Fifteen Percent

Isn’t it a blessing...

Fifteen Percent

2023 has treated me a bit too well.
My first gym session
after a two-week romp in Europe,
my trainer regards me with dismay.
Playful, because I’m paying him, but still —
Lost quite a bit of strength, he says.
I tell him I want to work on my abs
and he says, With your current figure,
I don’t recommend it. Look at this fat
— he pinches one side while I grab
a roll on the other —
muscles on top of this won’t look good.
I recommend you go for a run.
How long? I ask.
Thirty-five minutes, he says.
After he leaves, I do ten.

And I think, how valiant his efforts
all these months prior, trying to shape me
only to see it undone by my dabblings
in hedonism, jamón ibérico and full-bodied wines.
And I think
of all the other people in my life
who have tried to mold me into a vision they had,
and the degrees to which they’ve succeeded.
I am far from ideal but isn’t it a blessing
to have been prodded or pulled,
occasionally taken by the hand,
a few steps in each direction
toward an idealized person? Someone else’s ideal
but all the same — a version of perfection
fifteen percent reached.

Bar del Toro, Barcelona