'I am a very good dancer, but I will never be a great one—and all I want is to go home and eat my mom’s roast chicken'
. It contains references to eating disorders and sexual abuse.We dance all day long. In the studios. In the stairwells. On the sofas in the lounge. Down Broadway. It is my childhood dream come to life. The New York City package: 1988 style. Dance school. Depressing apartment. Leg warmers. Straw basket bag like Coco on Fame.
We share a bathroom with the School of American Ballet, I listen to the heaving in the stalls. I watch girls erase their femininity, their fertility.A stick of Juicy Fruit gum is ten calories and if you chew it for over an hour, you will burn eleven calories. I visit every church, temple, mosque on the Upper West Side that will let me in. I breathe in the religious air. It feels thick, cool, supportive. It smells musty but sweet like my grandmother Elizabeth’s garage. I pretend to believe in God by listening to the music, planting my feet on the cement floor, holding a Bible to my chest.
I don’t want what I thought I wanted. I don’t want to decide what to eat. I don’t want to be set free. Before bed, I tear up the challah so that it gets stale for the next day’s stuffing. I study the map of recipes written by my mom. My entire childhood Thanksgiving experience is on paper. Mashed potatoes. Mincemeat pie. Creamed onions.I get up early to take the turkey out of the fridge and bring it to room temperature. I dice onions and sauté them with a stick of butter. I add celery and seasonings, the stale bread, and chicken stock. I can hear my parents’ and my grandparents’ voices.
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