December 24, 1979
Cary, North Carolina
I'm five years old on Christmas Eve and staying up to watch the Nutcracker. It will be on PBS the same channel I watch Sesame Street and the Electric Company. A girl with long hair in a nightgown is staring at a gorgeous Christmas tree with her brother. Lightening booms and lights on the stage flash. A scary man appears in the doorway. He gives away toys. Clara, my mom says her name is Clara. She is given a wooden nutcracker, it doesn't look like the silver one my grandparents use to crack walnuts and Brazil nuts. Of course her little brother breaks the jaw. Clara, puts the nutcracker in a doll bed and leaves for the night.
She sneaks out of bed to check on the wooden nutcracker. The clock strikes twelve and the scary man is in the shadows. The tree grows, the lights flash, the nutcracker comes to life and is joined by all these soldiers and mice. Where did the mice come from and why is everyone fighting? Clara throws her shoe, I'm going to throw one at my brother. The mouse king goes down. The Nutcracker is a prince-will one of my Ken dolls come to life? They walk into the snow and she doesn't seem to wonder why her doll is now a prince and should she really go with him anywhere.
After popcorn and coke because I'm allowed to drink coke, Clara and the Nutcracker Prince ride a boat to a castle. The Sugar Plum fairy is in charge and so excited to have the Prince back. Clara is honored with dances. Lots of dances. The dance of the Sugar Plum fairy is very mellow-like the soft drink. One is of the same music for the dancing mushrooms in Fantasia-that moves quickly. And a woman has a ton of children under her skirt-will I have that many children one day? I don't want any.
Clara leaves-wakes up to the scary man and the nutcracker in the bed.
Back to now:
Thirty-one years later I still remember watching that on PBS with my mom-exactly as I wrote it down. At his school, my son is having lessons on "Tchaikovsky." He loves to play war between The Mouse King and The Nutcracker with the help of his movement teacher who told him "You can't talk during a ballet." To which he replied, "Then my mom can't handle it."
In life it is harder to make true friends as an adult. I think friendships like that taper off after the college years. With old friends you can say, "I have to drive on the highway..." and they cringe because they know a full blown panic attack is on the way. With new friends, they blink at you. My son's movement teacher is a true adult friend and she never blinks at me. Ironically, I became close with her after I had a car accident a week after I moved here. She picked my son up for school until the Pilot was fixed.
How are these things connected?
She is directing the Nutcracker for the New Haven ballet and it opens tonight. She stepped up for this under sad circumstances, when the boss she loved lost his life to cancer. It will be phenomenal!
Break a leg this weekend my dear- and when it is all over, we will have a spa day! How about a Sugar Plum hydrating treatment?
I have the best memories of my grandmother taking me to see the Nutcracker in Winston-Salem for so many years. Afterwords, we would go to Old Salem for cookies and tea (and of course to buy a candle). This past weekend, my grandmother took my oldest daughter. I was so jealous but so very glad she got to experience that with Meemaw and the bonus was she loved it!
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