When I was 11, my little sister caught me singing and dancing in my room to "
Once Upon a December" from
Anastasia. She says that I was so into the character that I was crying; I say that she's going to wake up one morning to find Phoebe, her favorite stuffed clown, missing in mysterious circumstances if she doesn't change her story. (What child has a stuffed clown? I think we all know who really was the weird one.) Anyway, the incident was pretty indicative of my childhood. I loved fairytales of all sorts and was convinced that, one day, the romantic daydreams in my head would come true if I just believed them enough and I'd be reunited with my long-lost family or I'd meet my one true love or I'd find myself the heir to a dazzling fortune - all due to my gentle kindness and lively spirit and curious intellect, obviously.
Four of the classic works that fed into this fantasy were Anastasia*,
My Fair Lady,
Little Women, and The Nutcracker. Here, I'll give you one of the scenes I'm taking about so you understand where I'm coming from...
I have no idea why The Nutcracker made such an impression on me because I only took a dance class for a year when I was about five and that was it, but I remember putting on my fanciest party dresses as a child and trying to gracefully sit down so that the skirt would form a perfect circle around me, just like Clara's did when she and the other girls listened to Herr Drosslemeyer's stories in the party scene at the beginning of the ballet. But clearly something about it stuck with me because it's half of the reason I love sleeping in dresses. The other half, obviously, is Audrey Hepburn singing**
"I Could Have Danced All Night" in My Fair Lady.
I'm sure that Freud would have a field day with this if he were alive, but I attribute my love of nightgowns to my childhood fantasies about waking up in a dream. PJs are cute and everything, but can you imagine twirling around after a ball in boxer shorts? Or weeping over your burnt manuscript in plaid pants? No way. It just wouldn't happen! So, although I've outgrown long sleeves and high collars, I'm a nightgown girl all the way:
*The historian in me has no problem with the fact that a real event has been turned into a pure fiction. How could you get angry when Rasputin's minions are dancing bugs who sing backup on
one of the most brilliant songs of animated films of the late 1990s?
**No, it's not really Audrey Hepburn singing; the music was dubbed by
Marni Nixon, one of the secret heroes of musical films - not only did she do all of Eliza's songs in My Fair Lady but she was also the singing voice of Maria in
West Side Story and Anna in
The King and I.
