Leotards in Winter - March 7 2025

 

Leotards in Winter

March 7 2025

Back when girls and boys

entered through different doors.

When we’d assemble in ragged lines

jostling and nudging and cracking wise.

While the older boys

would steal awkward glances

trying hard not to gawk,

eyeing the girls

we innocents had no time for,

what with their giggling among themselves

in little cliques and secret covens,

the cooties if we touched,

the breathless gossip

whispered

into co-conspirators' ears.

Not to mention

the perennial riddle of the opposite sex

which men may never solve.

Now, of course, it’s not just girls and boys,

it’s trans and bi

undecided

and not yet tried

all mixing in the yard.

The boys had short hair

buzz-cut by their mothers on a kitchen chair,

wore the button-down shirts

of white collar men.

While the girls were lady-like;

no pants

just skirts.

Along with leotards in winter

I can't imagine kept them warm;

thin material

sagging over skinny legs

too long for their bodies,

and wrinkling where their knobbly knees

made them self-conscious

as they walked to school

and stood-up in class.

There was chalk dust in the air

the smell of wet wool.

We’d stand first thing

and recite the Lord’s Prayer,

which we knew by heart

and would mumble through

like one long word.

Apparently, no one cared

about the Witnesses and atheists

and odd irreverent Jew;

we all thanked Providence

because that was what one did

when piety was presumed

and equality ruled.

Then God Save the Queen, King, whatever;

unrepentant monarchists

but too young to know it.

Or, for our southern friends

the Pledge of Allegiance,

saluting the flag

with the patriotic zeal

of true republicans.



We sat in even rows

at wooden desks

on heavy wooden chairs

that scraped noisily

over polished classroom floors.

No plush carpeting

sitting in circles

or talking out,

just keeping quiet

and herded into lines

corralled into rows,

moulding us

into grownups

prepared for working life.

They were indestructible desks,

with decades

of illicit inscriptions

gouged into them

or in permanent ink;

boys and girls

who are now politicians

and captains of industry

recording for history

that they were here.

Like old posts on the internet

we’re told will live forever

and haunt us to the end.

Except the desks have all been burned,

or are piled in some basement

the Board of Education

has forgotten somewhere.

And the girl’s entrance

has been bricked-up or glassed-in.

So instead of separate sexes

a throng of kids

with wild hair

in every kind of get-up

mill about

and enter together;

no gawky glances, anthems, or morning prayers,

and the girls unabashedly

show their legs.

Although boys will still be boys.

And the girls

who mature faster

and are even more unknowable than before

will flirt with them

from a safe distance

until the callow lads

catch up.

The separate entrances were before my time. But they were still there, like amusing artifacts, in the older schools.

We were boomers, so girls were allowed to wear jeans. But I remember the stubborn skirt wearers, as well as the leotards in winter. At least in primary school. Those girls always looked cold to me, but they didn’t seem to mind.

Are chalkboards still used? Or is chalk a relic? Wool, of course, has been replaced by miracle fibres.

Individualism is encouraged, which is a good thing, and about time. But human nature tends toward conformity. The need for belonging and acceptance never changes. And neither does puberty!