Portrait of a Lady
- Sara Broughton
- Jul 1, 2024
- 3 min read
This picture says, to me, that love can triumph over difficulty and hardship; and that hope is a living, viable thing that moves joyfully like little children's feet dancing. Love grows and changes forms. This picture was taken in May of 2024 right before the building that was my mother's dance studio was demolished. It had fallen into disrepair after the woman who had taken over the space from my mother relocated her studio to a newer, better equipped building. This old building, and the school of dance itself as a living, breathing entity had fallen into disrepair at the end of my mother's time as owner. She was drinking a lot when her assistants took over the ownership of her studio. This was also right before her Alzheimer's diagnosis, and it is hard to say which preceded the other- her drinking alcoholically or her cognitive decline. Needless to say, her step away from the business that she started, grew, and loved for thirty- five years was not graceful. Although, she wasn't sad. She didn't seem to comprehend the magnitude of handing over her business and gathering her shoes, records, pictures and memorabilia from dozens of dance recitals out of the studio for the last time, because that is what Alzheimers does to a person's emotions. She would cry over seeing a stray cat that seemed lost on the street, but not bat an eye at saying Good- bye to her business. This wreath was, years later, hung in honor of the work that Mom did, and the memory of all the hundreds of children that learned to dance there, by the woman who did eventually take over the studio. I, living a couple thousand miles away, didn't see it until a friend from that area posted this picture on FaceBook. I was saddened, and uplifted by the kind things that people said about their experiences at the dance school.
A few of the many, many posts are below:
So many memories in that studio for myself and my girls
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So cool...
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Practicing for The Sound of Music! Mrs. Haley joined us that class.
Lovely post. Brings back so many memories. Thank you, Colette! You, like our Mrs. Haley, are very special.
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Thanks Colette! A lot of great memories, especially in the “teachers lounge”!
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Lovely
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We knew it was coming, the demolition, however still rather sad.
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Heard about this, so sad
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My best memories from 1999-2015 were here
I took out individuals' names, because this is an Anonymous program (my name is in fact not, Schaley B.,) but the idea is there.
The point related to recovery being that 1-, substance use disorder and creativity go, mysteriously, hand in hand. My mother, and others with that baffling combination of gift and curse, was a person who could feel music way deep down in her soul. What is the connection between music, art, literature, dance, writing, etc. and a tendency to gravitate toward mind altering chemicals? And 2-, as mentioned before, substance use disorder is a family- systems disease. I felt sad and anxious when my mother was drinking. Due to the social and biological factors that led to my drinking, my children then felt sad and anxious when I drank. Without any one person in the system meaning for it to happen, the system perpetuates. However, (and this is a big helping of hope served with this however) the intentional act of stepping into recovery breaks this cycle.
My Mom was not what most people would think of as the typical alcoholic. The challenge in that is to think- what is a typical alcoholic? The high level of stigmatization of people with substance use disorders in our society leads many of us to thinking of such people as less than capable, less than caring, less than worthy. However, we are a cross section of society, men and women who normally would not mix. We represent various gender and sexual identities, socioeconomic statuses, educational levels, religious affiliations and political viewpoints. We are business owners, ballet teachers, bartenders, brothers, neighbors, best friends, and each and every one of us, someone's child. As history has taught us, we can easily look down upon and mistreat a group when we see them as less than human. People with substance use disorders are as human as anyone else.
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