If you’ve never exercised with a flirtatious seventy year-old woman at 8:30 in the morning I highly recommend the experience.

Camilla, I’ll call her, walked beside me on a treadmill for twenty minutes lamenting the absence of a television in the room.  “I’m missing Good Morning America for this,” she gasped.  The two of us moved our equally spindly legs back and forth in near silence, the only sounds the thud of our feet, her heavy breathing and an occasional compliment.  “You’re sprinting over there,” she wheezed and I smiled back.  “You’re not doing too badly yourself.”

By the looks of her she must have been up early getting ready for us.  Gold earrings.  Gold watch.  Gold bracelet.  Auburn hair perfectly teased into a bell shape.  Lipstick seeping out into the wrinkles around her mouth.  Rouge in great circles on her cheeks as if painted on by a toddler with a brush made for staining large pieces of furniture, maybe one needing a makeover before being brought out of storage and made useful again in the living room.  Camilla put herself together well.  Beautiful.

I imagined how I might wear by her age, my hair white or gone altogether, joints stiff and sleep intermittent, names of acquaintances and witty comebacks too slippery for my mind to grip easily.  “It’s hard for me to sit down and stand up sometimes,” Camilla explained on the way from the treadmill to the rack of barbells in the next room.  “Oh, you’re just showing off now,” she laughed as I picked my weight from the pack.  “Or I’m just too ambitious, we’ll see how this works out for me,” I said and we took our places before our instructor.

Her muscled thighs and tight arms bent perfectly as she commanded them.  Her black hair pulled back into a pony tail.  Her back straight.  Her sparse make-up staying in the lines, hugging her features.  Her voice smooth and patient.  “You’re doing so well, Camilla,” she cooed and I wondered if I’d believe her if I were seventy and my triceps, then the size of petite rubber bands, were refusing to flex enough to lower and lift my body even a full inch.  I’d sure want to believe it.

Camilla hung in there. I watched her in the mirror as she strained and willed herself to complete the smallest tasks.  Bending over, like she once did when tying her child’s shoe.  Reaching above her head, like she once did when stacking sheets in a closet.  Sitting up, like she once did every morning before heading to the kitchen and getting started on breakfast for her family.