So the first big step for me in dance was getting my pointe shoes. The next big step for me was that day in class when my instructor told all of the girls to look at my pointe shoes. She said,"See how broken in her shoes are? That's how your shoes should be...that is what they should look like." I lived in those shoes...and it showed

The third big step in dance was getting my wings. I thought that they were just big calluses on the sides of my big toes, but they were my wings. I guess after you dance a while on pointe, your big toes develop a kind of toughness because they are always rubbing against the side of your pointe shoe. It's not like a bunyon or anything...it's nothing that severe. At least mine aren't. It's just when you look at my big toes now, there is a slight bump on the outside...nothing that makes my feet look grotesque or anything, and if I didn't point it out to you, you wouldn't notice. But I do.

Some dancers have really nasty feet...really deformed looking feet. A lot of that I think comes from genetics, the fact that feet are just funky looking, and from a lot of dancing. I suppose that if you start dancing on pointe when you are ten, and dance until you are thirty, that you are going to have some pretty narly feet when you are done. But I haven't danced for twenty years. Maybe, when I am finished dancing, I will have danced for about ten or fifteen years. And I wasn't on pointe all of that time, so that makes a difference too. But I don't have deformed feet. I only have my wings.

And I still have my wings. They are not as prominent as they used to be...but they're there. I kind of like to think about them. About that day when my instructor giggled when she saw me rubbing the side of my big toe, wondering what that big bump was..."You got your wings!"