The Whole Kit and Caboodle

Throwback to that time where we hung out backstage and played "Spoons" all in an intermediate-ballet clump, only instead of "Spoons" we called it "Foundation" because Kelly had a ridiculous collection of Ben Nye in her Caboodle that she shared in the interest of everyone's boredom.These are the years where we're a young cohort, having fun, everyone just trying to fit in while we run around throughout the theater with various pairs of shoes, setting up our quick changes, everyone bragging about who's got the shortest one--"thirty seconds," brags someone, countered by someone else shouting, "sixteen." 

​We were barely teenagers then. Maybe twelve, or fourteen, but we'd danced together our whole lives. We got swept away in the competition for the best parts but when push came to shove, there we were, playing

My friend Julie (right) and me (left) circa 1997. My mom spent a LOT of time making those costumes.

"Foundation," everyone trying to quietly get their four-of-a-kind on the concrete floor of the dressing room, our faces made up with full eye makeup and red lipstick on our braces-lined teeth, looking more like twelve-year-old hookers to an outsider than anything else. We were all preoccupied with being professional ballerinas one day, determined to live out this dream until we were all dancing for ABT (did we know any other ballet company when we were twelve?). But we were young; we had time; and anyway we were so busy between rehearsal and homework that there wasn't time for anything else. We moved through the motions, did the performances, got our ten-year roses.

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