Lucid Waking

Archive for September 8th, 2007

There’s More to Life

            Kari was writing out the list of girls in each class with her mechanical pencil, her nose a few inches from the paper. The candle on the desk was lit, but the smell was barely noticeable in the cold room. She sat up straighter and put the finished class list in the pile of finished registers. She re-did the ponytail in her platinum blond hair before starting on another list. She had a muscular frame, but she was thin and very tall for a ballerina. The phone rang and she answered it. She was concise and professional in the answers she gave on the phone. A few girls or their mothers came up to her and waited as she walked through the procedures of the dance studio she worked at. Smiling, she took a check or two, joked a bit with the regular girls or their mothers and then stood up in her fuzzy slippers to get ready for her ballet class.
            Another dancer came into the studio, ready for class except for her jeans. She announced that she hurt her knee during cheerleading practice and couldn’t dance in class that day. Kari turned to her and started asking questions about how long ago the injury was and whether or not she went to a doctor. She took the girl’s answers into account and told her to wear a brace while putting a heating pad on it before she went to bed. The girl thanked her and sat down in a chair, while she waited. Kari had responded the same way when I had sprained my foot and always reminded me to take it easy. She told the girl the same thing as the dancer sat down.
            I was extremely early to class as I always was on a Monday so I was watching some of the classes through the window. While there was a lull in the office work she had to do, Kari came over to join me.
            “What’s up, Bri?” she asked me.
            I told her I was tired.
            “How’s school?”
            There was a lot I could tell her, but I just said it was fine. Not the absolute truth, but not a downright lie, either.
            “That’s good.” She went back to watch the girls perform across the dance floor; a few had faulty technique, but they worked hard to fix it.
            I told her how much I hated the emphasis they put on college in addition to all the schoolwork in honors classes. She told me that she remembered what it was like when she was in high school. “I was in honors classes, too and I ended up not going to college,” she said with a smile. “And I’m fine and love my job.”