#like rosin

[impossibleyousay]

Like Rosin, Part 4

To talk about Division IV that fall, I have to back up.

I started taking at the school when I was four years old,. I grew up in the dressing room, the hallway, and the three studios.

When I was eight, I started taking jazz, mostly because Ms. Elena told me that it would be good for my dancing. I don’t remember if this was something she said to everyone or if she thought it would be particularly good for me, but at that point it seemed silly to not dance as much as I could.

I am always identifiable as ballet-trained. The younger girls at Turning Pointe the summer before college—and by younger I mean eleven to thirteen or so, the only ones I could keep up with when we turned—called me a ballet dancer, and I corrected them to ballet-trained. It feels silly in retrospect, but I didn’t identify with ballet at that point. I was taking it again, even pointe, and I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t where I felt most like myself.

That’s even more true now. I can’t shake my ballet sensibilities, the early way it shaped what feels correct to me. But jazz and modern take me gendered as I am, and they build me up instead of pressing me in. They always have. I was a ballet dancer first, but jazz taught me everything: my hips, my core, my turns, my leaps, my joy. And very, very belatedly, my gender.

Modern taught me Leah. Later on, it taught me to breathe.

Nazrin moved back to the city from Nashville in the summer that I was eleven. When she arrived, she had a broken foot, and none of us had any idea who she was. But she was a good teacher; that was what mattered. We all liked Nazrin, that one technique class per week, and when she showed us barre combinations, she did all the releves on one foot.

I was a snob, then, and didn’t take summer jazz. I wish I had, a little, because it was in jazz and modern that I came to love Nazrin.

Promotions between divisions at semester were unsurprising but always few. The next spring, there were five of us who were new to Division IV: Sydney, Addison, Marie, Katrina, and me. Sydney had been in Division III for two and a half years and had been working really hard to move up. Addison had improved so much over the past year. Marie had recently come over from gymnastics and had just needed a semester to figure out ballet and pointe. I honestly don’t remember what I thought about Katrina. But me? I was excited, but I didn’t understand.

Kristi was a better dancer, and Bella. So why me? I didn’t look like a ballet dancer, I wasn’t that good, and I hated pointe with a passion.

But I moved up, and that meant I was in Division IV for Recital. For Division III, Ms. Elena choreographed a very pretty, classical piece in white. I’m sure I would have enjoyed it; I like Ms. Elena’s choreography.

But.

For Division IV, Nazrin choreographed a more lyrical piece to “Out of My League” by Stephen Speaks, and I’ve never loved a ballet Recital dance so much. Our class section had to be en pointe because our dance wasn’t, and Division IV is a pointe division, but it was okay. It meant we got “Out of My League.”

Nazrin divided the seven of us into two groups. One group, made up of Marie, Katrina, Sydney, and Addison, she called ‘the leapers’ because they did a lot of sauts de chat in the dance. The other group – Danielle, Mia, and me – she called ‘the turners,’ because we did pique turns en dedans and en dehors.

It’s been fifteen years. I don’t have all of that dance, but when I listed to “Out of My League,” I get snatches.

That year, Nazrin not only choreographed my favorite ballet Recital piece ever; she choreographed my favorite jazz Recital piece ever, too: “Gone Daddy Gone.” There were four of us in jazz that year: Kaylee, Meg, a younger girl named Rae, and me. I was a head taller than the others and had done jazz for two years longer than Meg, who had a year more experience than Kaylee or Rae. It was a playful, joyful class, I loved them dearly, and one part of “Gone Daddy Gone” looked like a mother duck with ducklings. It was a perfect dance, making all of us, despite diverse abilities and heights, look good and have fun.

Nazrin was incredible at bringing out the best in us.

Once, I told Leah that I was late to her first fall class with Nazrin, and she thought that maybe she remembered. But it turns out I was off by a year. I was late to my first class with Nazrin the fall before. When I came in a couple of minutes late, while I was putting on my shoes, Nazrin asked me my name. I was a little hurt, I remember, because I’d had her that summer. It wasn’t a fair feeling – think of how many names she’d had to learn, and it had been more than a month since summer session ended! – but I wanted her to remember me.

I had no idea.

[moonchild-in-blue]

I just got the biggest jumpscare of my life, so naturally had to run here real quick.

STOP BEING OMINOUS BABYGIRL 😭

[transsexualgriffith]

objectively the placement of the lost children arc is very funny bcs its just like you got through the worst of the worst yaoi induced parental advisory high just now and the manga itself seems to say yeah wasn't that awful? you hated reading about men and their horrible embarrassing breakups right? well now imagine yuri. but like if metamorphosis by franz kafka was about yuri. yeah. much better isnt it

[disaster-racing]

Marcus Armstrong being a ✨social butterfly ✨ during the 2023 Macau GP (x)

[sargassostories]

when you get a war flashback from the witcher fandom

[waxsuyaaa]

is this.. a moodboard???

YMUYMYUYUMYUMYUMUMMMM

strings rosin

every time i glance over to the little tiny box beside my cello i go 🦷🦷🦷🦷 like i want to cromch. similar to that of the person that ate soap i mean.. rosin would taste better than soap.

it tastes like caramel and pine trees i promise

[thedevilsrain]

a very special gustave doré sequel to my berserk penguin classics post...! just pretend theres various volumes for each arc lol

[piney-45]

feeling cute might delete later

[saltedsolenoid]

women LOVE me due to my abnormal speech patterns and complete inability to get my point across

[diamondsheep]

Corazón ❤

Sketch ⬇

[impossibleyousay]

Like Rosin, Part 3

Once upon a time, Leah compared an experience to water slipping through her fingers, and I told her that she should make it into dry water, a solid made of silica cages around water molecules, something she could hold onto. But when I told her that, I had never made any of the stuff myself. I had read a lot of research papers, but that’s not the same at all.

A Few Things I Have Learned About Dry Water

The silica… puffs, I suppose. We pour the silica under the hood because otherwise it gets everywhere and we would breathe it.

The dry water floats away, too, when poured. Like the silica.

A dry water particle is more stable than a water droplet, but that does not mean it won’t evaporate.

Dry water particles are microscale, and something that small can, in fact, slip through your fingers.

At the end of my mentorship senior year, my professor gave me two little vials. One had some hydrophobic silica in it. The other had some of the dry water I had made.

Over time, the dry water broke down. The second vial is now two layers: silica and liquid water.

[timmie-p]

hehee hyperspecific poll smiling face emoji

[sqiued]

beautiful ladies, i bet they get along wonderfully

[5ducksinatrenchcoat]

i keep losing things and it’s so frustrating like i swear there’s things i saw yesterday and now they’re not where i thought they were

like hello you were just here?? come back

[lovecatsys]

finally getting back to playing violin and im having such a hard time tuning it. the tuning pegs keep sliding out of place. its always had this problem because its an old violin and i think it was broken at some point near the A string tuning peg, there's a couple cuts in the wood and i remember my Dad having to get it fixed when i first started playing it in 7th grade. its an old family heirloom. im really worried actually because im probably going to have to get a new violin at some point, preferably one that's more my level, and that shit is Expensive.

[papaya-inspiration]

Whyd you tag the forbidden snacks post as "music"?

Because they are pictures of rosin, which is used on the bows of string instruments.