I have a few glinting hairs on the tops of my feet and a little tuft on each toe. When I was nine I read that hobbits had hairy feet and went around barefoot, and that was enough to persuade me that hairy feet were good. Much later a girlfriend firmly opposed to almost all kinds of body hair persuaded me to try shaving my feet, but stubble on my toes seemed so ludicrous that I gave it up forthwith. Besides, I still felt that my hairy toes were cute.
There's a snapshot of me doing it. I was prepared to practice until I mastered it. But was this really what dancers did? I could scarcely imagine spinning or leaping on my turned-over toes. How was it possible? If other bodies could do things, magical things, that I couldn't even approximate, then a body was like a cabinet of wonders inherited from a great-aunt: you didn't know what was in it, but one day you opened a drawer and pulled out something wonderful. I might be able to do things nobody else had even imagined. All I had to do was try everything. Sooner or later I would find out what my own big trick might be. |
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