April 1989 Confetti
CONFETTI
I must have been thinking of something to say in response, but then Sander’s lips were on my skin and words left me. I had no language but breath.
In Act III of Fille, Colas leaps out from the hay bales just as Lise finishes her mimed soliloquy. To cushion the blow of her embarrassment, he plants a kiss on her hand, then her wrist, then the inside of her elbow. Her shoulder. Behind her ear.
Slowly, tenderly, Sander worked his way up my arm and drew me close, but paused at my elbow. He glanced at me. Yes?
Yes.
Breaking with the choreography, he stopped short of my neck. In the ballet, when Colas is done with her left arm, Lise immediately turns and holds out her right arm: You had better do that again, so help me God.
Sander looked into my eyes. I was grateful for his arms holding me steady.
I rose up on demi-pointe and kissed him.
To think I’d forgotten how it could feel, when done right. At our own pace. And this time, for the first time, as ourselves.
Something flitted over us, through us, into our shirt collars – we stopped long enough to watch cherry blossom petals cascade from the branches above us like confetti.
Sander tensed, but the breeze was gentle, and as we relaxed into it, he regarded the trees with a wry smile, as if sharing a private joke with them.
I could tell that he’d meant to say something else. But whatever it was could come later. This moment was for us, today, where the past and the future couldn’t intrude.