Mindfully Stylish 🌷

When the tears had dried on my cheeks, I was unsure if it was the grace of the ballet that had made me cry or some yearning of my soul that I had just seen played out on stage ~ for the purity of the ballerina who had died of heartbreak but forgave the man who betrayed her, even from beyond the grave.

This is the story of Giselle, a romance my mother would read me when I was very young and which has stayed with me ever since.

Giselle is a peasant girl in rural France. She has a weak heart but loves to dance. She is already betrothed to another, but when a handsome duke arrives disguised as a villager, Giselle falls in love with him. After a whirlwind romance, she dies of a broken heart when she learns of her duke’s engagement to someone else. The Duke visits her grave in the haunted forest and is entrapped by the ghosts of unmarried women, who attempt to make him dance until his death, but Giselle saves him and thus saves herself from joining these unhappy spirits too…

That I lived and breathed sitting beside two of my closest friends in the darkened intimacy of the London Coliseum, I could hardly believe that I had been given the chance, over and over again, to forgive whilst all who had hurt me were still living. It seemed to me at that moment, as the dancers dipped and twirled through the blue-grey dappled light, that existence was a God-given gift, that I understood at last the meaning of a full heart, and that if I could forgive, if I could give myself that peace, then perhaps there was some good, perhaps there was something beautiful and graceful within me too. 

Could I love her, as she badly needed me to? 

My lips formed the words “thank you” and I tasted the salt of my tears, realising the glare of a hundred phone screens taking a picture of the final bow were flashing surreptitiously before me. I felt a pang of regret that I wasn’t one of them, wrapped as I was in this reverie of deep, deep feeling. I would have so loved to capture this moment in time. 

I had never cried at beauty before. Nor had I felt such softening and tenderness towards the ghosts of women I had once been, dancing and sparkling among the stars in the crisp winter air when we reached the street outside. I tried to explain without needing to, and Jack handed me his handkerchief. I dabbed it at my eyes, they lit cigarettes ~ smoke cloud-like ~ and we walked slowly back through Trafalgar Square to Charing Cross Station, delighting in M&S being open and talking of future ballets and operas we swore to see.

I grabbed some lemon and coriander prawns, a pine nut salad and some lemonade, and we cheersed with gin and tonics in cans on the train.

As we sped through the frost and glitter of a city in January, I realised I had jam from the camembert at lunch making sticky knots in my hair, and lamented that this minor mishap distracted me so easily from the life-affirming experience of weeping silently among an applauding crowd, and caused such depths of feeling, one of red hot annoyance, another of almost prostrate compassion, and could happen both in one day…

If you are looking for a way to carry on celebrating into the New Year once all the usual festivities are over, I highly recommend dinner at an affordable yet decadent French restaurant like Le Mercury and a night with the English National Ballet. A handy tip: request the mezzanine banquette seating above the main dining area at Le Mercury for dinner with a view. You won’t be disappointed.

In Love&Light,

FS XOX

N.B. As of September 2025, Le Mercury restaurant in Islington has now closed 😦 I’ll be writing a list of glitzy and decadent French restaurants in the coming months which I will link here ~ don’t worry, we will find more!