by Louisa C. Brinsmade

Imagine that. That knees are just the tip of the iceberg, just scratching the surface, the worst offender of the removables.

He said it in 1975, or 1976. On TV, even. It happened to be a pivotal moment. I closed myself in my room, pulled down my knee socks (yanked fashionably just above the kneecap), and got up on my desk chair to get the lower half view in my short dresser mirror.

Front, back, and sides were viewed critically. (It wasn't the last time I would do this for the knees and every other part.)

There didn't seem to be anything particularly bad about the knee to me. Either of them, frankly, even though mine had taken a beating already. Stabbed with a stray bicycle spoke from my sister's front wheel, they were spotty with scars from the usual falls and scratches. And my kneecap floated around in kind of a grotesque way when I played with it in French class. But my knees were functional - they could pivot and pop me up into any tree, or hang upside down from the laundry line pole, and at least one of them was first to cross the finish line after a 100 yard dash. I've always gotten a big jerky laugh over a horsebite from a boy.

I liked their shape. The way the sides give suddenly to the back side, and the hollowness back there. It was a good place to grab when I was nervous - I could tuck my hands behind there, fold up my calves, and rock a little in my chair. My hands were warm too.

God seemed to think well of the knees, also. The cushions under the pews were probably cheating, but what the hell.

Still, Halston couldn't be wrong about the knee. He's a fashion designer.

He wasn't, I think now. The knees aren't so cute anymore, especially at 36 years of age. It's true. I suppose we all lose touch and kindness about our bodies -- lack of leisure time to contemplate the restful hollowness, frenetic exercising to catch up with time and a slowing metabolism, kneeling a lot, and not just for God's graces.

There's a growing pocket of what I can only call fat on the inside of each knee where there once was that marvelous sudden turnback. The hollowness behind there is spiked now with angry red blood vessels, their broken backs pushing out the skin. That's from waiting tables, I'm told, and the money wasn't even that good.

Worst of all, there's this frown of skin starting to wrinkle over the top - its unhappiness is threatening to cover my pleasurable floating kneecap. Old-lady-knees. That's what I call them now, as if speaking harshly about them will bring them back in line. Bring their tired, beautiful functionality back to brace firmly against the self-consciousness of aging.

It's not so bad as I think, but the honest thought is that it will get worse. I want more for myself than this inevitability, and the fear of it. I want beauty, and a way around it to the other side.

That's the gift I'm waiting for. To know that the knee is not the ugliest part of my body that deserves removing, along with several (many) other dysfunctionalities. It would be the gift of knowing that the simplest thing is not to kneel so much - less from vanity than from plain good sense.