Full Circle

 As I sat on the front row of dress rehearsal and watched this scene unfold, a smile played on my lips.  My insides were full of a new kind of mirth that I can't describe.  I tried to wrap my head around this:  The teacher who raised me as a dancer, a dancer who was one of my teen idols...and my son.  Rehearsing the opening scene of Nutcracker.  It appears things have come full circle, and in a way I could never have predicted.

I was fourteen when I finally landed a part in the Ballet West Nutcracker.  This was before Clytie began doing her production, and competition was fierce, with Ballet West being the only production of Nutcracker in the Intermountain West.  Yet I finally got lucky, and even volunteered for two casts! I spent my whole Christmas season in pancake make-up and a turban, backstage admiring Jeff Rogers, Freestone's Drosselmeyer.  I had plenty of time to study his...tights...in the half-light of the wings, waiting for him to perhaps fall madly in love with me, a lowly Oriental Servant from the ranks of the bratty kids he no doubt regarded with a big-brotherly contempt.  Shockingly, my fairy tale never materialized quite like I had envisioned, and Jeff Rogers, AKA The Nutcracker Prince, went on to live his life without me, as devastating as that must have been for him.

When I waited tables at Lamb's in my '20's, I often served the Ballet West dancers, "my" Nutcracker prince included.  I'm sure at some point, I was goofy enough to admit to Jeff Rogers that I had swooned for him from under my turban.  The horrors.  I'm sure he had completely forgotten my face by the time I observed some of his classes at BW several years ago.

Jeff Rogers is still a fascinating character to me, with his sardonic wit and the quick, caustic comments he tosses off with a detached wave of the hand.  The fact that Freestone gets to be his "nephew" is perfect; Freestone responds to that type of personality with ease.  They make a great pair in their matching capes with their matching sarcastic natures.  As for me and my mirth, we are all too happy to watch from the wings.  As it should be.