3.6.18

Nothing delights me more than a sing-along. I don’t care if you’re an opera singer or a shower warbler; there is bliss in adding to the joyful noise, to being part of the wondrous whole. It’s not just me; since my youth (and probably even before then, if such primitive technologies existed!), you could “follow the bouncing ball” and sing along with a song projected onto a screen.

This happy thought occurred to me today, but from a new viewpoint. (This is the perspective that exercise brings us, boys and girls – isn’t that wonderful?)

I thought to myself – what the hell does the bouncing ball think of this?? Is it FUN for the bouncing ball to outline the “doo-dah, doo-dah” of “De Camptown Races?” No, the bouncing ball is probably annoyed and tired and demeaned.

And what brought this to mind?

Running, of course.

I plod along like the bouncing ball, so someone else could sing a particularly slow and plodding song to my locomotion. Hot Cross Buns, perhaps. Thump, thump, thump.

“Eggshells,” Barbara said hopefully at my side. “Pretend you’re running on eggshells and don’t want to break them.”

I shot her a look of murderous incredulity.

“Well,” she said soothingly, “What if you were running on ice? How would you not break through?”

“I’d slow down,” I gasped. “I’d walk.” Thump, thump, thump, went my feet thickly. My gasping breath added a little ragged syncopation to the percussion. Eggshells. Like I could place my feet in any way other than helpless stomping. Impact tremors in the surrounding groovy apartments and little houses caused unseen strangers to wonder if the t. Rex was coming after the goat again.

Look: Between you and me, I admit that I was hoping that trotting up and down my stairs would have made a difference – that doing intervals on the elliptical would have smoothed the way. Barbara assures me that they DID help; I never would have made our run-some-walk-some loop a year ago. I hold on to that the way a child clutches a teddy bear when there’s definitely a monster in the closet; I know the bear isn’t going to be much help, but it’s all I’ve got.

And I was hoping that Barbara would say “Oh, I see the problem – you’re not…” and then she’d say something that would correct all the awkwardness and thumpiness and gracelessness, and once she corrected THAT, then I’d be fleet-footed Atalanta, laughing over my shoulder at all those who chased fruitlessly after me.

In fact, she advised me to keep my ribs down and focus on my abs. And my glutes. Okay. (That’s the answer to EVERY SINGLE EXERCISE so we’re not exactly breaking new ground here, but you have to learn to run before you can run. If you’re with me. I’m sure there are keener refinements in my future.)

Thud, thud, thud – walk, walk, walk. Barbara noted later that I’d offered to start running again sooner than she’d suggested; she interpreted this as enthusiasm. I confessed that I was just trying to get the whole dreadful thing over with as soon as possible.

But I WANT to be able to do this. I am tired of being humiliated. I’m willing, at the staid and august age of 58, to plod around in full view of a disgusted public if it’s possible that I could stop feeling like the Sing Along With Mitch Bouncing Ball. And I want that to happen SOONER rather than LATER.

I wrote to Grace (my Body Dynamics trainer on Wednesdays) to tell her I was going to try to run/walk today’s route tomorrow before our session, so she should plan on not needing to give me anything to do for cardio when we meet, but Barbara put the quick kaibosh on that plan. MAYBE I can run again next week, she says, after we see how my body responds.

(I’ll tell you how it’s responded – I’m wiped out, and my thighs tremble when I go down the stairs. And you know muscles ache more the day AFTER exercise, so by tomorrow, I should be fully incapacitated. Fun for Grace to work with me like that!)

I hate running. I gasped the question at Barbara as we headed back to the barn. Is it possible for someone who hates running to learn to love it? Has she ever known it to happen?

“YES,” she replied with such conviction that I’m quite sure she was lying. Never mind. I plan on being the first.

A statue of Atalanta. Nicer to look at than Sing Along With Mitch.

 

 

3.6.18

Don’t look at me like that; you know the noise I mean. A contemptuous click of the back of the tongue against the throat – the untypable sound that means in any language around the world (and probably across the galaxy) “Christ, what a moron.”

I use it when someone cuts me off on the highway, or a client wants me to rewrite perfectly good copy… but I’m MOST likely to use it on self-inflicted stupidity.

You might recall, depending on just how bored you’ve been lately, that I’ve been missing appointments. First, it was unwittingly standing up Eleanor and her family at a restaurant that I’d invited them to. Then it was a phone call with my high school reunion committee.

Most horribly of late, I went about my day while a new client (who doesn’t yet know that I’m worth this nonsense) waited on a conference line, making embarrassing small talk with HIS client, who he’d assured was going to love this great new writer. I knew I had a call at two. I simply didn’t make a critical connection. I never dialed in. I try not to swear too much in this blog, but FUCK.

Barbara, my Body Dynamics fitness trainer and wizard, has watched me move farther and farther away from balanced as the anniversary of Jonathan’s death has been approaching. Last week, when I was fighting back tears during a discussion of kettle bells (sort of), she gently pointed me to the biofeedback counselors at Body Dynamics. Maybe they could help me figure out some coping mechanisms.

So I made an appointment with Regina. Because just maybe I’m losing my ever-loving mind… and when you run out of anger at the Dead Husband Situation, the next stop on that train is depression – so maybe let’s take this seriously, before I lose ALL my clients.

Do I have to tell you what happened next?

Given that I made that disgusted sound (untypable)?

That’s right. I forgot about the appointment.

I was driving home from my Body Dynamics massage with the amazing Gwynn when I got a text from Regina. “Aren’t we supposed to be meeting now?”

Disgusted sound (untypable). Bootlegger’s turn in the middle of the Capitol Beltway. (Not really.) I made it back with 30 minutes of my appointment still available.

Regina was totally cool about it; she explained that the right side of the brain has no concept of time. It’s always “NOW” on the right side… which is the seat of emotion. The LEFT side holds the internal clock. It’s rational and does the analysis.

And the left side really DOES pay attention to anniversaries. Even though I can’t imagine that my brain cares about “twelve months equals a year” or “This is how long it takes for the earth to travel around the sun,” the reality is that anniversaries bear weight in the left hemisphere of the brain.

And as an unsuspected clock ticks down to the day Jonathan died at the door of the garden shed (and then the following day, when he died again in the hospital), a large percentage of my mental oxygen is being consumed by past trauma. Enough, for example, that I might utterly lose track of time needs – appointments, restaurant reservations, phone calls.

“You mean I can STILL use the “Dead Husband” excuse?” I asked, astonished.

“For a long time. Maybe three years – maybe longer,” she replied.

We set up appointments through April. Clearly I have much to learn. I hope I remember to go.

Yeah. You know the noise I mean, don’t you?

3.5.18

What if someone took away your prop?

Let’s say you had a broken leg and used a crutch to walk. Then as you healed, it came time to put the crutch away, but you were still fearful and kept using it. Eventually, you’d get all out of whack, leaning on that crutch instead of returning to an even distribution of your weight over your own two feet.

So that would be easy to solve. Just give up the crutch. Right?

I’m thinking about this because a few days ago, I posted about weighing myself twice on the same day, to see if maybe I’d magically dropped some extra weight – and friends came out of the woodwork to lecture me about giving up that crutch.

Oh, like it’s that easy.

“Shut up,” I wanted to shout to EVERY well-meaning, want-to-be-helpful ally in my health journey, “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND.”

But the hardest one to reach – the one it’s most challenging to explain myself to – is Barbara. Barbara, my guru and trainer at Body Dynamics, says – throw out your scale. I’ll weigh you once a year at your fitness assessment; other than that, don’t worry about your weight – don’t think about your weight – ignore it.

The frustration and confusion bubbles up in me like water coming to a boil, and it’s taken me days to turn that upset into English. (My answer to her was – I’ll write about it. Then you’ll be able to understand me. Alas, I’m still trying to wrap my brain around it, but here’s a start.)

I don’t know what goes on in Barbara’s head; that’s my disclaimer. She SAYS she takes care to watch what she eats, and she gets plenty of exercise – the implication being that she, too, worries about her weight. I’m sure she does…

…and yet you can look at Barbara and know that she hasn’t walked my path. She is empathetic and understanding and probably the most skilled expert in handling issues of obesity that I’ve ever come across (and I’ve known me a few!). But she thinks I can throw away the scale. So I know we have crossed communications.

Barbara trains for marathons. She’s a runner. You can see it in the way she glides, not walks, that her core is well-trained and responds obediently to her needs. Even standing still she looks fleet. She is designed for distance-running; if you were a Greek general and wanted to let the king know the battle had been won, you’d look at your troops and automatically hand the message to Barbara. “Go – he’s at Marathon. Run as fast as you can!”

She occasionally posts her runs on Facebook – the distance, the time. So I wonder if there isn’t an equivalent.

What if I told Barbara to throw away her mileage counter – or her watch? Just don’t worry about it. We’ll measure you once a year, at the Boston Marathon. Other than that, just forget about it. You’re running for your health, not for a number. Go out – run. Don’t measure the distance; don’t calculate your minutes per mile. You don’t need those. Go forth, little bird – fly free in the big wide sky!

Not so easy, is it?

I know that standing on a scale is a crutch, and that I’m not supposed to need that crutch any more. But to abandon it now – when the scale shows me such encouraging numbers after a lifetime of discouragement – seems not just impossible. It seems needlessly cruel.

I didn’t throw out my scale, but I did unplug it and move it into the closet. I’m trying. But the amount of effort this takes MUST be recognized and respected. This isn’t easy – it isn’t casual. I’m asked to make a major change as if it was just another task, and it’s not.

Tomorrow Barbara is going to teach me how to run, in the hopes that maybe I’ll have the oomph to try a 5K on Memorial Day. The idea terrifies me like … I don’t know, like a cancer diagnosis, maybe. My fear of humiliation is almost paralyzing. I know it would be good for me, though, so I’m going to do it. I recognize that my brain is holding me back, and I’ll force compliance. It’s tough, though.

It’s just a number, they say carelessly. Sure, it is. You putz.

 

 

The Virginia countryside is being swept clean today. Huge gusts of wind – the supreme “tai-fung” (I’ve been reading “Tai Pan” as I hope to persuade a friend to go to Hong Kong with me) – are rocking hundred-foot trees high overhead.

The power is off at my house. I have a laptop with a battery; I COULD be working productively… But don’t you think I should conserve that battery power for an EMERGENCY? Maybe Tom Hanks calls and says I need to write him a speedy fundraising letter, like.  Or Matt Damon needs water.  It could happen.

So instead, I’ve spent the day curled up under a down comforter, wriggling my toes in bliss and reading about clipper ships and derringer-do and the founding of Hong Kong.  Paradise!

(By great good fortune, I’d trotted up and down the two flights of stairs nine times before the power went out; otherwise I would have been descending into Stygian darkness with each descent. THAT might have slowed me down. But Edison did not desert me and I huffed and panted under the benevolence of electricity. You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.)

Now I’m lurking at a friend’s house, using up her wall plug and her active internet, to post just long enough to say – no post today. Tai Pan instead! (No, now I’m on Noble House. Is it wrong to hope the power stays off tomorrow, too? These books are fairly long…)

And I promise to do my home exercise program tonight, by the light of my newly-recharged iPhone and iPad! The power going out is like a snow day for adults. Eeee!

3.1.18

Darkness surrounded her. If it had been a warmer climate, Spanish moss would have been dripping down to brush unseen against her vulnerable neck – but this landscape was colder. More rocky. The only tendrils to curl around earlobe and bare palm were the fingers of icy breezes. Leached of light and joy, no color caught the eye. The only scent was the alkali of bare, wet stone. The only sound, the hollow fall of her feet on a snaking path that did not end, where roots and hollows waited to trip the unwary foot.

I was depressed, okay? I had lead in my soul.

I don’t usually get depressed, and sure don’t stay there, but I ran into a combination of unfortunate. My husband has been dead for about 11 months now, and my anger about that is wearing out, leaving me with the far less appealing emotions of sorrow, pity, and self-pity.

My brain is oddly cloudy. Might be a peri-menopausal state, might be the stress of delayed mourning, but I’m forgetting things. I missed a meeting yesterday – the very first one with a new client. They don’t know how much they love me yet; how can they forgive me for just outright forgetting that we had our inaugural call scheduled? This relationship may not be salvageable.

And I’m trapped by a surprising dip into low blood pressure. Exercise exhausts me. I get dizzy. My heart pounds. I mentioned to Barbara (my guru at Body Dynamics in Falls Church) that I thought my blood pressure was low and she sat me down immediately and got a blood pressure cuff. Sure enough, even though I’d just done ten minutes of interval training on the elliptical, my BP was 102/84.

“That’s low, right?”

“Yeah. That’s low.”

We talked about both addressing the physical aspects (Chip the Body Dynamics nutritionist thinks I’m low on electrolytes and gave me a healthier form of Gatorade for before, during, and after exercising; so far it seems to be helping a lot) as well as how to handle dizziness and feeling crappy.

So I have this trifecta of reasons why my nice, buoyant cork of a spirit was suddenly feeling like it was made of lead.

When I got up this morning (after a night of interrupted sleep; I just can’t stay under these days), I was depressed and tired and felt bad. I didn’t want to go to Balance Class. But I’d eaten poorly the night before, and I don’t want to give in without a fight, so off I went…

…and when I got to Balance Class, a magical alchemy happened: Lead turned to sunlight.

I didn’t mean to be happy; I was pretty committed to being sad. But Balance Class was packed today, which meant that as we did the warm-up exercises (which might as well be a Monty Python “Ministry of Silly Walks” skit), we had to weave back and forth around each other. I was getting in the way of Robbie, Steve, and Karen – all of whom I like to work out with – and we were “oops”ing and “pardon me”ing left and right, and pretty soon a few unwilling chuckles came out of me.

And then a giggle.

And then I was the one who made a joke, instead of only reluctantly laughing at someone else’s.

Barbara told me that the newest member of our sisteren – Lynn – was trying Balance Class because she read my blog, and that’s just the most flattering thing ever, so that was like a helium balloon on a string, tugging my leaden soul a little farther upward.

Barbara put us through our paces today, quite literally. We were doing squats and touching balls to the ground and passing a ball to a partner we were back-to-back with (“No hips – all twisting from the waist only!”) and tapping one foot and then the other on the ball, turning in a circle.

Steve had DJ’ed a great playlist – a lot of country rock that Barbara couldn’t identify, which delighted me. “Who’s this singing?”

“GLEN CAMPBELL,” the entire class called back, with a “SHEESH!” attitude that is very entertaining when addressed to the woman who demos exercises like they were as easy as hitting the button on the recliner… You mean you can squat like that and still look graceful but you don’t know Linda Ronstadt?! I get to stand in your Balance Class and feel like I know something you don’t?? Awesome!

Pretty soon I was singing. Teasing Barbara. I looked in the mirror and saw that I was smiling. Sweating and panting, but smiling.

And I felt better.

That’s some magic alchemy.

PS: Callie and I were wearing identical shoes; a photographer was taking photos. Maybe I’ll be able to post one. Marusha, last week’s “new girl,” DID come back to Balance Class this week – new girl no longer!  And Lynn said she liked the class and that we were fun. She had NO idea I was only a few squats past an existential crisis. Isn’t that great?

2.27.18

I am poor in spirit today. You’ll have to entertain yourself. Back tomorrow.

I am a cork. I will bounce back to the surface soon.

2.26.18

Silliness. Giggles. Joy.

These are rare and precious commodities by the end of February. Everything is SO SERIOUS.

But really – does it have to be? Can we not pull ourselves up by our bootstraps?

Is there not time for… well, drinks with plastic monkeys hanging from the rim, and a maraschino cherry lurking in the depths, like a prize for later?

When my dog sees I’m holding a Frisbee, he prances with such excitement that both front feet come off the ground, and when he chases it, his tail gets going so fast in a circle that I call it “the helicopter.” The only thing that makes him happier is to sit next to the Frisbee at the far end of the garden and laugh at me when I clap and shout and urge him to BRING IT BACK. He refuses. He’s not a golden retriever; he’s a golden acquirer.

My august and brilliant father was rendered helpless by two men in a horse suit; if they did a little four-legged dance, he’d (in the vernacular) lose his shit. World’s smartest man, unable to draw in oxygen for laughing so hard – which would set me off, too.

I had a summer job in college; my boss told me that once he and two friends were at a bar; they were mildly drunk and decided that all three would get on the boss guy’s motorcycle for a very sedate ride home. Everything went well until they came to a stop light, at which point no one thought to put a foot down. So they came to a halt and very slowly toppled over, like a Saturday morning cartoon of a chimpanzee on a tricycle. The thought makes me giggle.

Once I was sitting next to my friend John in a big staff meeting. He tapped the pad of paper on his knee to subtly draw my attention to what he’d written. I looked; it said “RUN YOU FOOL” and I burst out in a bray of laughter that hugely offended every senior member of the company. It STILL makes me laugh; I’m snorting as I type. John and I passed gusts of inappropriate laughter between us like a fast-shooting ping pong game and eventually we had to be separated like we were in second grade.

Laughter is contagious. It can’t be helped. You see two people wracked by hysteria, you don’t even know what’s so funny (and maybe they don’t, either – it wasn’t THAT funny)… but you have to grin, and maybe even give an unwilling, confused chuckle, too. It brightens the day.

Getting healthy means mental health, too. I can’t encourage you too strongly to take a moment to think about something that always makes you laugh. If you’re so inclined, post it here or on Facebook or wherever. Because laughter is contagious, and at the end of February, we all need to catch that particular bug.

Something else that made my father howl: A guy pretending to ride a horse, followed by a guy clapping two coconuts together to provide a soundtrack. You’ve never seen a surreal scene until you’ve seen an Assistant Secretary of Defense in a burnoose cantering primly down a beach making coconut sounds with his clever cupped hands.

2.25.18

As far as I know, impatience isn’t one of the seven deadly sins – but greed is. (I base my knowledge of the seven deadlies on that movie with Brad Pitt, which I found so disturbing I watched it only once – which is to say, my knowledge is scanty at best.)

Greed or gluttony or avarice; that’s a sin, right?

And if I’m impatient, isn’t that the same thing as being greedy about time?

I’m talking about my weight, OF COURSE, because I am crazy obsessed. And you seem to be along for the journey, so what does that say about YOU, ho-ho!

We are of a tribe. Onward.

I did something particularly petty this morning. I got out of bed, peed, and combed my hair before I weighed myself. (You HAVE to comb your hair before you weigh yourself. Tangled hair traps gravity and weighs you down. Laws, yes – everyone knows that.)

Just before I stepped onto the platform, I had a blindingly fast and extensive discussion with myself. Last time I weighed myself, I was 224. Since then, I’d had my Fall Off The Cliff Ice Cream Incident, with container after container of Ben and Jerry’s lying in my garbage like fallen warriors and broken promises… but I’ve also regained my grip on who’s the master – me or sugar.

Me, damn it!

So I could have seen anything on that scale. I was hoping for 224. No, I was HOPING for 223, but I was crossing my fingers for 224. But – neither Ben nor Jerry is very susceptible to forking the evil eye at them or other occult symbols meant to ward off danger. Could be a higher number.

So I combed my hair again and took my courage in hand…

The digital scale halted on 222 for a second and flipped to 223. I gasped – which was enough to push it to 224, where it adamantly stayed. Oxygen – so dense.

So – okay. No harm done. No progress made, but also no ground lost. Everything is okay.

So then I did my stairs – nine times up and back two flights, huffing and panting and trying but failing to avoid stomping like an elephant. At the top of each flight, I tap the “LAP” button on the iPhone timer, although I don’t know why; it takes me between 36 and 43 seconds to go down and come back up again, and nine cycles makes six minutes and has for several weeks now… but I do it under the theory that perhaps one day I’ll be so blasé and easy in my cycles that I’ll FORGET to gasp at the bottom of each flight “This is number six” and might actually lose track of how many laps I’ve done. (And go endlessly fluttering up and down the stairs like a jock – a ballerina – a butterfly until many, many minutes have passed. Oh, have I done 35 minutes? My – silly me! SUCH fun.)

I am aware that it is the moisture in one’s breath that dehydrates – which is to say, there’s a loss of WATER when you exercise. And water – unlike tangled hair or oxygen – really IS dense and heavy.

So when I finished my nine cycles and walked around panting and counting my pulse for a while, I toweled off the sweat, peed again (no, no fluids had gathered in the reservoir in that brief time), and got back on the scale.

Yes, I know this is obsessive behavior – this is behavior that might lead to vomiting before I weighed myself, if I didn’t hate vomiting with every fiber of my soul.

This time the scale said 222 – which shocked me.

So now I know what I DON’T weigh. I don’t yet weigh 222 unless I deliberately dehydrate myself, which is CRAZY. I had to shake myself like a horse with a fly on its hindquarters. What was I thinking?!

It’s because I’m so impatient. I want to weigh less NOW.

But here’s the thing that’s so easy to forget: Maybe two years ago, the scale terrified me by reading an implacable 260 – the top of an upward progression I felt I had no control over. At the time, there was no hope of a lower number. NO hope. Let’s make that a two-sentence paragraph for emphasis:

No hope.

And now I’m greedy to get to 222. Or even 223.

Those numbers are STILL TOO FAT… but they are BETTER. If I am so impatient, then I have to look back at the last two years (less, really) as a huge, greedy gobbling of time that’s taken me from grossly swollen to muscularly plump. From a 55-inch waist to a 42-inch waist. From high cholesterol and concerning blood sugars to normal numbers across the board.

Yes, I’m greedy. Yes, I’m impatient. Yes, I want a quick fix.

But really – I’m GETTING a quick fix. My transformation is fast as hell, given that I didn’t think it was even possible. Once again, it’s my mind that is lagging behind my body.

I’m impatient… and determined.

“What do you think we’ll find, Morgan Freeman?” “Probably a victim of gluttony, Brad Pitt. It won’t be pretty.” “Just so long as the scale doesn’t read 225, I’ll be okay.” “Son, you don’t know what you’re about to face. Keep your pretty face behind me; I’ll screen you from the worst of it.” “Thanks, Morgan Freeman. Nice hat.” “Well, I like a styling brim.” “I can see why. Let’s go.”

 

2.24.18

“We should post before and after photos of you,” said Gwynn (the miraculous therapeutic masseuse at Body Dynamics in Falls Church, VA). “You’ve made such a change in your life – it’s exciting.”

Although I should have focused on a charming “Who – me? Why thank you!” modest reply to such a kind statement, I found I was scoffing instead.

“Before pictures? Are you kidding?”

Gwynn, long and lean and with the posture and carriage of the ballet dancer she trained to be, looked confused. “No – why?”

“There ARE no “before” pictures,” I said. “Fat women don’t like to see pictures of themselves. We hide from the camera. Stand in the back. Grab a dog or a pillow or a small man to put between us and the camera. There ARE no “before” pictures of me.”

And that’s largely true…

…and then Facebook gave me a gift this morning. “Prudence, we thought you’d like to see this post from a year ago.”

And there I was, larger than life, in a melon-colored shirt that I have since retired as being too – well, wow. My friend Robin had noted with kindness that I looked like the inside of a cantaloupe, and that was entertaining enough for me to post on Facebook about it, lifting my self-imposed photo ban. (Although you can still see the shame if you look past the “aren’t I playful?” grimace.)

So this morning – 365 days later – I attempted to recreate the shot, to see if I could do my own before-and-after. Ignore the fact that I finally had my hairs trimmed, and my oddly stupid inability to look in the same direction as the original (morning hours are NOT when I am at my best).

This is what a year of working out looks like – a year of Chip (the nutritionist at Body Dynamics) patiently informing me about what a poison sugar is – a year of working slowly up to a pathetic six minutes on the stairs and ten on the elliptical. I am guardedly pleased.

Today:

One year ago:

With thanks and gratitude to the united front at Body Dynamics who are pulling me into a better future by shear dint of will: Barbara, Gwynn, Grace, Chip, Chad, Mario, and Jen, with occasional advice from Patrick, Jorge, and Josh. It takes a village to raise a child; it takes a team of no less than seven experienced professionals to get me off my increasingly-less-fat ass!

2.23.18

I was having lunch today with my aged mother and my blissful sister Twig.

Mom was objecting to the noise level in the restaurant by pretending she couldn’t speak any louder than a whisper, which was exhausting me. Twig was eating roasted heirloom carrots and a cauliflower appetizer because being healthy is second nature to her; she’s terrifying.

After lunch, Twig asked if Mom and I would mind popping across the street to check out the store “South Moon Under.”

“Sometimes they have cute things.”

Mom and I were agreeable. I’ve been shopping in “regular” stores of late; by moving from size 2X clothes to regular old XL, my shopping options have expanded, and I’m trying to get over the fact that I shy away from many retail establishments like a dog that’s been smacked. I’ve never been in South Moon Under; maybe they, too, will have something that I might like.

Really, when you risk the emotion, going clothes shopping CAN be kind of exciting.

So off we went, moving slowly enough for Mom. (She had a third of a lung removed some 20 years ago and sometimes she finds she’s out of breath on chilly days when she has to walk too far. She’s a million years old, after all, and still up and strutting – a slow amble across the road doesn’t seem too much to ask.)

The clothes in the window looked… suspect. Or, put another way, they looked tiny. Like clothing for women who hadn’t long since left girlhood behind and who are very interested in displaying the maximum skin available.

Slim-hipped women.

I can’t help it; years of pressing my nose mournfully to the glass of places like this have made me instinctively regard the salesladies inside as The Enemy. I just KNOW they’re thinking, as soon as I walk in, “Oh, we don’t have anything to fit YOU, honey. Layne Bryant is just down the street; why don’t you waddle along?”

But I’m braver now. There is less of me. I can wear XLs. So I followed my tiny-butted sister and my aged mother into the store. If they could go, I could go, too.

Short story made long – the windows weren’t lying. The store had nothing larger than a “large,” and they looked like very small larges at that. And the clothes were… cute. Made of soft fabrics and cut to display the bounty of dewy mammary glands. I knew quickly that there was nothing here for me, but I wandered with a discriminating air, as if I was willing to be tempted into an impromptu purchase of a pair of shorts so tiny even the elfin saleslady said they looked like they were from Baby Gap.

And then? I should have seen it coming.

My mother – my MOTHER – decided she liked several bathing suits. So she tried them on. The salesladies all gathered around to coo at her. She bought two of the suits – high-cut thighs, strappy backs, no shoulder straps. She looked great, and SHE dared to come out of the dressing room, with her underwear sticking out, and walk around to gather opinions.

It’s not that I begrudge my mother a bathing suit. It’s that … well, I guess it’s that I’m still feeling like a major outsider who shouldn’t be allowed into such places. I look good, my posture is excellent, I have stomach muscles to spare. But I’m not normal. Not yet.

Sigh.

This is not the bathing suit my mother bought, but it is on the home page of South Moon Down. I thought you’d like to see it. Women CAN be very pretty.  (Pity party.)