daughter got the day off school, and she was very excited about having her hair
done up like a proper dancer.
Of course, the standard response from
people is, “An exam for a five-year-old? Activities have got ridiculous! Kids
should just be having fun.”
Yes, it does seem like a fairly redundant
exercise, but there’s nothing new about dancing exams. I sat my first ballet
exam at six years old and it was far more rigorous than the one my daughter
just did. Or at least, that's what I remember. Also, as I point out to people, if there’s something my daughter
needs in life, it’s the occasional moment when she’s told that for x amount of
time she has to be quiet, do as she’s told, and fulfil some set requirements. When
this happens, she most certainly rises to the occasion. But give the girl the
opportunity to choose what she does, more often than not, she’ll rationalise
her way out of doing anything, and talk your ear off in the process.
I should know,
because I’m exactly the same.
I was the type of kid who had activities on
every afternoon. Not because my parents were keen on ferrying me about, or because they had grand ideas about my immense talent, but because my mother in particular recognised that I
needed to be kept busy for everyone’s sake. Most of all, my own. So I did
ballet and choir and Brownies, then picked up Highland Dancing, piano, viola
the same year I started Guides, and by the time I began High School I was
playing in the school orchestras, competing most Saturdays in Highland
competitions, still going to Guides, learning pointe at ballet, attending Youth
Group, and was involved with school shows, choirs, oh, and doing pretty well in
my school work despite not really having the time to do any homework.
Sounds exhausting, but I never noticed. In
fact, what I recall from that period of my life, like my very busy undergraduate
years of study, part-time jobs, and more choir than you can shake a stick at, is
how much time I had to go out with friends. What’s more, right now, in a period
of my life where for a number of reasons I don’t have much going on outside of
the home (no job, new country, money’s tight, a little adrift), I’m nothing but
exhausted. There are things I can always be doing - writing, research, finding
fun stuff to do with the kids (mmm?) - but like the little girl given all the
options and free play in the world, I rationalise myself out of doing anything.
I only need a little space to see the futility in it all, and stay-at-home
motherhood is exactly the sort of space to illuminate the insignificance of my
little lot. I am no self-motivated entrepreneur and I freely accept that fault.
Like Jane Eyre, perhaps, I am impassioned, but not necessarily ambitious; I
need something to do. Someone give me a mission.
“But you have a PhD!” someone yells from
the gods, “There’s proof you’re self-motivated.” Yes, but I had the incomparable Professor Susan Manning who made me work, often by inspiration alone; I had teaching at the university, I had a very
handsome scholarship to live up to. I had choirs to keep me sane and
responsibilities to fulfil. That seems rather lacking now.
So on Shrove Tuesday, which is as good a
day as any to use up all the indulgence left over from the old year, I plan to
start tomorrow in a penitential mindset of good works.
Who knows if they’ll be good for anyone
else, but I need to give up indolence for myself. I need to stop waiting for
someone to give me something to do, to set an exam for me. Galling as it is, I
need to write the exam for myself.
