They hang on a hook in my small closet, which ordinarily has no space for sentimentality. Dancers often refer to old pointe shoes as “dead,” a quirk that has transcended every city, every state, every country where I’ve danced: “My shoes are dead.”
And my pointe shoes are, unquestionably, dead.
Did I know, when I tied satin ribbons around my ankles on Christmas Eve, it would be my final dance en pointe?