Never say never
September 30, 2002 | 12:00am
Once upon a time, there was a three-year-old little girl with a penguin waddle and bad posture who spent three afternoons every week in ballet school. In her pink leotard, pink tights and pink ballet slippers she struggled to keep up with her ballet teacher and the rest of her class. "This will give you poise and grace," her mother would tell her each time. And the little girl believed her.
Before she turned four, however, when she fell on her face while curtsying goodbye to her teacher, the little girl quit her ballet classes. She would eventually find out that her mother enrolled her in ballet school because her mother herself was a frustrated ballerina who wasn’t allowed by the nuns at her convent school to go around in a skimpy tutu and to spread her legs while being tossed around by men in tights.
A bit later, the little girl took piano lessons, at the prodding of both parents, who played the instrument well. Her father for one, was a ouido, and she loved it when he would accompany her while she would sing  off-key  The Rainbow Connection. This time, she tried a little harder than she did at ballet. But after a little tussle with her piano teacher over her tendency to daydream during practice, she never made it beyond Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, nor did she ever get to perform for her folks at any piano recital. Before long, even the piano at her house mysteriously disappeared.
In her teens, the girl was ready for something new. She discovered that her grandfather was once a trophy-winning tennis amateur player during his prime, and at that time she also thought that Boris Becker was kinda cute and Stefi Graf’s tennis outfits were just adorable. While she was encouraged by her trainer’s comments that she had "great footwork" and that she simply needed some help in the "follow-through" department, distractions that typically abound in an adolescent’s social life kept her from ever mastering her backhand, her forehand, her serve, her top-spin and all the other things that matter in tennis. She would rather be courted than be on the court, her grandfather must have sighed.
And then when the girl was almost a woman, she came across a quote: "Learn a new language and gain a new soul." How romantic, she thought, and the new language she decided to learn was Español. Her grandmother was delighted: a granddaughter she could converse with in the former colonizer’s tongue! In class she learned all the rules and conjugations, the poetry by Neruda and the allure of the macho bullfighter, the Holas and Adioses, and while her grades were excellent and her intentions were sincere she could not seem to make the language her own. On a visit to Spain she asked the camarero where the ladies room was, and with a puzzled look he asked her back, in perfect English, why in the world she wanted to take a shower in his restaurant. Que barbaridad.
Now, at 26, that same girl who loves the ballet and all forms of theater, who marvels at great singers and virtuosos and orchestras and rock stars, who faints at the sight of the Samprases and the Jordans and the Beckhams of the world, who swoons at the sound of a Spaniard’s lisp or a Frenchman’s drawl, cannot understand, for the life of her, why on earth she was never musically, athletically or linguistically inclined.
Because talent, in her opinion, is by far the most enviable human trait, more than beauty, or intelligence, or charisma. Talent is what makes human beings see God.
Okay, since I can’t promise a happy ending I’ll cut the fairy tale crap now. That poor little girl is me, of course, and, like every normal person I know, I’ve had my share of frustrations in life. For some reason, as sure as Murphy’s Law, each time I rack up a point for some little accomplishment I also chalk up a demerit for another enormous frustration.
One step forward, two steps back, as my ballet teacher used to say.
You ask anybody  anybody  what their life’s greatest frustration is and you’re certain to see a tear well up or a hear a frog in their throat. Sometimes they get wistful enough to order an entire bottle of whiskey and with increasing inebriation blame their parents, or poverty, or school, or the Creator Himself for all their misery.
We twentysomethings love to talk about these frustrations as the wellspring of our quarterlife crisis. We’ve all heard the stories before.
The thing is, as one gets older, the dimmer the prospects of ever correcting a frustration. Age matters, unfortunately  a language, for example, is learned best before a child turns six. Musical talent is almost an either/or proposition: either you have it or "Please do us a favor and just be a VJ. Thank you. Next!" It’s the same for athletics: even if I begin taking tennis lessons again right now just to be a so-so player eventually I would be as old as the combined ages of the Williams sisters, or, heaven forbid, Martina Navratilova by then. And I shouldn’t even think about picking up where I left off in the case of ballet. Que barbaridad.
The hardest part about being not so young anymore but being not too old either is that you can still ask yourself the question: Is it too late?
What keeps us hoping sometimes is that hidden talent, or even latent virtue, comes to the surface when we least expect it. Like I never knew I could cook until I lived on my own and realized I couldn’t subsist on potato chips and Cola Light forever. Just as my Japanese friend never thought he could learn English until he got thrown in North America. Or my sexaholic, shopaholic, sleepaholic friend never knew she could remain celibate, save money, and stay up all night until she had a baby.
It’s also while asking yourself whether it’s too late that you begin to accept that things don’t go your way all the time, and life is perhaps a bit more of a maybe-you’re-born-with-it-maybe-it’s-Maybelline situation. You have to make the most out of what you’ve got. Or you can go the way of my mother and pass on your frustrations to your kids.
In my case, I’ve only learned that for every frustration there is, happily, an opposite appreciation. The rareness of talent, the uniqueness of a gift that I find in others but not in myself allows me to experience the extraordinary joy of the enthralled spectator. And it is another satisfaction altogether to thank God for giving you the chance to witness talent that is not your own.
Sometimes, it is too late, but, I suppose, it’s never too early. To my beloved niece Marina, my newborn nephew Vito, and to all my godchildren, may you grow up to be blessed with talent, and generous enough to share that talent. But if not, you can always be a writer like me.
Send e-mail to star_polanox@yahoo.com
Before she turned four, however, when she fell on her face while curtsying goodbye to her teacher, the little girl quit her ballet classes. She would eventually find out that her mother enrolled her in ballet school because her mother herself was a frustrated ballerina who wasn’t allowed by the nuns at her convent school to go around in a skimpy tutu and to spread her legs while being tossed around by men in tights.
A bit later, the little girl took piano lessons, at the prodding of both parents, who played the instrument well. Her father for one, was a ouido, and she loved it when he would accompany her while she would sing  off-key  The Rainbow Connection. This time, she tried a little harder than she did at ballet. But after a little tussle with her piano teacher over her tendency to daydream during practice, she never made it beyond Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, nor did she ever get to perform for her folks at any piano recital. Before long, even the piano at her house mysteriously disappeared.
In her teens, the girl was ready for something new. She discovered that her grandfather was once a trophy-winning tennis amateur player during his prime, and at that time she also thought that Boris Becker was kinda cute and Stefi Graf’s tennis outfits were just adorable. While she was encouraged by her trainer’s comments that she had "great footwork" and that she simply needed some help in the "follow-through" department, distractions that typically abound in an adolescent’s social life kept her from ever mastering her backhand, her forehand, her serve, her top-spin and all the other things that matter in tennis. She would rather be courted than be on the court, her grandfather must have sighed.
And then when the girl was almost a woman, she came across a quote: "Learn a new language and gain a new soul." How romantic, she thought, and the new language she decided to learn was Español. Her grandmother was delighted: a granddaughter she could converse with in the former colonizer’s tongue! In class she learned all the rules and conjugations, the poetry by Neruda and the allure of the macho bullfighter, the Holas and Adioses, and while her grades were excellent and her intentions were sincere she could not seem to make the language her own. On a visit to Spain she asked the camarero where the ladies room was, and with a puzzled look he asked her back, in perfect English, why in the world she wanted to take a shower in his restaurant. Que barbaridad.
Now, at 26, that same girl who loves the ballet and all forms of theater, who marvels at great singers and virtuosos and orchestras and rock stars, who faints at the sight of the Samprases and the Jordans and the Beckhams of the world, who swoons at the sound of a Spaniard’s lisp or a Frenchman’s drawl, cannot understand, for the life of her, why on earth she was never musically, athletically or linguistically inclined.
Because talent, in her opinion, is by far the most enviable human trait, more than beauty, or intelligence, or charisma. Talent is what makes human beings see God.
Okay, since I can’t promise a happy ending I’ll cut the fairy tale crap now. That poor little girl is me, of course, and, like every normal person I know, I’ve had my share of frustrations in life. For some reason, as sure as Murphy’s Law, each time I rack up a point for some little accomplishment I also chalk up a demerit for another enormous frustration.
One step forward, two steps back, as my ballet teacher used to say.
You ask anybody  anybody  what their life’s greatest frustration is and you’re certain to see a tear well up or a hear a frog in their throat. Sometimes they get wistful enough to order an entire bottle of whiskey and with increasing inebriation blame their parents, or poverty, or school, or the Creator Himself for all their misery.
We twentysomethings love to talk about these frustrations as the wellspring of our quarterlife crisis. We’ve all heard the stories before.
The thing is, as one gets older, the dimmer the prospects of ever correcting a frustration. Age matters, unfortunately  a language, for example, is learned best before a child turns six. Musical talent is almost an either/or proposition: either you have it or "Please do us a favor and just be a VJ. Thank you. Next!" It’s the same for athletics: even if I begin taking tennis lessons again right now just to be a so-so player eventually I would be as old as the combined ages of the Williams sisters, or, heaven forbid, Martina Navratilova by then. And I shouldn’t even think about picking up where I left off in the case of ballet. Que barbaridad.
The hardest part about being not so young anymore but being not too old either is that you can still ask yourself the question: Is it too late?
What keeps us hoping sometimes is that hidden talent, or even latent virtue, comes to the surface when we least expect it. Like I never knew I could cook until I lived on my own and realized I couldn’t subsist on potato chips and Cola Light forever. Just as my Japanese friend never thought he could learn English until he got thrown in North America. Or my sexaholic, shopaholic, sleepaholic friend never knew she could remain celibate, save money, and stay up all night until she had a baby.
It’s also while asking yourself whether it’s too late that you begin to accept that things don’t go your way all the time, and life is perhaps a bit more of a maybe-you’re-born-with-it-maybe-it’s-Maybelline situation. You have to make the most out of what you’ve got. Or you can go the way of my mother and pass on your frustrations to your kids.
In my case, I’ve only learned that for every frustration there is, happily, an opposite appreciation. The rareness of talent, the uniqueness of a gift that I find in others but not in myself allows me to experience the extraordinary joy of the enthralled spectator. And it is another satisfaction altogether to thank God for giving you the chance to witness talent that is not your own.
Sometimes, it is too late, but, I suppose, it’s never too early. To my beloved niece Marina, my newborn nephew Vito, and to all my godchildren, may you grow up to be blessed with talent, and generous enough to share that talent. But if not, you can always be a writer like me.
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