This Is the Look of a Joyful Woman

On comfy clothes, easeful movements and letting your butt be jiggly

My loveliest dog-walking routes all cross this footbridge at Corktown Common in Toronto’s East Downtown. Photo: Nicola Betts.

My new favorite photo of myself doesn’t do me any favors. Casey’s wraparound leash has twisted my sundress and bunched it in the middle. Oh, who am I kidding? That’s not fabric, that’s a roll of flesh. And those breasts. At my age, even a 34B can flop all over the place. Yet when I look at this shot, I remember that June evening with Casey—the wooden bridge creaking in time with our footsteps, the swish of the dress against my skin like a personal breeze off water. The summer solstice had come and gone, but the soft light gilding the pond let me believe that tomorrow would be longer than today, and the next day longer still.

On Casey’s walk I forget to ask how I look to the world. No silver sandals or too-cool-for-drool pants from Italy. We don’t pass many plate-glass windows, which might as well be mirrors. They remind me to suck in my stomach and give my reflection a Mona Lisa smile, as my mother used to do. My husband rolls his eyes, but this habit is not about vanity. It’s about the question that has dogged me from pinafores to prom gowns, boardroom suit to workout wear—the question that is part of every woman’s inheritance: Am I okay? Forget the male gaze. There’s no gaze more judgmental than a woman’s own, directed without mercy at herself.

When I edited a women’s magazine, entire teams ensured that I looked better than okay in photo shoots. They freshened powder, smoothed creases, plucked hairs from the wrong places—this after enhancing my face with the contents of a makeup kit bigger than your carryon bag. The most popular shot had no sooner appeared, retouched to the nines, than a reader called the office in the hope of “getting the look.” She seemed to think the photo beside my column was her template for okayness. As she told my assistant, “I want the haircut! I want the glasses! I want the sweater! I want the lipstick!” Between the photo studio and the page, I’d morphed into a consumer ideal and thrown myself into every step of the process. The shot captured the role I played, not the woman who could eat a bowl of Oreo ice cream for lunch (three scoops, chopped walnuts on top).

Readers loved this photo from the Editor’s page in Chatelaine. My husband said, “It doesn’t look like you.”

No one will exclaim of my new favorite photo, “I want the hat! I want the dress! I want the shoes!” And that’s fine with me. The photo sits on a living room shelf, where I can see it from my mat while settling in for my virtual Feldenkrais class. Feldenkrais teaches me how slowly I can lift my arm, how gently I can roll my head from side to side. In this class I’m a septuagenarian baby, exploring the potential of limbs and reconnecting with the lost joy of easeful motion. Feldenkrais won’t help me drop a size or tighten my saggy places, but it has the power to infuse any moment with the lightness I felt that June day on the footbridge. It is to my killer fitness regimen of old as a fluttery sundress is to a designer suit so skinny, it must be worn with Spanx. “Make the movement loveable,” says my teacher. “Let your butt be jiggly.”

A fashion stylist might observe of my sundress photo, “There’s a woman who has let herself go.” So I have, in a manner of speaking. I’ve given myself permission to go on an emotional journey from control to comfort, from squeezing myself into an outdated self-image to claiming my space in the world. The only look that matters now is the look of joy, and each woman acquires it in her own way. You’ll never find the paper sunhat I wore on the footbridge—a nineteen-dollar special that gave up the ghost long ago. I’ll be wearing the sundress until it falls apart (fie on those articles that tell you how to dress for your age). As for my New Balance clodhoppers, getting the patina will take you some time. A little mud, a rainstorm or two, a spritz of dog pee. No cheating. Pee is the finishing touch.

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If you enjoyed this post, you’ll like “Don’t Mess with This Old Dame” and “Queen of a Very Small World.” For more about the rescue mutt who changed my life, see my new memoir Starter Dog. Or head straight for the comments and tell me what you think about what you’ve just read. Are you feeling okay with how you look? Do you sneak peeks at yourself in plate-glass windows? If you’ve broken that habit, what’s your secret? Take this conversation anywhere you like. I do my best to answer every comment.

All my posts are free to read, yet some readers of heart and means are paying for subscriptions just because. What a feeling! Still, I can’t say it too many times: I’m here to meet readers, not to pay the bills, and you are all among the great joys of my life. Feel free to share—you’ll be spreading the word about Amazement Seeker.