Postmodern Aerobics :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

Postmodern AerobicsThese days, Im living life flat-out, liter totallyy and figuratively. I say literally since Im lying face up in a back float right now, and figuratively since Im in the final carry of my coursework for a degree in literature. I come to the jackpot, though, even with run deadlines looming over my head, or perhaps be-cause of them, since I need to feel all the gravity fall away, experience even for just a chip the feeling of weightlessness.From my vantage point in the pool, I can depend the aerobics class hard at work in the plate-glass work out manner on the balcony above. The other side of that room is lined with mirrors, and umpteen of the members watch themselves step, extend, and jiggle. I can hear the bass line of the retrospective disco music pounding down through the foundation, overpowering the communication channel of classical music wavering from the radio on the pool deck. I lay my head back in the water and think about how unhappy they look, t heir faces wrought in sweat, determination, and desperate amusement. It occurs to me that they are engaged in a kind of postmodern aerobics. No excesses enter that stripped-down room with them they bring to it only a sharp perception of their bodies, fragmenting themselves into pecs, abs, and buns of steel. unceasingly assessing themselves in terms of the minimal, they self-consciously measure the torso fat on their upper arms and thighs with a small device that pinches their flesh among two levers. Even more painful to watch is the process that follows as they evaluate the units with stern faces, consulting each other in an almost robotic fashion. It seems theyll permit nothing get in the way of sculpting the exterior, perfecting the outer package. The stomach involve work, I will hear one of them say later in the locker room she will not say my stomach or my torso. Each one proceeds to talk about an element of her body as if it were something she has managed to separate from herself. And Ive never once heard them mention the soul. period members of the Masters competitive team may possess some or all of these qualities, Sunset swimmers do not think this way. We come to the pool in search of our souls, that part of ourselves that loves to be submerged and buoyed and enveloped by water.