Justine Harcourt de Tourville is an American writer/communication consultant living in Antwerp. She researched and wrote her Masters thesis – 100 pages — on Belgium, national identity and food. It took two years, countless containers of yoghurt and hundreds of thousands of cups of coffee. Check also: http://about.me/justinejustine

 

Ik ken Justine al jaren. Als een ‘American in Antwerp’ viel/valt ze op tussen de grijze massa. Good vibes, positive energy, big smile and lot’s of humor. That’s Justine. And good taste for food – mind vs stomach – clever girl!  Justine is een pre-Wifty, maar ze kijkt  uit naar the full monty. Ondertussen laat ze ons meegenieten van haar eigenzinnige kijk op de dingen des levens.

Ballet meets Punk Rock

          Growing up, I was forced by my mother, a dance critic, to take ballet. I hated it, but like anything terrible repeated enough, I got used to it.

          When we moved to Dallas, Mom signed me up with Ann & Bill’s School of Dance. This experience was unlike anything I had had in the hippie-haven of Austin, where I sported a pixie cut and could wear leotards in pink, purple, rainbow… At Ann & Bill’s, it was long-sleeved leotards in classic black, pink tights and pink shoes. My short hair had to be dipped in a mix of gelatin and water and glued into a tiny bun. “Messy hair means messy dancers,” said Mr. Bill.

           One day, waiting in the lounge for class, my Mom started shrieking. Her old high school chum from Midland had walked in with her daughter, Ama, slightly older than me and in the advanced class. Mom was the one who had introduced Ama’s parents to each other. Before long, I was going over to Ama’s house where all sorts of adventures happened: hula-hooping to Grandmaster Flash; running out of gas on the freeway; and “Ding Dong Ditch”—ringing doorbells and running away.

           Sometime during high school, Ama and her family moved to Amarillo. She came to stay with us one summer to take dance classes. I don’t remember much except she wore a ZZ Top shirt, which for my “punk” self was uncool. My highbrow musical taste consisted of The Psychedelic Furs and Orchestral Maneouvres in the Dark. I do remember the smoldering anger on my mother’s face when I passed up the chance to see Natalia Makarova perform “The Dying Swan” and snuck into the Hot Klub to see the Circle Jerks and Adolescents instead. I’d made my reputation as a punk ballerina, but was slowly becoming more punk, less ballerina.

          I’d hear about Ama from my Mom from time to time. She quit ballet, too, and studied acting at the University of Texas, dating guys with amazing names like Wham-o. I was married, living in Amsterdam with a toddler, then divorced and went with my daughter to Antwerp. Eventually, Ama ended up in London, but by that time I had moved to California, then New York. Finally, I entered grad school in London and Ama was the first person I called. We hadn’t seen each other in more than a decade.

          Her Texas drawl was now mixed with those irritating sounds that the Brits (as I rudely referred to them) used like cahn’t instead of the George W. Bush-styled cannnt. Anglicized speech or not, Ama was punk with a capital P. According to Ama, I was the one who had introduced her to it.

          By day Ama was working as an administrative assistant for a French investment bank wearing prim suits, perhaps a little wrinkled. At night she was singing with pro-anarchy bands in wild get-ups, with wigs and theatrical eye shadow. The false eyelashes from our Ann and Bill recitals had evidently survived.

          One day, on a two-hour hike across London, we spoke about Ann and Bill, ruthlessly shredding everything ballet had had to offer. It was an art form built on impossible dreams for emaciated women with impossible bodies: long arms, flexible legs, perfectly pointed feet. Misogynistic, it had damaged toes, knees, hips. The constant criticism had worn us down: “You’re too fat to turn,” “You jump like an elephant,” “Can’t you manage a tour jeté yet?” As we trudged through Hyde Park, my cowboy boots were giving me the same kinds of blisters I used to get from pointe shoes. In ballet class, we had prided ourselves on our bloody feet and the raw, oozing sores. How stupid, we thought now.

          Ama and I met at Starbucks one day, the one close to campus. Ama was nervous. I ordered my usual grande non-fat cap, and Ama looked down at her tea, as if she was embarrassed. The tea seemed like the umpteenth concession to British norms. A Texan would have ordered coffee.

          Once we exited Starbucks, Ama explained. “I came in here once. Last year or so.”
I shrugged, Starbucks is a common sight in London.
“I wanted to use the toilet. And when I asked, they told me they didn’t have one.” Ama dodged a few pedestrians. Her arms moved choppily.

“They are serving coffee! And they don’t provide places for people to go to the toilet? C’mon!”
“It sounds unfair,” I mumbled.

          Now Ama was shaking her fists.
“I asked for the manager. I wanted to know what the fuck was he doing serving a diuretic without having a toilet. I knew they had a toilet! By law, the employees have to pee. But they just wanted to collect our money and kill our kidneys.”
She wasn’t stopping for air. “Plus, it’s an American company. They have no right to inflict this savagery on the English.”
The manager wasn’t impressed. She was causing a scene. He asked her to leave.

          She did, with a coffee mug.
“Why’d you take a coffee mug? You wanted a memento?” I was appalled. Stealing. So very uncool.
“I took that mug, went right outside and peed in the cup. Then I took that cup of hot piss and rolled it inside Starbucks like a bowling ball.”

          My mouth fell open.
“If they’re going to make me pee outside like an animal, I’ll give them animal. I just marked their territory with the urine they created.”

           Punk rock. I was lame compared to Ama. If a guy would harass Ama in the street, I’d cower behind her while she bellowed “I don’t have time for you,” or “Learn to yield, asshole” to a dangerously fast driver. She’d look at me quizzically “Am I embarrassing you, Justine?” I’d nod, half-mortified, half-enraptured.

       “And Ama also gave me an uncontrollable urge to pee

        every time I walk into Starbucks.“

           I couldn’t write my thesis. I would research all day at the library, and spend the night in Ama’s cramped room where after a day of investment banking she would sit at her synthesizer. She was composing a musical, in part inspired by elements of the Frankenstein paper I was writing at the time, but full of plastic surgery and rebellious, gutsy women on a mission to save the world from superficiality. Most of it was set in Texas, naturally.

          I sat on the futon, miserable, watching Ama’s dedication. My whole life I had wanted to sing, but was had been gifted a tinny voice. Why couldn’t I plunk out a song on a synthesizer? And my writing, it was so far behind the curve. I was just mediocre. As in ballet. As in everything. Fashion. Critical theory. Painting. You name it, ME-DI-O-CRE.

          Ama looked at me when I threw my books down and slapped down my computer. “You know the problem with you, Justine? You’re not comfortable being uncomfortable.”

          She was right. I wasn’t a ballerina. And I certainly wasn’t punk. I wasn’t anything. I didn’t dare.
Ama went back to her synthesizer.

          It took a long time to write, but I eventually produced a research masters of 100 pages instead of a standard one with 60. I graduated, with distinction, but Ama couldn’t attend since it was in the middle of her banker’s workday. The applause when they called my name belonged to her, too.

         This morning, as I steered myself through yoga exercises and weight training, miserable with my progress, I thought of Ama: fierce, bold, creative. That’s who I am supposed to be. We escaped Texas to find our voices, and to escape the naysayers like Ann & Bill with their stream of negative comments. Yet, here I was reciting them in downward dog, wobbly and elephantine.

          I embraced the pain. Felt the stretch. And made a list of all that I had yet to accomplish. I am terrible at yoga and at weight-training but like ballet, if you’re terrible long enough, you get used to it.

          I might have given Ama the world of punk, but Ama gave me the right to be uncomfortable. She gave me the example I needed to stand up to bullies, to fear, even if I remain tongue-tied or collapse in mountain pose. She showed me how to sit at my desk, tired after a long day, and work for no other reason than mediocre or Ann and Bills don’t matter.

         And Ama also gave me an uncontrollable urge to pee every time I walk into Starbucks.