A Ballerina's Prayer

Dancing was her life. So was pain.

- Deborah Novak

Light streamed in through the windows of the yoga studio. I stood gingerly on my mat and took a deep breath, trying to keep myself centered. Focused. Calm. But I’d never been more afraid in my life. I exhaled. Pain knifed through my left leg. My hip had gone out during a performance of The Nutcracker a few weeks ago, and it wasn’t healing. Will I ever dance again? I asked.

I had been front and center in the “Waltz of the Flowers,” doing piqué turns in my hot-pink tutu, when I felt something shoot through my left hip. From that second on, every movement I made was torture. Standing en pointe, I gritted my teeth. I knew I had to carry on with the performance. But the doubts rolled in. This is what you get, I said to myself. Ballet is for young people. You’re 60 years old. Somehow I made it offstage and collapsed onto a chair, trying to breathe through the pain.

I’d been a ballerina forever. My mother signed me up for lessons here in Huntington, West Virginia, when I was five years old—a tomboy who loved football and hated tutus. I didn’t really fall in love with dance until six years later. That was when I discovered it was the closest thing to flying. I would run across the floor, leap into a grand jeté and soar through the air. Then I’d do one pirouette. Two. Three. Spinning like a top, I’d never felt so alive.