A letter from the editor
What’s a word for infantilizing but being zapped from your 30s into your 20s?
At Pilates class while working very slowly on the Cadillac, I got distracted when a woman in the same outfit: sports bra, bike shorts - walked in. Except she had on these great grip socks, black with a very round hole on top, that made my own pink calfskin ballet shoes with the crisscross straps look prissy - and from complete focus on my shoulder pulls, I wavered. Distracted by a space between her tummy and the top band of her shorts. Meanwhile, my core had grown soft over the hiatus, sinking my whole facade like a butter sculpture at room temp.
Even when my teacher moved me to the barrel for side bends, my head was still in the Cadillac, back between the stirrups, not leaving from where I first gazed upon this lithe pretty creature, who had put on one of those Lululemon jackets while waiting for me to finish.
Mound of Butter, Antoine Vollon (1875/1885). From the National Gallery of Art.
My teacher put me out of my misery at the end of my session when she introduced us, as mists of sanitizer dried on the equipment. “How old are you now?” She asked. “22,” came the girlish response.
​
Whoosh! Went the breath held inside me.
​
“She’s a ballerina,” my teacher said, including me with her body language.
“Anna‘s a fan! Of ballet.”
Female Torso and Sculpture Ideas II, CH OM Henry Moore, 1979, Tate
“Yes! I love to watch.”
​
To think that I was comparing my 33-year old body to a 22-year old athlete’s. But we do that don’t we?
​
In media we keep ourselves a manageable size, so we can all buy the same thing.
​
This is a magazine that resists commercial intentions. We don’t all have to fit a mold, that would be too efficient.
​
(But I still did search for the socks on the Internet, black, with the holes on top.)
APC