The Unsinkable Maya Rose

If you were following on Facebook, you know what happened at nationals.  I did not disappear in the middle of my conFEISsions because Maya did not place.  My computer melted down and is now back!

But yea, Maya did not make the final cut after two rounds of fierce dancing. In Irish-dance-competition language, Maya did not recall and therefore, did not place.  We found out after the marks were handed out that she only missed a spot in the recall by four places.  She got very close and came in ahead of almost half of the competitors.

It started as a magical day.  There was no FEISitude (my word for a snappy attitude on a feis day)!  We got the wig and make up on without any tension, but that all changed once we got into the competition room.  Maya was distracted by friends and other dancers practicing and did not want to take care of the routine preparations like glueing her socks to her legs.  Yes, if you do not glue the socks on, they don’t stay up and look very sloppy.

There is a lot of waiting around at these bigger competitions but we settled in and got ready to find out what order the girls danced in.  Maya danced at about the middle of the rotation and she really did great.  These were all podium-winner dancers from all over North American and a couple from Britain and Ireland.  The judges would be hard pressed to find mistakes so the judging must have come down to very fine details.  Tough, tough competition.

We (Me, Maya, her teachers and friends) were shocked that she did not recall.  She had danced so well.  Maya was so gracious.  I learned from watching her.  She held it together until we were out of the huge ballroom and in a private corner near an exit.  She had a good sob and I just broke up inside, only letting a little mist cloud my eyes.  I wish I could answer her pleas to understand why she didn’t make the cut.

Sixty dollars and a Nationals souvenir hoodie/consolation prize later, we got on our way to have a swim and relax before heading back for the awards ceremony.  Maya was completely supportive of all her friends who had placed in their own competitions.  One of them qualified for Worlds. Understandably, she did not want to stay to see the awards for her competition.

The capper to a disappointing day was that I moved out us out of the luxury Swan and Dolphin hotel to Disney’s Pop Century to be on the meal plan and do all things Disney.  It was a major bummer to move from an imitation of the ‘heavenly bed’ to a motel-like one.  To make matters worse, Disney must be cutting back because our bedspreads, blankets, sheets and towels looked like they had been through the ringer.  Hairs and stains in the bed were where I drew the line. Maya was in a heap of tears which I knew were more about the whole day than the crappy room, but the disappointments had just grown to a head.

The next day, I politely requested all NEW blankets, sheets and bedspreads and no one blinked an eye. I know it was done because the old ones were in the hall when we got back.

A new day had also brought a new focus–FUN at Disney.  Maya did not mention the competition again.  She shook it off faster than I did, to tell the truth.  A few more gray hairs for me and a growth experience for Maya. Sigh.

A small drama that could have been a big drama emerged last night shortly after my first ConFEISsion.  We only had one Ghillie. For you non Feis folks, that is one of the dance shoes an Irish Dancer wears.  The other is a hard shoe for the tap-like sound and this is the soft one that supports those magical one-legged leaps through the air. All that to say, we found we had only one shoe.  Drama ensued.

We called home to see if it could be sent.  Mark (husband) turned around for home midway to a Fourth of July gathering (Yes, us Jersey folks celebrate early.) to search for the shoe.  My thinking was that he could still make FedEx. As he searched the house,  I tried to manage my dancer who was holding back her emotions better than I expected her to.  Low and behold, no shoe was found at home and for the cost of the FedEx, I knew there’d be a vendor on site eventually who could sell us a new pair.  Maya turned it around quickly and declared that a new, stiffer shoe just may help her be a little more bouncy in her steps.

“Okay!”, I said enthusiastically to her declaration as I mentally worried that new shoes could be a little painful without a chance to break them in.

Well, off to bed we went and today we hit The Magic Kingdom in some mild rain by the opening bell at 9am.  We lucked out BIG TIME.  We waited no more than 15 minutes for anything and hit Space Mountain three times and some other favorites twice.  My feis mom friend, Megan and Maya’s buddy Carli were our hangout mates today and we made a great team.  It took Megan and I longer than we had hoped to drag the girls out of the park, though.  We hoped for some R&R for them before practicing, but they were having too much fun.

Back at the hotel, we did get those new shoes.  They are stiff, but Maya gave them a good workout as she and Carli practiced.  Actually, their practice was more of a fight for turf as the hotel is now jam-packed with Irish dancers and those ‘Starpower’ dancers (not “Dancepower” as I mistakenly called them yesterday) who are here for the duration of our competition.  Carli and Maya kept moving further down the grand hall in front of the ballroom as older girls with longer legs and louder music moved in on their turf. Nonetheless, they were great with each other, sharing floor space and feedback to get their best to happen tomorrow.

So far, the moms are behaving.  No ugly cat fights or nastiness, but you can feel everyone’s tension rising as the start of the big competition gets closer.

Maya is asleep as I write this after a major chocolate high from dinner.  I am trying to forget how un-Weight-Watcher-like my dinner was and hoping I can sleep.  The high-drama starts tomorrow.  I’ll try to give two reports while we wait for results.  Just writing that throws me into a wave of nausea.  I’ll get introspective about why later.

There is no hiding being an Irish Dancer when you get on a plane. It’s not the music they listen to that gives them away nor the red hair and freckles (there are dancers of every background).  The identifying mark is the strange shape of one particular piece of luggage—the dress bag.  Imagine a triangular shape with the top point cut off to blunt edge. Add a strap and you have an Irish Dance Dress Bag.  We saw several of them boarding our flight from Newark to Orlando today.

Very few knowing glances were exchanged until a fellow mom and I both waited for the passengers to settle in so we could put our dress bags in the overhead.  She put hers up first, I went to follow when another passenger abruptly shoved his bag right on top of her dress.  I quickly got her dress to safety and added mine to the pile.  She closed the overhead making sure no one else messed with our investments.  Only a feis mom can understand what a wonderful and protective bit of teamwork that was. (these dresses rival wedding gowns in cost!)

The flight was uneventful and once settled into our hotel, we did a little exploring and enjoyed the pool.  Then a sudden thunderstorm. Not unusual in Florida, but this one is still going five hours later as I write this.

As the day grew older and more dancers arrived, the din of the hotel and lobby got louder.  The rooms were not enough to contain the Irish dance practices so they could not help but pour out into the hallways.  That would be enough to start the vibe of competition, but to make it more exciting we are sharing the hotel with a ‘Dancepower’ dance competition.  There are dancers of every ilk everywhere!!!

Maybe it was not such a good idea to watch “Toddlers in Tiaras” last night before I fell asleep.  Today’s dancers strewn all over the hotel in garish make up and costumes were like a continued nightmare from the night before.  Irish dancers’s crazy wigs, sparkly dresses and make up are tame compared to the sites I saw today.  I could not tell if they were a convention of teens and preteens or a Liza Minelli impersonator’s conference.

The drama may only grow from here.  As Maya ices her foot which she swears doesn’t hurt and I wrap up this conFEISsion, I know the adventure has only just begun.  More soon.

I left my Thanksgiving guests at 6pm on Thursday with my Irish dancing daughter to attend the 2008 Mid-Atlantic Region Oireachtas in Philadelphia.  My little contender was to be on at 8am the next day to do her first big competition in the Under 8 solo dancer category.  We packed our costume, wig and shoes and took the train to Philly. We hardly slept as Maya woke every hour to ask me if it was 5am yet.  I told her that when the wake up call and the alarm went off it would be 5am, but it did not matter. Neither of us really slept.

At 5am, we got out of bed and started the process of turning my child into an Irish Dance competitor. Breakfast, wig, make up, sports wrap on her ankles and feet, tanner on her face and legs (I don’t get this part, aren’t Irish people supposed to be pasty white?), glue to hold her $30 Swarovski Crystal-studded socks up and finally, the dress and head piece.  She was ready to dance!  (and I was ready to barf from coffee being my only nourishment)

Maya danced like she never danced before having erased any mistakes that she was doing just hours earlier in practice.  She made the ‘recall’ which is when after two rounds, they eliminate 50% of the dancers and enter a third round of competition.  For her first time at this level, that was/is a HUGE accomplishment. And although I think it went over Maya’s head, she experienced her first taste of the dark side of competition.

When Maya was just 5 dancers away from her turn in the third round, she came flying out from backstage looking for me in a panic among the crowd of over 500 eager parents, teachers and supporters of the dancers.  She said a girl backstage told her the color of her bloomers did not match her dress properly and she better tell her mom to get her new ones right away.  (Did I mention how much disdain I have for little girls sometimes?)  Luckily, her teacher was standing right next to me and we could both dissuade her from listening to this nonsense and got her back in her place to take her turn.  

Whether it was a purposeful move to psyche out her opponent or not I’ll never really know but boy, did it make me mad that someone knocked my girl’s composure out moments before she had to dance. Now, let me also take this moment to say, that when Maya made the last cut, I noticed that our outdated, borrowed Irish dance costume was the only one of its kind among the remainder of the contestants.  We were the “Little Miss Sunshine” of the group.  We did not look like a Martha Stewart cupcake decorated to the hilt and it may very well have cost her evidenced in her ranking of 54th out of 55.  In fact, the very first thing out of one our teacher’s mouth when Maya’s rank was announced was : “Next year, new dress!”.  ARGH!

This is where my frustration lies as a parent trying to support their child where they excel.  Maya is a terrific dancer, no matter what style she studies. I have surrendered to Irish dance being where her passion lies and I want to support her in the joy of this endeavour.  Forbidding her from partaking in the competitive aspect of Irish dance is not the answer because she loves the performance and wearing the get-up. But how do we do this without doing what it takes to help her win?  How do we do this in a pageant culture and not create a monster?  She wants to keep challenging herself to place higher in the ranks like her friend Carli.  She wants to be like the 19 year-old world champion from our little school in Verona, New Jersey.  Competing means you want to be the best you can be and in this case, this is going to mean joining the pageant mentality and investing in the packaging as much as the actual craft.  ARGH and double ARGH!

So, wish me luck as I let my inner stage mom (Mama Rose) out and attempt to keep her in check as I raise a competitor who I hope to be a generous and inspiring spirit and not a fearful, jealous and conniving contestant.  Pray for me as I teach my contender to compete.

After a few days of travel, it was nice to come home to news that Wyatt’s seizures have been less frequent in my absence. I often wonder if that happens in my absence because no one is counting, but considering he was improving when I left, I am optimistic. We are two weeks into a new treatment and we are seeing improvement but as always, I am only cautiously optimistic because his M.O. is to have a brief honeymoon and return to ‘normal’.

My first day back also included taking Miss Maya to a feis. She placed 2nd and 3rd in two of her four competitions. That was cool. (Despite her looking at me in a panic just as she went on stage with her group of co-competitors and declared that she did not know her steps. I darted out of the area like a madwoman, found her teacher, memorized the lingo and ran back to her in time for her to go on and win 2nd place–what we won’t do for our kids!) My resistance to her hobby is waning day by day.

Otherwise, today was just another Monday…….is there such a thing?