When I was in my early 20s, my ballet career was interrupted by a serious injury.

At the time of my injury, I had been on a trajectory to (what I hoped would be) the top of the ballet world.  When my back started hurting, I refused to let pain impede my progress.  The more my back hurt, the more aspirin I took and the harder I pushed myself.  

The pain increased to the point where I couldn’t dance anymore.  I was diagnosed with a stress fracture and forced to wear a back brace for a year.  The timing couldn't have been worse!  I had been in my element dancing with the Ohio Ballet.  The director was finally casting me in the roles I craved for so long.  My life was cursed!

I left Ohio to convalesce at my parents’ home in Maine.  It just so happened that my grandmother, in the throes of osteoporosis, also moved in with my parents.  Here we were: both of us derailed by broken backs and coming together under the same roof.

Gram and I had a bond.  She graduated from Radcliffe in 1934 as an English major and taught high school English for thirty years.  She brought poetry and literature to life for me.

During our convalescence, Gram and I fell into a routine.  After my parents went to bed, we read poetry together -- and not just any old poetry!  Gram had high standards and she wanted to raise my standards too.  We read Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold, Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Morning Song of Senlin by Conrad Aiken.  Anything by Emily Dickinson.  Frost, Keats, Eliott.  Every night was a feast!

During these hours, I forgot that I was not dancing.  I forgot that I was injured.  Reading poetry with Gram helped me remember myself.  I was Ozymandias, that “colossal wreck” on the beach.  I was the guy standing on a “swiftly tilting planet” combing my hair.  I experienced a personal connection to these universal voices and somewhere beyond conscious thought, I learned that self-worth is not conditional.  It can’t be diminished by injury or circumstance.  Self-worth is a birthright; a sense of belonging to a vast, bittersweet mystery that great art is all about.