Prompt: Imagine a teen-aged girl in her sparsely furnished bedroom with headphones on, eyes closed, oblivious to anything else around her. She glides over the polished hardwood floor with fluid grace to the rhythm of music only she can hear. She dances as though she's not being watched--carefree, careless. She's dressed in black jeans that look too tight to move in and a black turtleneck sweater. Wisps of curls stick to her head at her forehead and along the sides of her face. She smells like lilacs. Why is that her signature scent?

Celeste felt like her name. Light, ethereal. Here in the safety of her room, in the company of her memories, she played music her friends would laugh at and she became who she truly was in honor of someone she had loved deeply and well.

It had been two months now since her grandmother's death, time that had gone by in fits of sadness and rage, in amongst all the day to day things that made up life. If only she had known what she had while she had it. She would have paid more attention. Developed more skill. Grew more strength. Maybe she wouldn't be hiding now--one person outside her room and another inside--if she had just had the time for a few more lessons from Gram.

She stopped moving for just a moment and caught her reflection in the full length mirror that had been her grandmother's. At her insistance they had brought this piece back in the trunk when they went up North for the funeral. The mirror had been something she'd loved even as a child when Gram would let her play dress-up and she would tilt the mirror so that Celeste could see the full effect of her efforts. Even now, Celeste liked the image that was reflected, head to toe in sleek black that met her dark hair at the neck to frame her face, flushed with her efforts, looking at her with Gram's smile.

The mirror was a tall oval on a stand--the old fashioned kind Celeste was used to seeing in movies. It was out of place with her chrome headboard and footboard and matching desk and the rock posters that had yet to be taken down. Up till now her room had held all the trappings of a modern teenager who fit in with her peers. Celeste had worked strenuously to fit in. First it was the weight struggle (to be thin like everyone else), then the athletic struggle (in order to escape the geek label that threatened to be pressed upon her because of her intelligence) and the careful balance not to be too much a teacher's pet (because she knew how to be a good student). She had worked hard to carve her niche and had succeeded. There was a personal cost, but she accepted the fact that one must pay for what one wanted.

Still, she lived for the sporadic weekends and the whole glorious weeks during the summer that she spent with Gram. There she took on a different personality. Celeste still could hardly believe how their age difference melted away. Celeste had never met anyone more facinating. Gram played Berlioz for breakfast music, spent the morning on her knees in the garden, relaxed in the afternoon delighting in peeling and eating red grapes. Never green; they didn't suit her taste. She borrowed artwork from the library, and coffee table books too. One never knew what they might find at her house, or what mood she might indulge next. She played with everything--food, painting, words, sounds, fabric, paper, plants--it didn't matter.

But there were a two things Celeste found to be unchangable in Gram's life. Her dancing and her lilacs. So Celeste learned to love those two things also. There was nowhere in this city apartment to grow lilacs as she had been taught. But with hardly a thing in it, her room was the perfect place to practice the dancing that Gram taught her.

Gram had danced professionally for several years until she broke an ankle that never healed back the way it was before. While she couldn't keep up with her former occupation, she never quit dancing. In fact, she explained more than once, it wasn't until she quit dancing professionally that she realized how much she loved it. Once she started doing it just for herself, she felt her movements were all the more expressive and graceful. It came from the heart she had explained, never tinged with the "expert" advice of the head. "Love what you do," was a phrase that Gram repeated more often than Berlioz' music, "and do it because you love it. Whatever else comes from it--money, fame, glory--is a bonus. Those bonuses might be taken away, but the love only you can let go of."

For all those years Gram had been her well. At her house Celeste could fill up on things creative and sensuous, things that made her heart lift and soar. She could lose herself in books and music, and find the greatest delight in things as simple as bread and cheese. They would do things her parents would never try--like pitching a tent in the back yard and spending the entire on a blanket with a picnic basket and telescope, naming the craters on the moon. Her world felt big and wonderous at Gram's. When she slept it was deep, with dreams like tapestry, and the chance to waken when her body said it was time instead of the clock. Gram's was heaven.

Celeste open her eyes as she spun, snatching glances of the bedroom. Here it was small and practical--not just the bedroom, but her world in general. She spent much of her time conforming to others' ideas of what she should be. For the most part, she was content with that, even eager for it at times. Sooner or later though, she'd start feeling the need to get off the stage and regroup. Celeste knew then that it was time to make a trip to Gram's.

But Gram's no longer existed. Her parents had been quick to sell the "white elephant" in upstate New York. Gram no longer existed, except in Celeste's heart and head and in the photo album she continued to organize with loving care. And there were times like these when she put on her grandmother's dancing things and listened to CDs of Berlioz that had taken so much effort to acquire without anyone knowing about them. She would drown herself in lilac scent and close her eyes and hear in her mind the light applause that would come from Gram when she finally reached that space in which she was dancing her heart.

Her room would have to become Gram's house. From there perhaps she'd find the courage to stop being an actress on a stage. Until then her oasis would be here. Lilacs and dancing.

~*~
So much for not writing today. These character things just suck me in. :)