The Nadia Comâneci Dream

When I was ten years old, I dreamed of being a gymnast. I had seen Nadia Comâneci on the TV performing at the Montreal Olympic games in 1976, and like so many young girls, was swept away by the purity of her performance and her incredible courage. Next door to me, in Bromley, lived a teenage girl who practised gymnastics in her backyard, and I used to watch her exercising through a hole in the fence, and I would copy her movements. My dreams were the dreams of countless young girls, and I learned to handstand and backflip and cartwheel around the yard, and in my mind I was Nadia Comâneci flying through the air into history. After a while I left home and travelled around, and grew into myself and stopped all that cartwheeling for a while. Then, after many years, I began The Vampire’s Wife and I became a gymnast again, flying around the backyard, making dresses that were my handstands and backflips and cartwheels. Thank you Nadia Comâneci for inspiring so many of us. Love Susie.