I started noticing how much we rely on things looking clean

Most Pilates studios look really clean.

White reformers. Bright light. Everything in its place. The kind of space where you walk in and immediately feel like, okay, this is taken care of.

And I think for a long time I stopped there.

I didn’t question it. I just equated how clean something looked with how clean it actually was, because that’s kind of what we’re taught to do. If a space looks polished and intentional, we assume the care extends everywhere.

What made me pause was realizing how much of that sense of cleanliness is visual.

Flat surfaces. Open areas. Things you can see easily. Those get wiped, reset, and noticed. They photograph well. They read as clean.

But Pilates is a shared space, and a lot of the interaction happens in less obvious places. Hands on straps. Hands on handles. Hands moving back and forth between equipment and your body.

None of this felt alarming to me. It just felt… overlooked.

Not because studios don’t care. I really don’t believe that. It felt more like a blind spot created by time constraints, class turnover, and the fact that some parts of the reformer are just harder to deal with quickly. Add in the lack of client education on cleanliness (walking into the bathrooms in gripsocks) and you have the perfect storm.

I also noticed how invisible hygiene labor is. You don’t really see the effort that goes into maintaining a space unless something goes wrong. When everything looks good, you assume everything is good.

Once I started paying attention to that gap between what looks clean and what actually gets touched the most, I couldn’t stop seeing it. Not in a paranoid way. Just in a more aware way.

That awareness didn’t make me feel anxious. It made me curious. Like, okay, if this is how shared spaces really work, what does care look like beyond appearances?

I don’t think the answer is perfection. Or fear. Or obsessing over every surface.

I think it starts with noticing. With questioning assumptions. With admitting that looking clean and being clean are related, but not the same thing.

That realization was the beginning of a longer thought process for me. One that didn’t end with a conclusion, but with better questions. And honestly, that felt like the right place to start.