LIFE

What the entirely unselfconscious older ladies in aquafit class taught one woman about body acceptance.

What one woman learned about body positivity from the grandmas in her aquafit class.

MY SWIMSUIT DID nothing to protect me from the frigid spray of water shooting out of the tap. “That’s the cold shower, but if you wait a minute, it usually warms up,” said a voice a few faucets down from me in the community-pool showers. I turned to see a woman, about 75, lathering shampoo into her thinning grey hair and using the excess suds as body wash, careful not to waste a single bubble. It took me a second to register that she had pulled her floral one-piece down to her waist while she was talking. Embarrassed, I turned my attention

back to the shower, listening as she let me in on the secret for where to safely store my towel on the pool deck. Avoiding eye contact, I forced myself to stand under the slowly warming water just long enough to get the chlorine out of my hair as I responded to the tiled wall in front of me.

I had just finished my first Tuesdaymorning aquafit class. I hadn’t known what to expect as I rode the bus to the Kitchener, Ont., community pool earlier that morning—although it definitely wasn’t a heart-to-heart with a halfnaked septuagenarian—all I knew was that I was excited to go. I’d been wanting to try aquafit since I was eight Everything was perfect while I was in the water, but once the class ended, I’d feel my selfconfidence waver.

and my grandma took us swimming at the YWCA in Sarnia, where she lived. I was mesmerized by the brightly coloured water dumbbells and neon pool noodles that the instructor tossed at attendees while they aquajogged to the beat of an earlynoughties club remix. The younger women in the class diligently faced forward, while the older ladies waved to my grandma—she had friends everywhere—as they giggled at their attempts to do the more complicated moves. Their laughter echoed across the shared pool and made the class sound much more enjoyable than standing in the long line to jump off the diving board. I wanted in. I had no concept of exercise or calorie burning, but I’m sure that’s what was on my grandma’s mind as she gently steered me away and told me, with a note of resignation in her voice, that one day I would be old enough to go to aquafit. Now, a decade later, I was here.

From that first morning, I loved the classes as much as I had hoped. I’d joke with the dozen or so grandmas bobbing beside me, and we’d heckle the instructors when they made us do the more difficult sets—all in good fun, of course. Overall, it was way better than walking on a treadmill by myself in some lonely gym.

Everything was perfect while I was in the water, but once the class ended and it was time to exit the pool, I’d feel my selfconfidence waver. For the longest time, I had assured myself that I loved my plussize body just as it was, but as I walked up the pool’s long ramp and the camouflaging effects of the water dropped away, I couldn’t stop thinking about how my constricting swim shorts and tankini—deliberately chosen to cover as much skin as possible—stuck to my body and left me completely exposed.

After making it over the pool deck and through the showers, I’d rush with my towel wrapped safely around me to one of the cubicle change rooms and try not to look at these women who had no qualms about sitting naked while they rummaged through their quilted gym bags for lotion or underwear and gossiped about grandkids. They’d stand, nude, in front of me, asking me about my weekend plans, my job and if I had any new men in my life while I politely tried to stare at their faces or their flipflops.

Their nakedness wasn’t sexual or voyeuristic; it just was. But it still made me uncomfortable. Over time, it became clear that my aversion to their nudity wasn’t really about them. Shying away from my pool friends’ soft, sagging skin and lumpy stomachs made me realize that maybe I wasn’t as body positive as I’d always thought I was. Yes, I’d made some progress since my days of lingering in the highschool change room after gym until everyone left or pretending that I was too mature for the trendy teen stores that didn’t carry my size, but I still had a long way to go.

As the weeks passed, the lockerroom birthdaysuit situation started to bother me less and less. In an era where women are beginning to take back control of their own bodies and rewrite the narrative of beauty, these women were silently and unknowingly leading the charge in my life. They normalized bodies of all types, sizes and ages. Slowly, I started to build the foundation of selflove that I’d talked about but never really had.

My time with the swimming grandmas was cut short when I moved out of the neighbourhood a few months later, but I still think of them whenever I step into—or, perhaps more appropriately, step out of—a swimsuit. I thought of them when I bought my first onepiece and ditched the kneelength swim shorts, I thought of them when I did a lightningquick change in an open change room for the first time, and I thought of them when I saw other women watching me. I’m not yet at the nakedinthelockerroom phase of my journey with my body—it might take me until I’m a swimming grandma myself—but that’s okay; I know I’ll get there.