I remember the cold rainy winter that followed my father's death watching the pool sweep pushing the dead leaves around on the surface of the water. Each day after he died contained a kind of grayness that weighed down my soul. My mother-in-law gave us tickets to the opera.
"You need to get out."
She took me up to her closet and dressed me in a fancy taffeta dress with satin shoes.
There were no epiphanies. I don't even recall the name of the opera, not a note of music or a word that was sung stayed in my head.
"Stop wiggling," my husband whispered. "Your dress is making noise and if you don't stop the people on the left are going to kill you."
I turned to look and they were glaring at me. I wiggled just once more and was surprised to hear how loud my dress really was.
I spent the rest of the evening holding still, trying not to move.
When I was twelve my father took me to see Nureyev in Swan Lake at the same San Francisco Opera House. He was very excited.
"We have great seats. We are going to see one of the world's greatest dancers."
The lights dimmed. The opening party scene began. The dancers were toasting each other with empty goblets onstage.
"When do they start talking?" my father murmured after about ten minutes.
"They don't."
"Not ever?"
"No."
"No talking?"
"They just dance."
A long silence.
"I'm going to go get a drink. I'll meet you at the downstairs bar after it's over."
I sat alone in the dark with the dancers.
Afterwards he was there waiting, easy to find, faded blue jeans, long hair, awkward and yet as graceful as Nureyev.
"There has to be talking. That's what people do, they talk," he said as we walked against the cold wind that always blows down Van Ness.
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