Berlin to Utah – Leaving on a Jet Plane

 

Nothing like being in a supposed war … created by another … but one that we must fight … regardless. Only to have that war … appear … to have it suddenly disappear. But the energy and damage linger because the inner domains of trust have become a wasteland.

Now, I have a way to exit Berlin and to go to Ballet West.

………. Seems too easy!

There must be a catch.

 

It will not be easy … but it seems doable and manageable. I go about arranging all the flights, getting rid of my apartment, giving away the furniture, working my ass off in preparation to shift continents.

Then there is the boyfriend … Peter.

He is clearly going into distress at the news.

We had gone to Flensburg, and we had a wonderful time.

I was not used to being treated from a higher standard of living. Many things were amazing.

I remember the restaurant that was clearly some sort of “Michelin Star” place.

There were real silver … silverware, fancy China, expensive cut crystal goblets for the wine. All of it was amazing and a very new experience for this Texas girl.
His parents were lovely, a bit reserved and cool. But that was not unusual in my experience of meeting the descendants of two world wars.

We stayed in a gorgeous room in the hotel. Much fancier than anything I had been exposed too.

And Peter and I walked on the dikes, and I danced with muddy feet in the warm sunlight.

The one funny thing was that I wore a yellow/green shirt, and it seemed that the bees thought I was a hops flower, and I was repeatedly swarmed.

Good thing I like bees and I am not afraid of them.
We had a blast and it felt more like a vacation than at any time in my life. While it was only three days it was a lovely three days.

I had excitedly told him the good news. But by the look on his face, my good news … was not good news … to him.
I had told him from the beginning of our dating that I was leaving.
But the hope of youth is something timeless and eternal.

He was trying to be happy for me. Yet, I could tell that he was in distress.

We talked about it and I said clearly … “You are still in school for another 3 years to get your degree that you want in Finance. That is important to you, and I need to do this. I do not feel at home in Germany, and this is not where I want to live the rest of my life. And you knew that!”

He had to agree because I had been upfront about it all … from the beginning.
I began to notice a strong despair gaining a foothold over him. He was trying to stay clear but his level of attachment to me was stronger than I realized.

I am excited to go into a new world. I felt that Bruce Marks, (the director of Ballet West) and I were on a better footing and that we were being amazingly honest and straight forward with each other.

My conversations with him about the required performances to complete the Berlin contract were not that big of a problem to him.
I found him friendly, easy going, personable and this gave my hope wings to fly back to America.

I flew from Berlin to Heathrow in London, changed planes and then flew from London to JFK in New York. Only to change planes again, and eventually get to Salt Lake City, UT.
I get to Utah only to discover that all my luggage is missing.

All of it!

I get to Utah … with nothing!

No point shoes, no tights, no leotards, no stage makeup, no hair pieces for performances (Though I did not realize at that point that in Ballet West, I did not need them but they were very expensive.), no legwarmers, no ballet shoes, no skirts, no regular clothes, no tweezers, no regular makeup… you get the idea.

I arrive in Utah with only the clothes on my back and then I am in a scramble to get all the required gear to perform or rehearse, while also trying to get an apartment, a car, insurance, and a drivers license. Seems my European license did not cut it.
Fortunately, the costume ladies at Ballet West helped out and had some shoes in my size though they did not have my personal maker.

For a dancer that is like being used to Christian Louboutin and suddenly needing to adjust to Manolo Blahnik. While both are great shoes, they require me getting adjusted to them and not feeling awkward.
I notice a sort of cool reception to my arrival from the dancers but not the director. But it often takes a moment for others to warm up to the new people.

In the ballet world, there are protocols for where you stand at the barre in class and where you stand in the center work of a ballet class.
Every dancer knows that the other dancers have their places. All the good places will be taken.

So, I try to arrive early to warm up and get a lay of the land as to where there might be a spot.

The best ally a girl has in a ballet company are the gay guys. They are upfront and will tell it like it is without fanfare or drama. Though they will unabashedly tell you, “Oh girlfriend! Don’t stand there if you want to keep those pretty teeth!”

It is meant in jest, but it is a very serious thing.

I was never the person who needed to be center stage in class.

But I liked being center stage … on stage …!
Seemed the only place that was available was in the corner at the back left side of the room.

Not a problem for me.

That was my favorite place at SAB and I had a similar spot in Berlin.

So tucked into the corner, I just kept my head down and did not try to impress anyone. Honestly, I was just trying to get my legs back under me. I was still very weak from three bouts of pneumonia, underweight, and feeling stressed from all the changes.

Those last few months in Berlin were a whirlwind of performances and dating. And all that was happening while dealing with a major move.
I thought things went okay for a starting point at Ballet West. And I did some rehearsals but really did not have time to take in the fact that there was a type of tension.

Honestly, I thought it was me. Inside, I was a train wreak trying to look like I was okay. I was the new girl in the system, and no one knew me, and I had come from dancing in Europe. I did not have time or energy to dwell on the patterns or waves that my appearance made in the system.

I had to leave to go back to Berlin all too quickly…  and before too long I was on a plane heading towards that performances at the Deutsche Oper.

Those shows went well and yet the strain on me was heightened by the unraveling of the emotions in my boyfriend, Peter.
There was an added complication because I had let my apartment go and so I was staying with him.

He was becoming more and more distressed.

I was pretty clear that while he was a lovely person, that my career was my top priority not a relationship.

I was very new to this intense emotional game of the heart. I did not really know how to feel past myself or deal with the emotions of another that was suffering. I was still very weak and trying so hard to get my “shit” together.
Because I had been in pain for so long … I was not operating at my optimum levels of awareness.
While I was excited to start a new chapter in my life … I was also dealing with one more factor beyond my control. At that time, my mother was in the process of having her last and longest “nervous breakdown.”
Throughout my life I had witnessed the other 5 psychologically stressful moments when she had emotionally and mentally fallen apart. But this one was going to take her 9 years to fully recover from and her level of intense upset was adding to my levels of distress.

I had the feeling that everyone was pulling on me in opposite directions.

My boyfriend, my old job, my new job, and now … my mother.
It was a lot.
Much more than I cared to consider.
I think some part of me knew that if I let in the feeling all those issues at once, it might collapse my health.
And I was already dancing in a knifes edge.
My next trip from Berlin back to Utah … shockingly had the same result.
My luggage disappeared from Heathrow Airport and was never seen again.

I think, “How can that happen twice?”

“What is the universe trying to tell me?”
This time the costume designer at Ballet West, “David Heuvel”, had asked me to bring those special German sewing pins (That have the glass balls on the end and can pierce many layers of fabric) to him here in Utah. I was more than happy to do that. I had bought probably a thousand of them. (Wanting to make a good impression.)

I made me sick to have to tell him that they were lost into the ethers of the luggage gods.

He took it well, but I was once again without clothes, makeup, … well … you get the drift.
This time while I am in Utah, my boyfriend, Peter, is calling incessantly, crying about how terrible this is, that he misses me, and how much he is in “love” with me.

I am already an emotional wreck and deeply exhausted in a way that I did not want to admit.

Night after night, he is calling … miserable and wanting me to come back. And each day, I think I can’t take another day of this.

I am living inside my own bubble just trying to survive. I am keeping my head down in Ballet West because I just don’t want to deal with one more stressor.
Bruce Marks is being really wonderful, funny, engaging, kind, and oddly sharing of things that interest him. We talk about Europe and our favorite things about living there, museums, café’s, and the funny cultural norms of there compared to here.

I am not used to such a conversations with a director, and I am deeply honored by that.
Somehow, the easier the process was with him … the harder other things became in other areas.
It me … it was clear that Bruce Marks was gay … even though he was married, it seemed clear that things were rocky (at best) between him and his wife.

While I had a lovely connection with Bruce Marks, on many levels … Toni Lander (his wife) was oddly absent.
And she was the main reason I had chosen to leave Berlin and come to Ballet West. Eva and Galina both respected her amazing talent as a coach but she seemed to not really teach at all when I got there.
I knew they had children, so I just assumed that it was because of the demands of dealing with children.

But karma comes to show us what we cannot see or refuse to see.

What I was going to refuse to see was that I had some sort of old, deep, unresolved, karmic issues from past lives that that would take me a decade or more to completely understand.

In that moment, I did not see that I was a part of some lesson that I needed to learn and that I was going to be called in to work through some things that I clearly had not seen in a prior life … nor was I even going to clearly see them in this life.

We can try to be aware … but too often we are wandering in our own bubble of oblivion.
I would be asked to dance with this karma again. But that karma would not be worked out on stage. Quite the contrary.

I would be kept off that stage and, in my innocence, I would not even see it until much … much later.

 

Karma leads the blind to the wall.

Karma forces us to climb rather than fall.

Karma teaches us to open our eyes to another way.
Karma reveals much in the heat of dismay.

It can take us on a ride that shows us the face of death.

And the moment we see it, it will take away our very breath.

Especially when someone enters the field in good faith.
We do not believe that we are being stalked by a wraith.

~Suzanne Wagner~