Unique Christmas gift rekindles an old flame
By Maria Pascucci
(Originally published in The Buffalo News)
As my mother handed me a gift from under the tree, I admired the
fancy Christmas paper while secretly laughing at my husband Shaun's
less-than-perfect but well-intentioned wrap job before tearing
at the edges of the rectangular box to find my surprise. My face
beamed with memories of my girlhood as I held up the contents
of the box to show them off to my amused family.
I was ecstatic not because I received jewelry, perfume or any
of the other endearing gifts that wives on television commercials
expect to see from their new husbands. Instead, I held my very
own pair of tap shoes in the palms of my hands.
Those beautiful black leather shoes, with pieces of metal screwed
to the bottom soles, were the kind of shoes that once beat their
rhythmic clank on my parents' kitchen floor when I ran to my bedroom
each week after dance class. My brothers had drums to drive my
parents insane on weekend mornings. I had shoes.
These black tap shoes, now in a much larger size than I had once
worn, were not only exactly how I remembered them to be, they
were the most spectacular tap shoes I had ever seen. I immediately
slipped them on my feet, where they remained through the rest
of our gift-giving ritual.
My brother asked if I was going to give a comeback performance
for the family, but I knew that my initial dance effort would
best be private. It had been 12 years since I had worn a pair
of tap shoes on my feet, but as I made my first timid steps across
my parents' basement floor, I knew I had finally reunited with
a lost love.
Timid taps quickly made way for bolder shuffle-hop-steps, pivot
turns and jumps until my imagination carried me on stage with
the Rockettes, although I will grudgingly concede that I fall
4 inches below the height requirement to be a part of their exclusive
team.
I showed off those tap shoes to every family member who walked
through the door that day with as much enthusiasm as I had mustered
up years ago to show off my Barbie and The Rockers collection,
Strawberry Shortcake or My Little Pony dolls.
My husband thought my Christmas wish for tap shoes was bizarre,
but every time he asked me what I wanted, my answer remained the
same.
"You're really serious, aren't you?" he asked, shaking
his head in bewilderment. "Where are you going to use them
-- in our apartment? We live upstairs, remember? Our landlord
will kick us out in the middle of your first concert!"
I told him that I would go back to dancing school and practice
in my parents' basement. He made me promise that I wouldn't make
him sit through a three-hour dance recital. Compromise complete.
Shaun and his co-workers joke that I am going through an early
midlife crisis as my 24th birthday conspired to snatch me permanently
into adulthood. Maybe. What I do know for sure is that as I stand
at the juncture of yet another crossroads in my life, childhood
dreams of what I wanted to be when I grew up -- writer, dancer,
Disney princess -- keep resurfacing.
Who knows, maybe I can still be all three. Well, maybe I should
concentrate on the first two for awhile.
If this is an early midlife crisis, imagine what I will do in
six years when I hit the dreaded 3-0, and true middle age begins.
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