An Hour in a Grey Vest

A friend of mine shoots clothes for a living and needed a body that could stand still for an hour. She asked me because I was free on a Tuesday, and because, in her words, I have a face that does not explain itself. I said yes before I thought about what I would have to wear.

The studio was in Botafogo, four floors up, air conditioning on full. Grey vest, dark trousers, shoes that had never touched sand. The photographer kept saying less, less, and I did not know what she wanted me to remove, so I removed my face.

Standing Still Is Harder Than Paddling

Four hours on a board makes your ribs tired. One hour standing still makes your whole mind tired. Out on the water every part of you is answering something. In the studio there was nothing to answer, so I began inventing things to think about, and then had to stop, because thinking moves the shoulders.

Paddling out takes twenty minutes. Standing still took an hour, and I complained more.

I took the metro home still wearing the clothes, carrying a bag with my own shorts in it. Everyone in the carriage was going somewhere at the end of a long day and nobody looked at me twice. That was the strangest part — how easily a person disappears into a good outfit.

Two Blocks from the Sand

At home I changed and walked down to the water anyway, because I did not want the day to end in a room. The wind had already passed through and the surface was chopped and brown near the shore. I stood at the edge, got my ankles wet, and that was all.

The suit went back in the bag. The sea did not ask where I had been.

I don't have opinions about clothes, or I didn't before. But I noticed that the woman in the studio and the woman on the boardwalk share a spine, and only one of them knows what to do with her hands. I know which one I would rather be at six in the morning.