The Baggy Sock
I’m standing on the side of a highway somewhere east of Oaxaca. A ragtag film crew scattered about the bleak desert trying to get the final shots for a commercial. It’s the last day of a three month long travel job - a disaster of a job that felt like a mistake from day one. I’m wondering why I’d stuck with it so long. It had something to do with paying the rent. Even that didn’t feel worth it anymore. It wasn’t just the money that kept me tethered, it was the amount of hope I had injected into it. Each awful day of work I thought; surely the universe is conspiring to propel me closer to my purpose, the struggle is par for the course. The meaning will come, eventually, and it will crack open the door a little further and soon I’ll catch a glimpse of what it is that I’m actually doing with my life. I’d been wrong about that. All it was, was another failed job. That’s when I think of baggy sock. A memory I sometimes forget about, but one that is somehow always with me, like a candy wrapper in the pocket of your jeans that always survives the wash.
***
I don’t remember what month it was but it must have been springtime because I remember the warmth of the sun on my skin as I left the school building, tears streaming down my face, clinging to my mom. I remember feeling grateful for her sympathy not because I thought her incapable of understanding, but because even though I was only six, I understood that this could not be counted as a real tragedy - there were worse things in the world, this wasn’t real suffering. And yet my body registered it as such - a strange uncontrolled grief shattering its way through every part of me.
I imagine it was my dad who walked me to school that morning since it was my mom who picked me up, but it could have been either one since my parents would trade off at random who would get up and take me and who got to sleep in. We would walk east along Houston, a monstrous, and at that time, desolate four lane street that stretches across the island from river to river. We’d take it all the way down, passing a few scattered bars, botanicas and bodegas. Just before FDR Drive, was my kindergarten - buried inside the projects on the Lower East Side of Manhattan - wedged between the East River and Avenue D or as we Lower East Siders call it; The Ave.
There was no mention of the event that was to take place at school that day. Not to me anyway. As far as I was concerned, it was completely sprung on us out of nowhere. Although thinking back now, it seems unlikely that a prestigious dance company would just suddenly roll up to The Projects unannounced and conduct a competition to recruit young talent - like a circus blowing into town collecting runaways. The other thing that makes me think teachers and parents must have been informed, was that some of the kids seemed to be dressed for it; properly prepared in leggings and leotards or at the very least, a simple pair of sweatpants. This was exactly the sort of thing my parents never remembered to tell me. Like picture day, I was never prepared for it. In every single portrait and class picture, I look utterly disheveled and sleepy and dressed in a non-special outfit. I was always upset about this, but it happened every year anyway.
In some way, it was this very aspect of being totally unprepared that made the whole thing all the more mystical and in turn, all the more tragic. The experience that transpired and the way in which I connected and navigated through it, was entirely my own. No one planted any ideas whatsoever.
Once inside the classroom, we were told (or perhaps reminded) that today a few people from a highly regarded ballet company were here to select two kids to be given a full scholarship to join their school. In order for them to make their selection we would have to try out. The way it would work, is that we would all begin as a group and follow along performing various routines and movements as demonstrated by the recruiters. As we went, the group would be narrowed down until at last, two finalists would remain. I had never taken a dance class before nor had I even considered it a possibility until this very moment. But when I heard the announcement, it was as if I had been dreaming of it my whole life. It was as if I had been praying for this very thing. And at the same time there was a very logical side of myself that understood it was ridiculous to think I had any sort of a chance since I had zero dance experience. But that didn’t matter too much because what outweighed any doubt was this strong feeling that everything in my life had somehow been building up to this. The chance to be a ballerina. It might as well have been an invitation to become a fairy princess. I was a very stereotypical girl in this way, drawn to all things feminine.
The funny thing about this, is that my feminist mom had done everything in her power to steer me away from this sort of societal programming. She lived in her combat boots and paint spattered Levi’s. She took me to protests and to Riot Grrrl meetings. For years my hair was cut short like a boy, done with dull scissors and done purposely imperfect. I looked like the Artful Dodger. I was given books and art supplies and the kind of clothes you could run around in, dirty and uninhibited. I enjoyed all of these things tremendously, but I was always more excited about Barbie and glitter and sparkly pink dresses. I remember arriving at Riot Grrrl meetings with my mom and toting a plastic Key Food shopping bag full of Barbies and My Little Ponies. I’d set up at the far end of the long boardroom table and dive into magical planets while surrounded by this group of strong punk-rock-squatter women.
***
All of the kids, from the different classrooms and grades, were shuffled into one of the larger rooms where the tables and chairs had already been shoved to the edges of the room so that there was plenty of space in the middle for us to dance. There were three recruiters; two women and a man. Light flooded in through the iron gated windows and mixed with the fluorescent lights on the ceiling, so that everything was draped in a cold blue. They placed a boombox in the corner of the room and began to play classical music on the tape deck. We stood awkwardly in the middle of the room waiting for it to begin. It started off easy. I remember not being surprised to make it through the first couple of rounds because, although not experienced, I also wasn’t as discombobulated or distracted as a good handful of the other kids. I knew how to listen and I knew how to take direction.
As kids began to be eliminated, they were sent to the edges of the room to join the tables and chairs as well as our teachers standing by, so that as the rounds went on, a growing audience began to form and it felt more and more like being on stage. This aspect of being watched fueled me and around the time half of the group had been eliminated, I felt something in me brewing and I wanted to win this thing more than ever. Each round became increasingly difficult but somehow I stayed in. I felt as if I was being guided by something other. As if I was being guided by spirits. The instructions were transmitted into my body, like understanding a foreign language I had never heard before. Somehow I knew I could mimic each movement, almost as if I was anticipating it.
When just a few of us remained, it was time for the recruiters to inspect our arches and to test our flexibility and alignment. We were taken through a series of stretches on the floor. The instructors would come around inspecting and adjusting us as we went. At one point we were shown how to stretch our leg up into the air as high and straight as we possibly could and to point our toe with it. The instructor came by to help me and as I lifted my right leg and shot my foot into the air, I revealed a large, mismatched, worn out and with a hole beginning to tear in the heel, baggy sock. This sock was such an atrocity that the man could see nothing of my foot and whether or not I could arch it. He tried over and over to scrunch it down and find my foot that was so deeply buried in the material, but this was nearly impossible. As he pulled back the layers of baggy sock, he thought it pretty funny and teased me about it. He wasn’t being mean so much as trying to make me laugh. I remember not being offended but deeply embarrassed. That mortified heat rose to my face but there wasn’t time to indulge it. I was determined to do the best leg-point-arch that had ever been seen and I wasn’t about to let baggy sock stop me. When finally he located my foot, it must have been pretty okay because I made it through to the next round.
We were shown more combinations and the competition kept narrowing. By now I was so close and getting closer. I was beginning to feel certain that I could actually make the top two, though at the same time there was a part of me wondering what was granting me the audacity to believe it. But then suddenly it was down to just three of us; Shakeema White, Dyani Romero, and me. Just three of us surrounded by the school watching to see which two would make it all the way.
Shakeema was a firecracker. Tough and full of aggressive energy. But she also had manners and discipline which came from her grandmother, Lilian White, with whom she lived. Lilian was a long, lean, severe woman who looked as if she was dressed for Easter Sunday every day. Shakeema was a ball of chaos but she would pull her act together the second Lilian arrived to pick her up from school and I don’t think Lilian had a clue as to how wild Shakeema could be. Shakeema and I weren’t in the same group of friends, but we had been in the same class for a long time and there was a mutual respect between us. Sometimes she would be aggressive toward me to show off in front of her friends but it was never too bad so I accepted it and played along. One time we were assigned a project together and sent to the hall to work on it. With no one else watching, Shakeema was warm and caring. She had a better grasp on whatever the assignment was and worked diligently to carry it out for the both of us. She was beautiful. Smooth dark skin and a naturally toned, muscular body. Her hair was always perfectly pulled back and adorned with colorful plastic barrettes. Her clothes were coordinated and unwrinkled. I admired her personal neatness and her skilled handwriting. I always felt a little disheveled around her and tried to take note of how she carried herself. I don’t know where her parents were. She only had strict and humorless Lilian and so it made sense she had to blow off some steam during school hours.
I don’t think Shakeema had ever taken dance before either, but she didn’t need it. Shakeema seemed to be dancing everywhere she went anyway. She was the definition of a natural. She nailed every move and she did it with style. There was this energy bursting from her as she moved, sparkling from her skin, radiating from every pore. She was fierce and this was her moment to put that Lilian White discipline to work.
Dyani was my friend and would continue to be for many years, though this was at the earliest stages of it. Dyani was a different sort of firecracker but a firecracker nonetheless. It was inward. She was calculated and controlling. A fighter who always knew what she wanted and always got what she wanted. She was kind of the opposite of Shakeema but she possessed that same quality of perfectionism that I coveted; perfect outfits, perfect hair, perfectly packed lunches. She had glowing ivory skin and long dirty blonde hair that reached her hips. She looked white from a distance but up close her beautiful features revealed her Latina and Native American roots giving her a totally unique kind of beauty.
Unlike Shakeema and I, Dyani had been taking ballet since she was practically a baby. Not only that, but her mother Rebecca was a professional dancer. Rebecca was a classic beauty with a lean, muscular dancer's body that was covered in tattoos. She was somehow this perfect mix of graceful and strong, of male and female. She wore a uniform of baggy pants and a tight wife beater and she always seemed to be carrying a paper cup of coffee and a cigarette. Rebecca had a tattoo that went down her arm from her shoulder to her elbow of Frida Khalo’s self portrait The Broken Column. I would stare at it, infatuated by the image of this topless woman pierced with tiny nails, tears like little pearls spitting from her eyes and a pale skirt wrapped around her waist and waving in the wind. It was my first introduction to Frida and in my mind's eye I can still see the blue ink replica.
Rebecca was a lesbian and although the early 90’s on the Lower East Side had room for all walks of life, this in no way spared Dyani from torment on the playground when word got out the following year about her mother. It was the one glitch in Dyani’s perfectly constructed world, the one thing she could not manipulate or control. I remember standing on the playground with her as she whispered to me what all the commotion was about. It was the first time Dyani seemed small, meek. It was almost a relief from her usual bossy ways but mostly I felt a tenderness toward her for being brave enough to tell me and to trust me.
***
For the final test, we had to start off at the far side of the wall, take a few running steps and then leap into the air with our arms and legs stretched out diagonally. Shakeema went first. She ran with force and shot her body up into the air. It wasn’t perfect or as graceful as the recruiter had demonstrated but she certainly got good height and she looked cool doing it. Next was me. I knew it had all come down to this moment. I ran out and leaped up, but the spirits were no longer there. The connection was cut. I felt it in my body as it was happening - I knew instantly I had failed. As I made it to the other side of the room I turned around in time to see Dyani take her turn. She was perfect - light and graceful.
It was announced that Shakeema and Dyani had won the scholarships. It was a catastrophic disappointment. The first of many lessons learned about failure. I had given it all of my strength and effort. I had connected even to something divine. But still, I had failed.
My best friend at the time, a fellow squatter boy named Robin Hood Russel, had seen the whole thing go down. He was a year or two ahead of me and although we didn’t let on to our school friends that we were in fact best friends (since boys and girls were divided by some unspoken rule) we spent all of our after school time together and had a deep connection. He was standing with me outside of school and by the time my mom showed up I was so choked with tears I couldn’t speak, so Robin explained it to her for me. She hugged me and kept me close as we walked home together in silence.
***
I’m standing on the side of a highway somewhere east of Oaxaca. I’m thinking about failure, how it feels like I’m always starting over. I’m thinking about ambition, how mine seems to wax and wane. I’m thinking about how I always feel like I’m walking around with a baggy sock that I can’t make fit.
More than anything, more than that final failed leap, it’s the baggy sock that stands out to me. That moment of sheer determination in the face of embarrassment. The reaching, the striving. The mystical combination of will power and divine guidance. The grapple with what drives and defines us and that palette of infinite possibility - brilliant, glowing, waiting to be chosen. All these years later, some part of me still exists in that moment; one foot shooting to the heavens draped in a holy hole-y sock.