Random People I Remember

Ballet in the Weight Room

I was spending my time lifting weights, as I do, continuing that ever onward journey to compete with myself on and on, when I saw her in the corner by the frosty glass windows, meticulously taking each pilates ball of varying colors and sizes down one at a time from the rack. As I rested between reps at my machine, I observed the calm stillness in her every action, poised and graceful with every movement. At first I thought she was looking for one specific size, or perhaps one specific color. She seemed to me like she might be a purple person, with her dark brown hair up in a high ponytail, and her black top loosely draped over her slim figure. But alas, she turned down even the purple balls and tucked them neatly into the corner with the rest.

Entranced as I was, I pretended I hadn't noticed her of course, and as I moved around the room doing the various leg and arm machines, I glanced up just in time to see her nonchalantly lift her leg up to rest on the bar of the emptied ball rack. Stretching with ease, she breathed into the movement and closed her eyes. I felt the tides of my soul suspend there in the breath.

When she finished stretching, she stood erect, completely poised and I saw in that moment decades of classical ballet training reflected within her posture. Assuming fifth position, her feet rested juxtaposed yet turned outwards from one another. Time fell in on itself as I watched her, the graceful tranquility in such stark contrast to the large weightlifting rack right beside her--

All that is beauty and light and grace contained within the essence of art, coinciding within a world so full of force and strength and power contained within the essence of survival: is this not humanity? Is this not love? When all the aspects of the world begin to merge together and the ballerina dares to practice in the weight room--is this not the essence courage?