Legs

Legs

The summer of my twelfth year I had my first cigarette and shaved my legs for the first time.
Both in a bathroom other than my own, both ending in discomfort but also with the pleasure of rebellion.
In my naiveté, I skipped the shaving cream resulting in a gash on my left knee. It would not stop bleeding.
I sat and watched it drip down my leg, a badge of crossing the bridge of girlhood into adolescence.
Alongside my best friend, we slid on our shortest shorts and laid in a California field of clovers side by side,
subtly rubbing our newfound smooth thighs together.

Teenage boys and Cosmopolitan magazine told me shaved legs were the only option.
Smooth legs were a requirement for attraction, intimacy, and desire.
A million different products could protect one from dry skin and promise a smooth shave.
But this feminine expectation of silky legs bred a deep hatred of shaving and robbed me of the magic of that
first shave. I craved the high of rebellion, tasted the pool of blood at my toes, but loved the attention of boys
too much to pass on the shaving cream.

My twelve year old daughter sits next to me in her tiny volleyball shorts, our knees meeting.
Her changing body always surprising me how quickly she’s moving from child to adolescent.
Placing my hand on her knee, I no longer feel the downy peach fuzz of girl leg hair but the silky feel of fresh
shaven legs. I want to exclaim, “You shaved!” but I know better. I don’t want to spoil the joy of her own
rebellion, bring attention to her quiet revolt of girlhood.
I want her to have this, some semblance of choice about her body, even if it is just shaving her legs.
I tickle her knee cap and she wriggles away, childlike.
Don’t, Mum, I cut myself shaving and it hurts.
There on her left knee is a minute knick, her own scar of independence. 

Nearing my forties, I take to baths when the world is too loud.
Sinking into the tub, head underwater, the only sound I hear is my heartbeat.
The source the same of that the twelve year old girl who still wrestles with the complexities of the
cultural idea of femininity.
Lifting my legs from the water, I cover my right leg with shaving cream, craving the sleek skin of shaved
legs. My left leg remains untouched, the scar from my first shave still visible.
A grown boy by my side in a bed of cotton sheets, whispers, I love both.
The silky side and the fuzzy side as it brushes up against me.