There was this girl that wanted to use the treadmill after me at the gym today. She wasn't quite tab, though she had the build: tiny, maybe just five feet, feathered (but not dyed) hair, rimless glasses, and toothpick arms and legs. She hopped on a Stairmaster while I finished my self-invented strained-knee recouperation session, and started intervals on the treadmill -- speed-walking, then running, then back to a quick walk -- after I got off.
She was still at it almost an hour later when I decided to leave, going strong, and only stopping once to tie a shoelace. I read in the Globe this morning about a study done on the health of Amish people, who are essentially the most hard-core farmers you can find on this continent, and unsurprisingly these guys can have their pie (and gravy, meat, potatoes, etc.) and eat it too. They just work that hard, and so did that girl in the gym. I could hear her panting, but also something else -- there was fear and grim determination, and the crushing weight of societal expectation.
The girls (and they are mostly girls, I've noticed) that go to the gym religiously don't think of it that way, of course. I didn't either. It offered power over everything, all for the low price of a bit of pain and some time invested; you could sell this mindset as a great mutual fund, if you packaged it just right. I find it funny now when I think about how we used to complain guys never had to worry about what to wear, because I've realised women may not have a clothing standard, but they sure do have a bodily one.
In the end, the body becomes just another bit of language, or something that tries to say a bit about who you are but always gets screwed up thanks to dialects or slang or poorly-placed profanity. Language seems so sticky to me now, and words suction onto bits of my brain as I read, and read, and read. I can do a bit with them, of course; I can push them a little bit, and always grab more, but the more there is the more (surprise!) they press down. More, less, neither helps make some space where we can take a little vacation away from everything expected of us, and social history's most effective enforcer: ourselves.
She pushed herself to the blinking of an odometer, just as I used to measure success by how numb a run made my feet. I say used to with a bit of irony, of course; I had to be there to see all this, after all.
She was still at it almost an hour later when I decided to leave, going strong, and only stopping once to tie a shoelace. I read in the Globe this morning about a study done on the health of Amish people, who are essentially the most hard-core farmers you can find on this continent, and unsurprisingly these guys can have their pie (and gravy, meat, potatoes, etc.) and eat it too. They just work that hard, and so did that girl in the gym. I could hear her panting, but also something else -- there was fear and grim determination, and the crushing weight of societal expectation.
The girls (and they are mostly girls, I've noticed) that go to the gym religiously don't think of it that way, of course. I didn't either. It offered power over everything, all for the low price of a bit of pain and some time invested; you could sell this mindset as a great mutual fund, if you packaged it just right. I find it funny now when I think about how we used to complain guys never had to worry about what to wear, because I've realised women may not have a clothing standard, but they sure do have a bodily one.
In the end, the body becomes just another bit of language, or something that tries to say a bit about who you are but always gets screwed up thanks to dialects or slang or poorly-placed profanity. Language seems so sticky to me now, and words suction onto bits of my brain as I read, and read, and read. I can do a bit with them, of course; I can push them a little bit, and always grab more, but the more there is the more (surprise!) they press down. More, less, neither helps make some space where we can take a little vacation away from everything expected of us, and social history's most effective enforcer: ourselves.
She pushed herself to the blinking of an odometer, just as I used to measure success by how numb a run made my feet. I say used to with a bit of irony, of course; I had to be there to see all this, after all.
