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One of the sweet spots in my childhood was when I found myself alone in the house. This was a rare and coveted event.
It was important to monitor the movements in the house, steps in the hallways, doors opening, closing, cars leaving. I would wait a long time in silence, pretending to do homework in my room.
Then I would go through the house, looking for anyone who might still be there, changing lightbulbs, baking bread, ironing sheets. I made a thorough search till everyone was gone for sure.
When the coast was clear, I would put one of two records on the record player: Rachmoninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini for Piano and Orchestra, Philippe Entremont pianist, (with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra) or Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall.
If it was Paganini, I dressed in my tights & leotard, and did a Tinaballet all over the living room. (I was one of the top five ballerinas in the world. They had to book me years in advance.)
I used arm chairs, couches, pirouetting from the living room to the dining room and back. Leaping, alive, lost in my vigorous imagination, I loved every section of this piece of music, inventing new things to do with my body, parcouring through the rooms, off the walls, even under the tables when the music warranted. At the end, I made sure I was near the record-player…
