Ballet does strange things to your body.
As a kid, I looked at my sister’s Barbie dolls’ feet and thought, “Nobody has feet like that.”
Now? I have them.

Then, there’s this. The weird little dip caused by hyperextending the ankle.
I first noticed it on David Hallberg’s beautiful legs. Since I basically didn’t have ankles, I concluded mine could never look like that. Now, they do.
Also, now I have ankles. And beautiful* legs. (*Sometimes!)

Here’s another thing.
The dip at the top of the thigh. Sometimes cyclists have it, but it’s endemic among dancers.
Even I have it now.
Along with inside-out knees.

Often, in the morning, I marvel at the architecture of my own feet,
with their marvelous bridges of sinew and bone.
This would all be so much navel-gazing, if it weren’t so hard-won.
For so long, I hated this body so much,
because it had betrayed me,
because it had failed me,
because it did not seem to be mine.

But ballet has a way of re-creating us in its own image…
…And, strangely enough, when I look at what it has made of this body, what I see — is, finally, myself.