2.22.18

Is “sisteren” a totally-made-up Joss Whedon word? I got it from “Firefly,” of course – as spoken by the (at the time) demure Saffron, casting her big, dewy eyes downward submissively, the better to draw handsome Mal into her net.

Wait. What was I talking about?

SISTEREN. Got it.

I was in Balance Class today at Body Dynamics in Falls Church, VA. (I’ve decided to go with initial caps on Balance Class. Could be balance class, but I think it’s earned initial caps if only because of the cursing I subject it to every Thursday between 10 and 11am.) (Or do I prefer “11 AM?” Space? No space? Caps? Lower case? Have to work that out.)

I was in Balance Class today. (Easily distracted.)

Barbara had us down on all fours on mats. We were to put left elbow to right knee and then straighten both out to the opposite walls (without, of course, letting the back arch). That wouldn’t have been so bad if we hadn’t just been through a series of what felt like boot camp exercises. (Maybe that should be initial caps; Boot Camp. Huh.)

Karen was at my shoulder, matching me move for move. I gasped out, “Who would do this to themselves? Why are we DOING this?”

Karen’s reply? “Well, YOU got me into this class. THIS IS YOUR FAULT!”

And I snorted with exhausted laughter. It’s amazing how often I find I’m laughing my way through the agony of Balance Class, and I thought – Karen, you are my sister.

Not ten minutes before that, Barbara had stretched out a large rope ladder on the floor and told us we should do a plank with our hands at one end of the ladder. Then, moving one foot at a time and one hand at a time, we were to crab sideways down the length of the ladder, still in the plank. “Go ahead – what are you waiting for?”

What indeed? Special dispensation from the pope, perhaps. A note from my mother. Lightning to strike and take me out of this damned class.

Off I went, gritting my teeth. At my side, Beth followed. We went down twice, and then Barbara made us reverse the direction, to make the muscles on the other side cramp, too. When I finally got to my feet – and the dizziness passed – Beth and I shook hands. In our sweat and agony and determination, we were sisters. We did it. We made it.

What am I going to get my new sisters for Christmas? Will they help with Mom? Do we have to swap kidneys if needed?

And they aren’t the only ones. Marty is the sister of longest standing in balance class – or maybe it’s Callie. Barb is a regular, too; we all greet each other at the beginning of class like lost relatives. Really what we’re saying to each other is “Couldn’t come up for a reason for ditching either, huh?”

Marusha was trying the class today; will that new sister be back? I feel like today’s class was pretty intense. I hope she knows how much we all secretly enjoy being able to survive the class – tease Barbara – exaggerate our complaints (or maybe that’s just me!); I hope she comes back.

(Both Steve and Bob – the two male regulars – are honorary sisteren, even though neither were in class today. THEY came up with good excuses!)

Marty, Beth, and I were regaining our normal heart rates after class, commiserating and boasting (mostly me boasting because I am subtle as a brick to the head), and we decided that we would probably ache a lot less if we didn’t exercise… but we’d go back to dreading what the blood tests showed when we finally gave in and went to the doctor.

And when I’m 85, I don’t want to find I’m cursing myself for not taking care of my health while it was still a reasonably easy thing to do.

Since I’m going to Balance Class and trotting up and down the stairs and working out with Barbara and Grace and Chip and Chad, I expect that when I’m 85, I’ll be able to look left and right at the rest of my sisteren and be glad we all made the effort that got us well into old age with our health intact.

That’s the plan, anyway!

Room for more in the sisteren house; come on to Balance Class with us!

This is what we look like in Balance Class. Mostly.

2.21.18

Sunk in the clinging pool of self pity (O isn’t it warm here? Isn’t it comfortable? I’m just going to stay here for a little while…), I wrote a blog post (called “Rear View”) about being caught by surprise at a video of Jonathan that cropped up on Facebook. Specifically, I was surprised to feel sorrow, not anger, at the sight of him.

I’ve been angry for a while now; I guess it was just sorrow’s turn.

In that blog post, I noted that I’d been eating a lot of sugar and I thought it might be a sign of mourning; we’re coming up on the one-year anniversary of my husband’s death, so I was going to cut myself a little slack on the Ben and Jerry’s front. That was a mature and thoughtful thing to think (and write, of course). I flattered myself muchly over it.

Then, I used it as an excuse to eat container after container of ice cream. Not because I was sad, but because I was ALLOWED to be sad and maybe a little sorrow was going to creep up on me all unawares and I’d best be ready with the Oats of This Swirled. And then, since it was in the fridge anyway…

So I sort of went off the deep end. (Because if you’re eating ice cream anyway, then how bad could the pizza REALLY be?)

And with bad eating comes the self-loathing. Which inspires bad eating. You know this story, don’t you?

But THEN two things happened that were tremendously helpful.

First, my dear friend Sue came to visit. The word “darling” was created because people needed a word to define Sue. She stayed with me for two blissful days and we discussed food and fat and exercise and dead husbands (hers isn’t) and Patagonia (where she’d been, and OH HONEY I think I need to plan a trip). And we went for lunch to True Foods at the Angelika Center and had silly discussions about oatmeal versus yogurt over breakfast and before I knew it, I’d gone for TWENTY FOUR HOURS without any ice cream.

Huh.

One full day – you know what that is? It’s a start. It’s the breaking of a bad cycle.

The other thing that happened was that Sue and I went to visit our delicious friend Ceci. (The word “adorable” was coined for Ceci.) When we arrived, Ceci was just finishing up a batch of homemade apple sauce for her wondrous partner Ashby (“charming” – that’s the Ashby word), who is having eating challenges.

Well, there’s only so much greeting and hugging and “how long has it been-ing” that one can do before surrendering to the inevitable question of “WHAT IS THAT SMELL AND CAN I EAT SOME??”

So Ceci dished us up two bowls full of piping hot applesauce, which I only didn’t gobble because I needed to savor every single mouthful and then lick the spoon. After groaning orgasmically for a while, I demanded the hard truth. “How much sugar is in this?” My tone was unintentionally accusetory.

“Nun,” said Ceci in her honeyed South Carolina drawl. “That’s just apples.”

No way.

“No way,” I said. (See what a good writer I am?)

“Ye-huh,” she insisted. “Apples. Crock pot. Immersion blender. Boom.”

Gentle reader, I thought – even I could follow that recipe.

So today I went to Whole Foods for the usual (pumpkin seeds, pears, and organic Greek whole milk no sugar plain yogurt, from which my plasma is made by this time) and I bought six apples – each a different variety.

And I came home and peeled them. (Knife or peeler? Jury’s still out.) And sliced them. And put them in the crock pot. And turned it on high and mostly left it alone for five hours. (Not entirely alone; Ceci said I could stir it every now and again, which – as it got to tasting better and better – I did often, just to lick the spoon.)

And then I dished myself up what I swear must be the inside of the best apple pie anyone ever made. It was UTTERLY satisfying… and suddenly it was 48 hours since ice cream. And counting.

So you see? I get by with a little help from my friends. Thanks, ladies.

The door of my fridge. This is like a greatest hits. On the bottom shelf, three containers of OGWMNSPY. (Organic Greek whole milk no sugar plain yogurt.) Some wheat germ. Some half-and-half left over from before Rusty went back to college; just about to expire. And one Tupperware of applesauce. Can’t wait to eat it. Might that not be good in OGWMSNPY?!?

On the second shelf, ALL THE NUTS AND SEEDS, which Chip now says should be refrigerated. NOW he tells me. I don’t understand; the grocery stores don’t refrigerate them – why do I? I’ll ask him later. For now, I moved my nuts and seeds. You should, too. (That’s walnuts, almonds, pistachios [cost a fortune but GLAHHHH they’re tasty], and cashews. The seeds are pumpkin, sunflower, golden flax, and chia. I can’t boil water, but I have an EXTENSIVE nuts and seeds larder, by damne!)

2.19.18

What defines your sense of self?

I’m tall. I’m smart. I value kindness. I think I can define myself pretty exactly… and then I come around a corner and realize that all that is surface paint on top of a MUCH more rigid sculpture.

I’ve discovered that my sense of self is foundationally based on a truth so basic that it’s like my heartbeat – so omnipresent that I don’t even recognize it. And this is that truth:

Prudence don’t run.

I’ve tried. Really. This is the problem with running:

1. Huffing and puffing. I can’t breathe – so that’s a minor challenge.
2. Impact tremors, like Jeff Goldblum seeing the shaking in the glass of water in Jurrasic Park. When I attempt a locomotion in which both feet are – however briefly – off the ground, the slamming impact of my body back onto the ground is impossibly jarring. It’s uncomfortable to feel like you’re in a paint shaker.
3. Humiliation. I know I look like a rhinoceros lumbering painfully up to trotting speed. I am not fleet – I am not graceful – I am not happy.

I’m not a runner. Some people are. I’m not.

And that truth, I’ve learned, runs through me like a subterranean river. If mad dogs chase me, I might just scream and then give up. Chow down, Fido – I won’t fight you.

But now I’m working with Barbara and Grace at Body Dynamics on my cardio endurance. I’m working with them on ellipticals, and when I’m not doing that, I’m trotting thuddingly up and down the stairs in my home.

I spend all of six minutes doing this, which seems extremely pathetic – until I think of it like this: It’s the same as running up the stairs of an 18-story building in six minutes. (This imagery requires a less-active pause every two flights, because after I climb the 28 steps from basement to second floor at my house, then I turn around and trot back down again, which is – duh – less exhausting.)

Anyway, I hate doing the stairs. I do it with gritted teeth. I run fueled entirely by determination, will power, and sisu. So pretty soon, when Barbara tells me I have to up my time from six to – gasp – seven minutes, I’m liable to rebel and outright refuse.

So what’s the answer? Is there a form of cardio conditioning that I could hate LESS?

And I’m terribly afraid that the answer is going to be RUNNING.

If anyone can teach me how to run without (a) huffing and puffing or (b) impact tremors or (c) humiliation, it will be Barbara.

I trust that she can do it…

…the question is: CAN I SEE MYSELF DOING IT??

Once again we see that the challenges in achieving health are physical – but LORD GOD OF CARDIOVASCULAR CONDITIONING, they are also extremely mental.

So – if I can change my cardio fitness, can I also change my sense of self??

Stay tuned.

 

2.16.18

A perfectly round door, like a porthole, painted green with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle.

Affected by the books I read in my adolescence, this description of a door (from “The Hobbit”) perfectly captures what my high school biology teacher very boringly described as “a receptor” in the brain.

Mr. Domizio said that the hormone messengers in your system are shaped in unique ways, and would only fit into the proper receptors in the receiving cell – like a lock and a key. Too dull – and too simplistic.

Instead, I think of the receptor as a Hobbit door, and the hormone as a dwarvish visitor. There’s a hobbit inside the door, comfortably curled up with a book and a pot of hot tea, and the hobbit is inclined to assume that every knock on the door comes from Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, come to steal a few more silver tea spoons – so he won’t answer, just in case.

Now, if you hit the “minus” sign next to the map to draw the view up from the microscopic to the living-room view, you can see two toddlers.

One is Baby Barbara. She toddles lurchingly across the room to the arms of her delighted mother – her first attempt at running. Deep within her, the hobbit door is closed tightly – but there’s a cracked window, too. So the hobbit inside can hear the voice calling. “Hey – it’s Kili and Fili, the coolest and cutest of the dwarves, come to hang with you!”

And the hobbit goes to the door in delight and lets in his guests and they have a party and there is joy and active endorphin receptors, and baby Barbara thinks that running is pretty great.

The other toddler is Baby Pru. She toddles across the room to her delighted mother, but the window next to the hobbit door is sensibly sealed. Kili and Fili get swept away before attracting the hobbit’s attention, and the hobbit pours another cup of tea and turns the page, happy in inactivity. Baby Pru gets no endorphin rush and is content to sit in the lap of The Mother.

Every time Baby Barbara uses her muscles, she gets a little buzz from endogenous morphine. She begins to feel good when she exercises. More and more dwarves visit the increasingly pleased hobbit. Barbara begins playing basketball because it feels good to do so – and it feels bad and stiff and leaden NOT to.

Baby Pru gets no buzz. She remains comparatively inactive. Over time, leaves blow up against the door. Every spring, pollen season adds a rim of grime around the door, and every fall the grit of autumn fills microscopic cracks in the wood. Knocking visitors of any persuasion are unable to get any attention. The hobbit, well-stocked with books and tea, hangs out. Exercise brings no joy; no endorphins make it through.

Ultimately, Barbara runs marathons and Pru runs a laptop computer.

Can the closed door be cracked open? Is there a way to break through 58 years of the “No Visitors” sign on the gate? Will I EVER feel joy from exercise??

I think that every knock at the door – every time I exercise and the endorphins are released from my muscles into my blood stream – a layer of grit and dust falls from the door. If I exercise enough, the knocks on the door will crack things open faster than road grit can clog it up again. So if I send ENOUGH dwarves to bang on the door knocker, surely at some point the hobbit will give up and open the door and then the larder will be well and truly raided…

Joy. From exercise.

It hasn’t happened yet. I’m still at “satisfaction” for exercising, not a gentle euphoria. When I finish trotting up and down the stairs for six endless minutes, I’m proud to have done it… but still tired. Still unjuiced by it. I’m not yet to the point where I feel uneasy or twitchy if I DON’T exercise. I’m waiting for that day, though. I’d really like to enjoy this, instead of constantly needing determination to get my cardio done. Christ, I dislike the cardio interval training.

But if you will recall, I’ve often referred to Barbara as my Gandalf, and Gandalf was the one who got Bilbo to open the door… So in J.R.R. Tolkien we trust!

2.15.18

I lay in my bed and stared at the ceiling. The time projected up there (clearly enough to be seen without my glasses) was 7:46.

That’s a time that is absolutely normal to most people – but I’m a freelance writer, and I’m smarter at night. So a quarter to eight in the morning is a gag time. Ech.

Balance class is at ten today. Should I stay or should I go?

(In the soundtrack of my brain, Joe Strummer slung his guitar over one shoulder and that iconic riff began to spool out. Ba-da-da, ba-da-da-da, DAH.) (Frick, frick, frick.)

On the GET UP side – Bob has agreed to DJ today. This is the first time anyone in the class other than Steve or me has volunteered to provide the music and I am looking forward to it. Everyone in balance class is on the Wisdom and Experience side of the gender gap (we’re old), so it’s unlikely that Bob will be treating us to something cringe-inducing, like electronic dance music or techno. He mumbled something about the Beatles and the Beach Boys last week, so – thumbs up.

On the STAY DOWN side – I never did get back to the store to retrieve the two large containers of yogurt that must have stayed out of sight on that new “here’s your grocery bag” carousel the Giant installed a while ago. So I BOUGHT yogurt – I just didn’t actually get it home. So now I’m out of the mainstay of my breakfast.

Barbara frowns with great severity on anyone attempting to take Balance Class who hasn’t eaten. That means I’m going to have to go with the fallback:

Oatmeal.

Yuck.

It doesn’t matter if you call it “parritch” with a Scots accent; oatmeal is just not good. You can dress it up with all the fruits and nuts and liberal use of raw honey that you want; it’s still going to be warm, lumpy library paste. Might as well burn it in the cooking process; perhaps it will give it some character. Some flavor.

So the Clash and I lay in bed together. “Hoo!” called Joe, with his ankles crossed and his head propped up on my satellite pillow. “Hollah!”

I’m very self-indulgent in the early hours; very prone to turning over with determination and saying “It’s not good for the body to go with this little sleep. I’ll do my HEP today instead of balance class.”

“Darlin’, you gotta let me know – should I stay or should I go?” crooned Joe, whacking away at the guitar lying across his stomach.

In the end, the single element that saved me from sinful sloth was that I realized I had to pee anyway. And once I was up, I just kept going. Now I’m typing while grimly spooning up oatmeal. Gross. Soon I’ll go get dressed and go to Balance Class and listen to good music (although not as good as the Clash) and at the end of class, I’ll feel absurdly proud of myself.

All because I had to pee this morning.

The moral of the story is: See how important hydration is?!

 

 

2.14.18

I was working today at Body Dynamics with Grace, the ballet dancer Pilates instructor.

(Grace demos an exercise and I just want to burst into applause. I don’t think we’re the same species, but she sure is pleasing to watch!)

We’d been doing bridges.

Bridges – oh, SURE, they look easy. You lie on your back with your knees bent, and then lift your hips up and down. That’s seventeen words to describe what it looks like. Here’s what it FEELS like:

Lie on your back with your knees bent. Hands at your sides, pulling towards your feet to keep your shoulders down and active, but very quietly. As you inhale, lengthen your spine as much as possible – feel a force going from your sit bones out the top of your head. When you exhale, let your ribs deflate along with your lungs until the ribs are drawing into the body. Zip up the spine from the back of the neck, down the backbone and around to the front, engaging the flat, deep muscle deep in the low belly. As you flex that muscle (the transverse abdominus), clench your butt muscles. Do that more. More. MORE. Eventually it’s inevitable between your abs and your butt that your hips will just float upward. Feel your knees pull forward and down so the head of your femur pours up and forward, forcing a stretch along your hip flexors from your core to your thighs. At the top of that movement, hold it. Inhale. Soften your ribs. More. MORE. Lower your shoulders; pull down with your hands. Feel your knees pulling you long. Now come down for the exhale; let your ribs melt more. No, more. MORE than that. If you can’t roll down vertebra by vertebra, then imagine a rope tied to your sitz bones that is pulling you towards the far wall, stretching you long from your shoulders down. Rest.

That’s 237 words.

It’s no wonder I can’t keep it all straight, and Grace often takes pity on me and tells me to forget about this muscle group or that muscle group and just concentrate on one thing. I do it and she looks at me kindly and says “Well, it’s a process. You’re getting there!”

In moments of inaction (like, say, typing a blog post, perhaps), I try to imagine a scenario in which being able to do a bridge that satisfies a really skilled trainer would prove indispensable. Like, maybe Martians land and announce they will use their ray guns on anyone who can’t bridge properly… or because of an improbable sequence of events, the only way I can close the gap in the track that will allow the secret microfilm to roll safely into the hands of the handsome government agent is if I bridge into the space, allowing the canister to roll from hipbone to hipbone on the perfect trajectory.

Yeah, I’m stretching. I don’t really know WHY one should be able to bridge so exactly, but I trust that I don’t need to know why. Where Barbara and Grace lead, I follow.

After working assiduously on the “process” of my bridges, Grace had me stand up and we moved on to other exercises – or so I thought.

I stood with one foot on the ground and one foot on a slide-sideways moving platform. At first, all I had to do was turn my upper body. If the left foot was up, I turned to the left. Left hand behind my head. Spiral to the left.

Obviously, if you don’t want to move the platform, you have to put all your weight on your right foot. And the only way to get a turn going – given that you can’t let your hips move – is to turn on the right butt muscles – or as Grace says, “WRAAAAP those muscles all the way around your hip.” Then once you’re fully stable and turned as far as you can go, NOW slide that moving platform to the side, away from the standing foot.

I immediately fell over, of course, and Grace went through the careful process of explaining movement to someone who can’t do it naturally.

She was showing me how you can shift your hips (which was wrong in this case) or you can pull the head of your femur forward to engage the butt muscles without moving the hips. I watched her tiny little hips show me – THIS is wrong, THIS is right – and was just getting my head around that concept…

…when she said – like it was obvious – “This is the motion at the top of your bridge.”

Vapor lock.

What??

I went from lying prone with bent knees on the table to twisting awkwardly on one leg with one pudgy arm behind my head; there is NO WAY these movements could possibly be connected by anything other than the fact that I was the one doing both.

I felt like a sponge left in a dark cupboard for a few months until it was rock-hard, and then someone swiped me through a puddle. Can’t… absorb… brain… too… stiff. Help!

It was obvious to Grace that I was swamped by her statement, and she clarified that these small movements were how we were going to organize the disorganized muscle movements that make it all but impossible for me to step up on the mid-sized table in the P.ACE room with my right leg.

In the echoing confusion of my suddenly overloaded brain came two thoughts – first, THIS is what’s going to help?? Standing with one foot on a moving platform and twisting like a barber pole?

And second, SHE’S BEEN TALKING TO BARBARA AGAIN.

They’re plotting. They’re going to fix me despite myself!

I told Grace we would have to revisit this concept a few times, since I was pretty sure I wasn’t really internalizing all of it. (By which I meant – VAPOR LOCK. I am internalizing NONE of this.) (Which she understood.)

Patting your head and rubbing your stomach would be child’s play compared to this stuff!

I wanted a good photo to illustrate this post, but felt it would be unlikely to find a barber pole stretched over a river like a suspension bridge and then shaking apart in huge, car-flinging waves to best express my current mental state of hopeful confusion. Thus – no photo available!

 

 

 

 

2.13.18

Barbara dragged over a – what, a really short table? A really tall stool? I dunno, there are several of them in the big P.ACE room at Body Dynamics.

(I don’t know what P.ACE means; it says that on the door and people say “Is she in the pace room?” “No, she’s in fitter-ex.”)

(Yeah – I know. It’s Fit/RX, but it comes out sounding like what happens when your former boyfriend gets bulky. Fitter ex.)

The table is maybe as tall as two steps on my staircase. You might, possibly, sit there comfortably in exhaustion after Barbara makes you increase your interval time on the elliptical. Not that I’D know, of course…

My task was to stand in front of the table and put up one foot in a “Captain Morgan” stance. Arg, matey. Foot flat; heel well onto the table. Now true up the hips; I tend to let the up-leg’s hip fall downward. Got it? Standing tall and balanced?

Okay – now step up onto the table. Push the heel in, engage the up-leg’s big ol’ glute muscles, and just stand up there. Go.

When I’m Captain Morganing on my left leg, all is well. Sure, I need a LITTLE momentum to get the whole party up and onto that table, but not so much that Barbara gives me The Look.

(The Look is shorthand for Barbara saying “Do you think I don’t notice how much you’re cheating when you telegraph your shortcut that much and I have x-ray eyes? Because I noticed, and don’t do that again.”)

But when I put up the right leg – it’s like someone has cut some muscles or nerves or something. (Barbara says everything is there, but I’m oddly disorganized – a curious notion.) I give fruitless little hops on the down leg that barely change the angle of the up-knee at all and then grimace in a combo of shame and discomfort.

I think about 50% of my inability is mental; I’m SO sure my knee is going to hurt when I try to yank upward that I can’t bring myself to test the theory. But the other 50% is physical… because when I try, my knee really DOES hurt. (The muscles are weaker; I pull my knee inward to compensate, and that hurts. I now know WHY – I just can’t overcome the DOING.) (If Barbara wraps one of those therabands around my leg just above the knee and hauls my knee outward while I go up? Pain-free. But she says I have to strengthen the muscles and has refused to constantly stay at my right side, applying traction with a theraband as I go through my days. She’s such a prima donna.)

But today, I added something else – a shooting pain at the top of my thigh, in a part of the leg that is simply inappropriate to point to. Definitely the thigh/groin intersection. I’d felt it several times this week, usually when I exercised, sat down for too long, and then got up. Ouch.

Barbara will chivvy me through general discomfort or the complaint that “it’s HAAAARD, Barbara!” But if there’s any pain at all, she stops everything immediately until she’s figured out what’s going on and has solved it. We worked on the adductor magnus for at least twenty minutes, and while we definitely diagnosed the muscle in question, none of Barbara’s stretches and exercises did much to unlock the tight place…

…so because we were at Body Dynamics and that’s a place where you can hardly swing a dead cat without hitting an expert (an image that both grosses me out and delights me), she grabbed the first Big Brain through the door.

It happened to be Josh, who has so many initials after his name that he’s entitled to be called DOCTOR Josh but is too charming to demand such obeisance from lesser mortals. Josh and I have been on a smile-and-nod level of acquaintance (an “I see you and recognize you and have never said a word to you but we’re satellites around the same moon so hey” sort of arrangement), but this was the first time I’d ever actually introduced myself and shaken his hand.

Barb laid out my issue in wizard-talk (they use accurate, technical terms that mean nothing to me beyond “Man, that was a lot of syllables!” and “Was that English?”), and then Josh and I had a five-second discussion about whether my feet generally turned inward or outward.

(Outward. Like a duck.)

And BOOM, Josh had two exercises teed up for me to try that IMMEDIATELY affected the pain in that only-in-private location. I’m adding one to my Home Exercise Program. (The other involved tying a long jump rope around my ankle and then – I don’t remember. I cheated anyway on that one, so Barbara has to stand there and watch me to make sure I’m doing it right. NSFHEP.) (Not Suitable For Home Exercise Program, of course. Duh.)

So I’m going to work on that new stretch/exercise this week, and next week maybe I’ll get closer to standing on the taller (but not the tallest) table in the P.ACE room.

I continue to be dumbfounded by (a) the completely new aches and pains my body can come up with as I attempt to repair my alignment and (b) the uncanny wealth of arcane knowledge at Body Dynamics that would NEVER have occurred to me on my own to repair my body and strengthen things that are weaker. It’s like I’m a really cool ninth grade science fair project and Barbara and her fellow wizards are determined to win. That is SO COOL!

 

2.11.18

Long ago in the time of dinosaurs and mastodons and cuneiform (yes, I know that’s an impossibly long period of time; stop harshing my literary buzz with your critical reality), modern agriculture had not yet filled every shelf with loaves of Wonder Bread and a dizzying array of Hot Pocket flavors.

Seven years of plenty were followed by seven lean years.

(This may not be factually correct; I draw the numbers not from the Bible but from Charlton Heston Bible movies from my childhood, in which Edward G. Robinson would improbably gargle “Where’s your Messiah now, see?”)

My brain is pinging like pinball. MY POINT IS that once there were famines.

When there were too many people for the available food, the ensuing starvation would kill off all the weak and slim-hipped. People fortunate enough to have the metabolism to pack on the fat could endure the lean years while those who thought the plenty would last forever would have to crawl off into the wilderness (there was a lot of wilderness back then) and obligingly die without issue.

Pudgy girls got all the dates. Plump children were more likely to survive. Sculptors made little goddess figurines of women with enormous butts and life-rich boobs. This is the Venus of Willendorf; she’s just a few inches tall and is perhaps the earliest form of art in the world. She’s the absolute acme of beauty from about 30,000 years ago.

And then? Modern agriculture. Diversification of labor. Civilization. No more famines, mostly.

Suddenly the ability to store more energy than you needed was a BAD thing. So, taking massive steps across the stream of time, we see the progression of the concept of beauty is: The Venus of Willendorf…

… followed by modern agriculture…

… followed by Twiggy.

My point is that MINE IS THE SUPERIOR METABOLISM in all circumstances save this one. It’s only been since naturally-occurring clearings filled with grain grasses have been replaced by regimented fields of genetically-modified wheat stretching farther than the eye can see that being skinny has been a good thing.

And so I protest the modern concept of beauty.

I protest it uselessly and futilely. I protest it even though I myself admire slim-hipped women and sigh regretfully over pretty asses and wish I looked more like Twiggy and less like the Venus of Willendorf…

…but let’s get back to the point: My body is capable, strong, efficient, and famine-proof. Fuck the fashion industry (she said with the hypersensitivity of the overweight)!

I had this thought last evening when I was talking with lovely Barb at the opening of my sister-in-law’s art show at the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, VA. (Check it out; it will be up through February and it’s GLORIOUS. Lura Bovee – Building 10. You can see a portrait she painted of my husband Jonathan that is so good I almost cry looking at it – plus a huge painting of my gigantic son forging a spear. Bonus!)

Barb and I were talking fitness (because we are famine-proof so fitness is constantly consuming our energy and attention), and she mentioned that she walks her dog FIVE MILES EVERY DAY.

Whaaaaat??

That’s a dog, not a plan. She doesn’t ever think to herself, “maybe I’ll skip the walk today and pick it up again tomorrow” the way I do with the gym. She’s got a barking, demanding alarm clock that won’t LET her not do her five miles – even if it’s cold. Even if it’s raining. Even if it’s snowing. Even if she’s sick.

FIVE MILES.

And yet, there she was, waiting by my side for the next famine to clear out the supermodels so we would be properly appreciated for our luscious capability.

Surely something is wrong with society’s attitudes on beauty. Surely something is wrong with MY attitude on beauty.

Barb ate nothing but fruit and veggies at the art show opening. She’s taking very good care of herself. I find her to be an inspiration.

That’s me with Barb and my tiny mother-in-law, Alice. (Photo taken by the gracefully slim-hipped Susan, who you have to love EVEN THOUGH she wouldn’t last a month in a good famine.) Would you put money on who in this trio you think would survive a famine? Don’t count Alice out; that’s one strong old lady!

 

 

2.10.18

Facebook, in its algorithmic, Machine Overlord simulacrum of dispassionate binary friendliness, offers me those “Prudence, we thought you’d like to see this post from XX years ago” looks at something from my past.

Today, it was a ten-second video from one year ago of my dog Strider taking a Frisbee off of my husband Jonathan’s head. Certainly not Academy Award bait. It’s a poor plot, there’s no character development, the lighting is pedestrian… I’d posted it because as Jonathan’s diseases caused such a significant personality shift, it was nice to show his friends a tiny clip of him smiling with a now-rare sweetness. Posting that video helped us to hide what was really going on with him.

Of course in hindsight, I know when I watch it that he was about six weeks from his death. I can see that he looks gaunt and fragile. I can see that his ability to engage with the world was so deteriorated that playing with the dog was worthy of not just photographing the event but also posting it.

And today I can see that I didn’t realize where I was going until I looked in the rear view – because I watched that video not with my accustomed anger but with the first uncertain blushes of sorrow.

Is it possible I’m moving into a new phase in my mourning process? Christ, I don’t want to get weepy… even though I know a little quiet, reflective weeping might do more than anything else to help me get to healing. If such a thing is possible.

And if I’m shifting emotionally, might not that explain my strange inability to remember to meet Eleanor for lunch or sit in on the high school reunion phone call? Might it be a part of why I don’t seem to be able to pass up dessert after MONTHS of eating for my health? I really have been sugar’s bitch lately… and sugar has ALWAYS been a coping drug for me. A reaction to stress.

Yeah. Might could be.

So this is what I know: I’m not going to let my sugar dependency derail me. I’m going to assume the next few months will be harder than expected, and I will simply have to forgive myself for eating crap…

…but I can’t stop ALSO eating veggies and drinking water and making smart food choices when I can. And I can’t stop working out. After I saw the Jonathan-and-Strider video on Facebook, I did my six minutes on the stairs. I fretted over the video and what my reaction to it might mean the entire time, but I did it. I’ll do my HEP this evening, too. Maybe I can’t be perfect – nor should I expect perfection – but I can be good. I can take care of myself, as he could not.

This is ALSO what I know: I posted a LOT on Facebook after Jonathan died. I process things by writing about them, and airing my mental confusion for others to see was somehow helpful; I must be a hopeless exhibitionist. Therefore, I need to steel myself in the coming weeks because Facebook is sure to algorithm me into some pretty intense flashbacks to Jonathan’s death. No matter how bright the road ahead looks, it’s smart to remember there’s a big storm in the rear view, and it still has the potential to reach out and smack me when least expected.

And if that leads to chocolate cream pie, so be it; it will also lead to rapid and determined trips up and down the stairs, and the support of my dear friends, as well as my Body Dynamics family who will see me through this as they have through everything else.

Onward.

2.8.18

I had occasion this morning to ponder the difference (in my mind, anyway) between “feh” and “meh.”

“Meh” is accompanied by a shrug of indifference, while “feh” includes a raised eyebrow and a chin circle, as if outlining a potential cut line around the heart of my enemy. “Feh” is uttered with a little growl; “feh” isn’t passive and it isn’t good.

I was lying awake staring at the ceiling, a full 40 minutes before the alarm was to go off. I was thinking about…

1. How screwed up my sense of time has been and how I don’t trust myself to get to places I’m supposed to go to.
2. The big job I need to write. The client gave me until Friday and I laughed and said “Don’t be silly, I can get this to you by Wednesday, no problem,” and now Thursday was dawning and I’ve only got the lead. All I have to do is research the issue and write the back three pages; I gave myself all of yesterday afternoon to do it and somehow it remains undone.
3. The lack of electricity in the new bathroom portion of my bedroom.

My bedroom, built in the 80s along with the rest of the house, has what I’m sure some designer thought was a very groovy feature: A tiny, dinky toilet/shower room, outside of which is an enormous bedroom with a sink next to the closet. You know, like a Motel 6.

Sure, I know – it’s so I can brush my teeth AT THE SAME TIME (ooh) as my now-departed husband takes a long shower, reveling in the thought that he is not blocking my access to exceptional oral hygiene, but that’s STUPID and now I have a bathroom in my bedroom.

I digress from my digression.

I’ve had a new bathroom vanity installed, as well as a new mirror and a new light feature. It’s stunning and makes me happy. But the guys who installed it apparently cast around and found only one lone lightbulb to put in the four-light fixture. So last night I had a clever thought and took the four lightbulbs out of the old fixture, still lying on the floor of my son’s room as part of the pile of generalized crap that needs to be hauled away.

Jonathan loved those Edison bulbs – unfrosted glass bulbs. You’re supposed to use them without a shade to show off their radiant filaments. Very groovy, but I dislike them. They’re blinding. But my four-light fixture has shades (well, it’s got three shades because one of them arrived broken and now Home Depot is shipping me a replacement and THAT’S a whole ‘nother thing) so I could use those groovy, annoying bulbs and the shades would protect me.

I screwed in the first Edison bulb (of course in the arm that had no shade; easiest access) and immediately the fixture made a sound like a cat just as its paw lashes out to trace a circle around its enemy’s heart and then all the power went out in the bath/bedroom.

FUTHERMUCKER.

To compound the party-like atmosphere, the new, malevolent lightbulb was incorrectly threaded, so I couldn’t get it back out. A light bulb is a perverse mixture of dangerous fragility and belligerent stubbornness. I’m pretty sure it’s done all the harm it’s going to do; I think I could go flip the breaker and get my power back on, but just in case I need to get that ugly, grinning Edison bulb out of there first.

And I didn’t have the oomph to deal with it late last night. So I just went to bed and festered.

When I woke up this morning (for the third time; this perimenopause is wicked harshing my lifelong gift of being able to sleep deeply and happily) and lay in bed reviewing the bidding for the day, I thought – do I HAVE to go to Balance Class? At ten in the futhermucking morning? In tight, bulge-revealing clothing? Can’t I pull on a pair of jeans like everyone else and deal with my stupid lightbulb and my stupid occupation? Can’t I go get some cake, or something, and just roll around in it in a snit?

But change doesn’t happen when you’re happy. If you only do the hard things after a great night’s rest and you bounce out of bed eager to take on the day – well, how often does THAT happen? I can’t secure my health if I give up when it gets hard.

So I’m awake. Early.

I’m dressed in Lycra. Chilly, clingy Lycra.

I’m going to haul it to Falls Church, to Body Dynamics for Balance Class (assuming I get there on time), where Barbara will use her kind but undeniable authority to somehow cause me to do for a full hour things I wouldn’t be able to endure for two minutes under other circumstances. Like planks. Or “bear-walking” across a room. Or “stack the shelf” of about ten thousand imaginary books – all while visible to other humans.

Yes, I am aware that exercise promotes endorphins, and that I will probably leave class much sunnier than when I arrived. But I’m not sunny YET. I am contemplating the huge gulf between indifferent “meh” and contemptuous “feh.”

No need to point out that the wall behind the new light fixture (with its misaligned and lethal Edison bulb) needs painting. They’re coming back to do that. They’re always coming back to do that, whatever that might be. Every time they say “There – we’re all done!” I snort. Right. All done. Tell me another one. Feh.