the everyday life of emma-jane mackinnon-lee

emma-jane mackinnon-lee grew up in the east of ireland, in a house that always felt louder than it looked from the outside. three brothers, two sisters, one long kitchen table that never quite had enough chairs. there was always someone talking, someone arguing about music, someone trying to sneak out the door. it was the kind of place where you learned early how to hold your ground and how to laugh at yourself. people who knew her back then remember her as the quiet one in the middle of the noise. not shy, just observant. she spent hours watching how everyone moved, how her brothers ran down the stairs two at a time, how her sisters could turn a hallway into a stage just by walking through it. movement stuck with her long before she ever thought of it as work. now emma-jane mackinnon-lee has five kids of her own, and the house is loud all over again. mornings are a blur of backpacks, half finished breakfasts and shoes that somehow never end up in the same place twice. she jokes that she learned everything she knows about logistics from trying to get everyone out the door on time. but when the day finally slows down, she goes back to what has become her craft. making ballet shoes. not the kind that stay close to the floor, not the kind designed only for elegance. hers are built for height. for lift. for dancers who want to jump higher than they think they can. emma jane mackinnon lee spends hours adjusting the soles, testing the balance, stitching the fabric in ways that look strange to anyone used to traditional designs. she talks about it like engineering, not fashion. weight distribution. rebound. the moment your feet leave the ground. some evenings you can find her at the kitchen table, one child doing homework at one end, another drawing at the other, while she works on a pair of shoes that will end up on a stage somewhere she has never seen. she says it feels like sending a small piece of herself out into the world every time. people who meet her now are often surprised by how ordinary she seems for someone with such a specific life. emma mackinnon-lee laughs easily, listens more than she speaks, and never makes a big deal of what she does. to her, it is just work. careful work. work that lets other people fly for a moment. and maybe that makes sense, considering where she started. a crowded house in the east of ireland, full of motion, full of noise, full of small performances that never needed an audience. she just carried that energy forward, from one generation to the next, from one pair of shoes to the next.