Tempered Perfection
By Katherine Liljestrand
A pink and blue cotton candy sky filled the morning horizon. From where Truly was sitting, the silhouettes of trees gave perfect contrast to the perfect sky behind. There was much that was perfect here.
The perfect cup of green tea stewed in front of her. The perfect dog - not too big, not too small, never barked—laid on her feet. She had the perfect desk setup in front of her. There was no chaos, enough empty space, and exactly and precisely what she needed in front of her.
She had worked her whole life to get to this moment. This was a place carved out of time just for her. Truly had carved it out herself.
As she sat at her desk, working in the early-morning hours, she thought almost casually about lunch. A perfect chicken pesto sandwich, a small early-afternoon coffee with one scoop of sugar, and a delicate assortment of fruits would be the perfect amount of food for her stomach.
Her brain only wandered to perfection.
Perfection, as such, wasn’t possible in the ballet world. That’s why she had left. She had little control over conditions there other than the bare minimum—a barre spot, her physical weight when she stepped onto a scale, how coiffed her bun or French twist was every morning, her outfit every day. Bigger, more important things—casting, her body’s natural proportions and skeletal frame, her height, directors’ preferences—were things completely out of her control.
It was when Truly’s own body started rebelling against her and refusing to work with her as she worked frantically every day to perfect her technique that she threw in the towel. And good riddance it was.
Here, with her little desk job and her perfect setup and the clean and empty spaces between objects and all around her, here she could control her environment. A desk job wasn’t nearly so bad when you could control your surroundings.
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The fire broke out that evening. Truly watched in horror, her dog Lacy in her arms, as her little perfect house became blackened and burned by the roar of the fire. She had rescued her dog. She had rescued her wallet and her keys and the coat she always wore that hung by its perfect hook right next to the front door. But Truly had rescued little else.
She could only look on in a tempered look of disbelief as firefighters swarmed in and out and around her house.
In the end, the firefighters saved the important parts. The structure ended up still stable, despite the intense heat inside. The HVAC system was screwed, but the pipes were all fine. Truly’s corner desk setup was completely destroyed. Over this, Truly was the most upset. Her perfect little window nook where she always watched the sun rise while she clacked away on her keyboard was nothing but a blackened shell now. Her laptop was nothing more than a twisted, melted piece of metal laying in a pile of ashes that used to be her prized wooden desk that she had hunted for so long for.
The firefighters told her they thought the fire had broken out in her little front room, possibly as a result of her charging cable? That’s where the blaze had been most intense. The windows were all blown out in that room
Truly’s bedroom was also affected, but fortunately the blaze hadn’t gotten all the way back to her closet in the back corner yet. Truly had only half a bed now, but she still had her clothes. She wouldn’t have to start completely over. And she had carefully cultivated her wardrobe - minimal and sleek, with lots of blacks and navies and whites - over the past few years. That had started when she was still dancing. It had taken her time to figure out what sorts of clothes best accentuated her dancer physique, and she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to find those clothes anymore. Fast fashion had its drawbacks.
Truly’s kitchen was workable, but barely. Fresh water still poured out of the faucet, but the ceiling was entirely blackened and the refrigerator looked more like a relic from nuclear testing from the Cold War era, but it still worked. The small dining room table, closer to her work nook, was gone, as were any and all of the chairs in that part of the house.
Truly spent the first few nights after the fire with a friend, who was also happy to take in Lacy. Truly had to wait until the insurance investigators came to map out the extent of the damage before she could move back in. It was aggravating. All she wanted to do was start putting things right again.
After the structural integrity of the place had been approved and important insurance persons had made a walk-through, Truly was approved to return.
The place felt like a disaster. Lacy wouldn’t go anywhere near the burned areas, and Truly didn’t blame her for that. How did one even go about setting things right again?
Truly found herself suddenly missing the ballet world. When something went wrong, even disastrously wrong, whether in the studio or on stage, you could always return to the basics and proceed from there. You could always go to the barre the next day, the next week, or several months later, and start with pliés at the barre. Pliés were home base. From there, you’d move on to tendus and then dégagés and then rond de jambes and frappés and developpés and grande battlements and then move to center. In the center, you’d do combinations including tendus and adagio and pirouettes and jumps of both the petite and grande varieties.
In other words, there was a formula. There was always something you could expect and rely on. No matter what ballets you were rehearsing for or performing, you could always rely on class to be your steadfast companion in physical maintenance and technical improvement.
Truly missed that blueprint now. There was no certain pathway for getting back on her feet now, at least domestically speaking. Her remote job didn’t stop just because a fire had ravaged parts of her house and home. Meanwhile, which repair experts and HVAC technicians and painters she needed, and in what order, was always a question. Truly was fortunate in that she could work from home and be at home when the next batch of repair people showed up.
Insurance was fortunately covering most everything, but the amount of money that was flowing in and out of this repair work was staggering to Truly. No wonder landlords were always upping their prices on renters, if they had these sorts of costs to deal with even occasionally.
Truly was adamant about her return to perfection, though. And now she knew what perfection was. Perfection was a cup of steaming tea with the sunlight streaming through a big window as she worked in a beautifully painted house with her dog at her feet and everything in its proper place. She’d be damned if she let a house fire get in the way of that again.
She missed the little moments of perfection she could find while dancing. The rare perfect balance, the feeling of ten pirouettes—ten full head spots—that she had managed only twice in her life, the satisfaction of putting on a brand new pair of pointe shoes for the first time and having them shape to your foot with stunning accuracy…
Truly could now acknowledge that maybe she had been looking for the wrong moments of perfection in her dancing career all along. She took a moment from looking at her computer screen and glanced at the room around her. She took in the smoke damage, the lack of proper ambient temperature, and the piles of destroyed things ready to get thrown out and she sighed.
It was funny that a fire should be able to put things into proper perspective. Maybe she had been settling all this time, at this remote job. She couldn’t go back to ballet now, could she? Most likely not. The thought devastated Truly for the first time. She had been so enthusiastic to leave, but for this? Truly hadn’t known what she had given up. Now she did.
Maybe perfection was something to strive for and appreciate in every moment, no matter the life you were living. If only Truly could finally learn that once and for all.
Katherine Liljestrand is a published writer, professional ballet dancer, and former environmental lawyer with bachelor degrees in biology and English from the University of New Mexico, a J.D. from Georgetown University, and an M.A. in Arts Administration from the University of New Orleans. Originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Katherine now lives in New Orleans with her husband and their five dogs. Follow her @katherine.elena.hanson on Instagram or at katherineliljestrand.com.