Show of Strength

Kendall Jenner lays bare her biceps beneath tops and dresses built to move while Ada Calhoun contemplates what her own arms have held.

When grief invades your life, the world becomes surreal—and, as in dreams, unexpected gifts begin to drop from the sky. After my father’s death and my separation from my partner of more than 20 years, I received an invitation to a residency I’d applied for and then forgotten about: a month in a 15th-century castle outside of Edinburgh. The playful universe seemed to be offering recompense: The ground is no longer solid beneath your feet. Here’s a castle!

Once there I became obsessed with arms, the body part that does not hold us up but that does just about everything else. I fondly considered them as they rested on the raw wood desk and atop the green comforter, thought of who and what they had held and released. For the first time perhaps ever, I had nothing but space and time and someone else doing the dishes. I used it to think and stare out into the forest. The space heater chugged away, forming condensation on the windows, as I sat bundled at my desk, wearing a scarf all day, writing an entire book in a month.

As it was often sleeting, I began, daily, to do push-ups, keeping track of them on a spreadsheet alongside my word count. Two weeks in I noticed that my arms were becoming leaner and more muscular. Soaking in the ancient bathtub down the hall from my room, I admired them in the lamplight.

My fellow fellows, who I adored, teased me. Being British, they called pushups “press-ups” and said it was very American to obsess over health. To defend myself I pointed out that I was keeping pace when it came to consumption of dry sherry and peated whisky.