Pirouettes in The Kitchen
Pirouettes in The Kitchen:
Creating in the midst of imperfection
by Sara Kernan
I grew up in the wings of the stage. From the age of three, I would sit waiting by the heavy, velvet curtains of the Gerald C. Wilson auditorium and marvel as pointe shoes would defy gravity across the worn stage.
My first reaction to ballet is infamous in my family. “My bones hurt!” I exclaimed in the car after running up the steps from the studio. But with lessons paid for and ballet slippers in hand, I had to finish out the lessons. And somewhere between “my bones hurt” and trying on my baby Ewok costume for our ballet performance of “Star Wars”, I fell in love with dancing.
Other activities would stack and fall but dancing continued to be the main event. Violin, soccer, 4H, choir, basketball; it was all attempted and given the honest effort but nothing moved me quite like dancing. I loved spending my afternoons in a studio and long weeks rehearsing for a performance. The nervousness in my stomach during auditions and performing were somehow. Nothing beat looking out into the audience with only the details I could make out being the two front rows and the bright red light in the used for spotting during spins.
I added tap and jazz to my schedule and continued to dance. But growing up gets busier. Between school and new hobbies, it was getting harder to balance.
Eventually, my studio parred down to just tap. Then tap went to the wayside too. I could have gone to the other studio in my little town but at that point, I think I knew, I was done dancing. It was time. I was in high school and found myself really loving other activities. Writing, reading, and volunteering filled the days.
I had danced for 13 years.
At first, it felt like failure. I had committed over a decade to dance. My parents paid for lessons, and dance required new shoes, costumes, and gear. Anywhere from 2-5 nights a week was spent in class. So many of my dreams from the first time I had tucked my laces into my pink slippers were related to dancing.
I think there’s this pressure with all things creative that’s its perfection or nothing. Success or nothing. Career or nothing.
Dancing wasn’t something I was the best at. It wasn’t something I made into a career. It wasn’t something that I was going to innovate in and surprise the dancing world. It was just something that made me happy. It gave me purpose and peace in a way that I needed for 13 years.
Creating doesn’t have to be perfection, success, or career. We create because we are made to create. And while the purpose may not be a point A to point B connection, creating is never wasted.
Hours sitting in rehearsal, practicing and starting the music from the top to practice again, taught me what I needed to know about editing a draft.
Taking notes and learning to smile through the missteps, gave me the freedom to make mistakes and be better for it.
Learning how to create meaning with music and movement helped me find my voice.
13 years to a craft that I don’t use today aside from pirouettes in the kitchen, isn’t wasted. And this unspoken pressure that creating has to lead to something concrete is fear keeping us from the very things that might grow us, challenge us, change us.
So I’m giving you the permission you might struggle to give yourself: you get to create. Even if it’s not perfect, professional, or permanent. Even if it’s messy and imperfect and just for you. Create, because we need to create.
Write the draft.
Open up the watercolors.
Break out the camera.
Watch the tutorial.
Sign up for the class.
Type out the poem.
Put words to a song.
And dance.
Because you have permission to create, free of what will come of it.