We live for sparkle

Check out Ms. Kim Mulkey, coach of the LSU Tigers women’s basketball team. Is she great or what? I’ve never been much of a sports fan, and I don’t watch the games, but I love to watch Kim. She is 63, blond, and she is not going gently into that good night of “aging appropriately.” The colorful, sparkly, and often feathered outfits Kim wears are designed to get attention, “appropriateness” be damned. She’s my spirit animal. Whereas others accept the invisibility that comes with age, we double down on glamour. Where the whole world is getting more and more informal, we dress up, because we like to, because it makes us feel good. “Look, we're from Louisiana. We like sparkles, we like diamonds, we like Mardi Gras, we like to eat and we like to party,” Kim was quoted as saying, and that seems just about right to me.

My protagonist in The Steps Between Us, Ava Thompson, is magnetically drawn to ballroom dance by the glamour of the scene — the beautiful dances, the shimmering dresses, the over-the-top makeup, the jewelry that can be seen from outer space, the flirting with handsome instructors. In that sense, Ava and I are the same. We were both fearful of dance, but we are more afraid of being invisible and sidelined as the years go by. Dance — especially competition — is a way of saying, “I deserve to be seen, I belong here.”

I’m not ready to give up my hair dye, my baubles, my high heels, my party outfits. Like Kim, I am going hard in the opposite direction. Every woman calibrates this equation for herself over time, making adjustments as they feel right. It’s possible I might voluntarily dial down the glitz one of these days. But I doubt it. Kim, drop me a line and let me know where you got that awesome suit! I have a feeling it would be great in Ballroom World.

 

Kim Mulkey