Womans Booty | Mature

She turned to the side. There, reflected back at her, was the unmistakable, defiant curve of her backside. It wasn't the lean, athletic shape she’d chased in her thirties. It was something better: it was substantial. It was soft, powerful, and carried the weight of a life well-lived—of decadent dinners, of carrying children on her hips, and of the steady, grounded walk of a woman who no longer hurried for anyone.

Eleanor was sixty-two, and she had spent forty of those years under the impression that her body was a project to be managed, minimized, or apologized for. She had done the diets of the eighties, the low-fat craze of the nineties, and the pilates-induced discipline of the two-thousands.

But on a Tuesday morning in a high-end department store in Rome, Eleanor stood in front of a three-way mirror wearing a pair of dark indigo trousers that fit her perfectly.