Day 1 in Tai Chi

She came to class late.

The rest of us had lined up ten feet apart and were already into the stepping and stretching and arm waving that is Tai Chi.

She wore high-waisted capri jeans with a woven leather belt. Her t-shirt referenced an event at the public museum and I right away decided that she was a retired archeologist. Her hair was curly like Lucille Ball and held back by a thick headband. She had bangs.

She wore very sensible sneakers with socks that she’d turned down like the anklets we all wore in the fifties. She looked fit and healthy, healthier than anyone else in the class, like she’d just come off a dig in Idaho. I decided she drove a Suburu and had a sleeping bag and freeze dried stroganoff in her trunk.

I spent the whole class wanting her pants.

I don’t have any high-waisted jeans, nor do I own a belt. I used to have a bunch of belts that I hung on a hanger and moved from place to place in my closet like a remembrance of waists past but I gave them to Goodwill years ago. Where would I even buy a belt, I wondered.

She looked so at home in her tucked-in shirt and woven belt, so tidy, so sporting, so much so that I decided I envied everything about her including her perfect socks.

Then I thought later after the entrancement with the latecomer’s pants and socks and curly head-banded hair had worn off, maybe someone is envying my ancient black exercise pants that I wore in a two day murderously hard charity walk in Santa Barbara ten years ago or my favorite rust colored v-neck shirt. And sure enough, later that same day, a person I was meeting for coffee said she saw me crossing the street and thought to herself, there is a woman of confidence, which I took to heart even though looks can be deceiving.