Page 107 of My Own Kind of Person

“I don’t own sweatpants.”

“What do you wear in gym class?”

“Comfortable jeans.”

There is at least some chance he stifles a laugh.

“See you after?” I ask.

He studies my face. “Maybe.”

When he leaves I’m overcome by a loneliness so sharp it almost knocks me down. I close my eyes and, like backstage at the Vanderbilt, I ask myself to become the person I need.

I understand now that this isn’t something I’ll remind myself of once or twice and then be fine forever. This—caring for myself, loving myself—will be a lifelong journey. I will feel sad again. Maybe in an hour, maybe first thing tomorrow. That part of me doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon. But this other part of me won’t go away either. Someone will always be here to care for me. I will always be here.

I head to what I think is the back corner of Studio Three, an open room with a wall of windows and three walls of mirrors. Most of the students look like they’re wearing pajamas, and one guy is definitely wearing comfy jeans. Some people are stretching, so I try to touch my toes, and when I’m not sure what to do after that, I keep trying to touch my toes.

The instructor leads us through hard-to-do moves with hard-to-pronounce names. Whatever video Tony found was no preparation for this. I lift a leg out to the side and end up falling. I get up as everyone is moving to the other leg, and I follow along and fall again. I think maybe I should try just standing. Standing without falling might be where I’m at.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the person beside me holding their foot out at a right angle, perfectly still.

It’s Elijah.

He moves through the positions with complete control. He’s not simply re-creating well-practiced motions. Or they’re no longer only motions. When Elijah bends both knees outward and brings his arms down before lifting himself up, it’s an expression of an emotion I can’t name, or a mix of emotions that becomes something new. I’m startled by the human body and by the presence of the physical world.

“Don’t just watch,” he admonishes. “You have to try.”

So I do. I go up and down, moving my legs and arms as best I can, and when I want to joke about my incompetence I instead try again. I keep trying and I don’t get better, but I keep trying anyway.

As my muscles stretch, waves of heat move through my body and hit my face, filling me with frustration and desperation and emotions I don’t know how to name, the same ones Elijah expresses in his movements, like they’re trapped inside us but he can release them. When the class ends I’m left with a warm, peaceful feeling, or at least an exhausted one, and I lie on the floor and close my eyes.

Elijah touches my arm. “I’m going to talk to the instructor for a few. I’ll meet you outside.”

On the sidewalk, I become aware of a truth I never noticed: Everything can be touched. The sticker-covered street sign, the crumpled paper cup in the trash, the rough brick building across the street—I could place my hand against each and they will communicate their silent texture.

Elijah comes out in his jeans, his arms and face bright with sweat.

“Can I walk you to the train?” I ask.

“Do you know how far Penn Station is from here?”

“Two miles south. I looked it up.”

“It’s a subway ride.”

“But do you want to walk?”

He considers it. “If we take a short detour we can go through Central Park.”

We pass the park’s low stone wall, and the hard cement of the city streets gives way to rolling hills and dirt pathways leading down into dark tunnels and up over little bridges. Boulders jut out, trees reach up, and people and dogs sit everywhere. Elijah gives his opinions on different ballet instructors, of whom he’s largely impressed, and different students, of whom he’s largely unimpressed. He says it’s ridiculous to follow this passion because there are so few working dancers and it destroys your body, but he hasn’t found anything he loves more, and there are moments when a performance—watching one or being in one—can reach “the sublime.”

When we leave the park and are back between the tall buildings, crossing busy roads and going around slow walkers, it feels like the appropriate time to get down to business.

“One thing to consider is that we were just getting started,” I say as though we’ve been having this conversation the whole walk. “I didn’t even have time to get better at oral sex.”

“Oral sex is not that complicated.”

“I found it to be un-intuitive.”