"You're Better, Mommy"

Yesterday started out really stressful and sad and ended up being a lovely day.  My husband was leaving for five days of work-related travel.  I brought him to the airport, chickadees in tow.  We had a traffic-less drive to the airport (thank God it was a Saturday), but my husband, who is not the travelling type, regaled the children with the horrors of travel when you have to do it for work.  It's stressful; it's uncomfortable; you don't speak the language; you can't eat the food (he has celiac disease which makes restaurant dining in foreign countries challenging); you have to perform at your best while battling jet-lag and exhaustion; you can't see any nice sites but only the inside of office buildings, etc.  I know that this is how he feels, but, Lordy, it was stressing me out.  I actually like to travel, to a certain extent, although most of my travelling was done pre-TSA, pre-cattle-car-style flying.  I'm going to have to do some serious counter-balancing with these kids or they're never going to want to leave the metro area.

Anyway, we had some time at the airport, so I parked and brought the chickadees in with me as my husband checked in.  As he said goodbye, right before going through TSA security, Chickadee #2 started to wail and cry.  It was really, really loud.  Really, really dramatic.  Really, really pathetic:  "Daddy!  DADDY!  DON'T GO OR IF YOU HAVE TO GO, TAKE ME WITH YOU!!!! DADDY! DADDY!  I DON'T WANT YOU TO GO, DADDY.  COME BACK, DADDY.  COME BACK!!!!"  Heads turned.  One woman clutched her poor heart in sympathy.  The TSA agents were annoyed and amused at the same time.  I was afraid her crying might get him selected for secondary inspection.  He made it through security and turned to wave goodbye.  The crying increased in volume and intensity and bathos. In desperation, I sat down with her and let her cry for a few more minutes, and then gave her a time limit to get herself together.  Her response:  "I'll only stop crying if I can go with Daddy."  Um.  No.  On to Plan B, extemporaneously created on the spot:  Let's go to Mount Vernon, since we are almost there anyway.

Mount Vernon is a place that lets you really appreciate the great good fortune the United States had in George Washington as the head of the Revolutionary Army and as our first President.  In particular, the new (to me, at least) the Donald W. Reynolds Museum and Education Center was fantastic for us all.  It is really well-designed and has activities for all age levels and tastes.  One of the best things we did was to visit with Martha Washington, who allowed the chickadees to pose for a photograph with her.  They LOVED it and I'd go back tomorrow if I could.  All in all, we were there from about 12:30 until almost 6:00 pm.  And, here is the amazing thing:

I was able to walk around the entire time with almost no pain.  

I'll say it again, y'all.  

Almost no pain.  

You would have to have been me for the past several years to understand why this brings tears to my eyes.  I've been avoiding activity and exercise because I'm in such constant and debilitating pain.  I thought it would never leave me.  I was preparing myself mentally to be in pain for the rest of my life.  And now it is almost all gone.  Oh - it's not perfect.  I had to stop and rest every once in a while.  I was tired.  Walking back to the car was hard on the backs of my legs and I had some pain last night.  But still.  It was sweet.

Sweetest of all, however, was the conversation with the chickadees that occurred on our long walk back to the car. Chickadee #2 took my hand and asked me solicitously, "Do your legs hurt, Mommy?"  "A little bit," I replied, "but not too badly."  She said, "You know, Mommy, you are much better lately."  I asked what she meant.  Then she and Chickadee #1 began to list all the ways that I am better lately.  

"You are more healthier." 

"You do stuff with us that you didn't do before."

"You take care of yourself better now."  

"You do yoga."

and on and on.  I promised myself that I would remember all their little gems of hope but, of course, I've forgotten.  

What I haven't forgotten was that they noticed.  What I haven't forgotten is that they are worth everything that I am doing to try to be healthier.  What I haven't forgotten is that they are God's gift to me and my gift to the world.  And I'm working on being worthy of that gift.  

Space for "I Can't"

I'm that curious kind of over-achiever who, having tasted a lot of success in some areas early on, decides that perfection is the necessary thing.  When perfection becomes harder to achieve or impossible, something stutters in our brains.  We become immobilized and resentful.  We stop trying because hell, if it can't be perfect, hang it up.

Case in point (and here I'll be posting something shameful):  my dining room table. Here's a balls to the wall, fully exposed shot of what I see from my perch behind my laptop as I write this:

Here we have the remainder of lunch-making supplies -- the kids had PB&J and SmartFood popcorn, among other things.  Also included is Chickadee #1's lunchbox, which was in the car overnight.  She went to school with her lunch in a paper bag today.  I have a plastic liter bottle of water on the table -- I was terribly thirsty after yoga this morning.  My purse (you can just see the strap) is on the chair opposite me.  One of the girls left her pink glass on the table this morning.  The telephone is at my side in case my sister calls from France.  My empty tea cup is farthest from me, patiently waiting for me to fill it again with my favorite tea, PG Tips.

The point is, looking at this makes me exhausted.  This morning's disorganized rush for the door meant that I didn't have time to clear the table after making lunches.  Then I ran off to yoga and got caught in a massive, tear-inducing traffic jam.  After yoga, I rushed home again and, instead of calmly clearing the table, I sat down and started to write this post. 

I had something I wanted to say: 



Gomukhasana

The notorious cow-faced pose:



I've written about this crazy thing before.  I'm sorry to say that it is no easier now than it was then.  In some ways, it was more difficult today.  As I attempted to twist my legs into this position, I could feel the entire left side of my left leg burning as if it was on fire.  I could sort of do it, but it was miserable.  After class, I was talking to my yoga teacher about it and she suggested that I might want to do the pose in a chair.  I'm also using a chair for my foot exercises and I am a much happier person for it. 

I was thinking about this on the way home.  I think that one of the things I like the best about the yoga class and the teacher's approach to it is that it leaves space for "I Can't".  I can't twist my legs into that position.  I just don't have the flexibility.  And, instead of feeling defeated by that, I'm empowered to do what I can.  To try even though it's difficult.  I'm very grateful for the space Marianne gives me for "I can't" because I don't think I give it to myself often enough.  I look at my messy dining room table and beat myself up because it is that way.  I look at the number on my scale and actually consider doing surgical violence to my body because I am so discouraged with my progress.  I don't want to go through the process of succeeding.  I want to have succeeded. 

I remember telling a friend a long time ago that I wished my life were over -- I wished that I were 80 years old and looking back on a life well-lived, a happy marriage, wonderful children.  I wanted to know that everything turned out all right.   My friends laugh at me because I read the endings of books early on.  I want to know how the plot ends and then find out how it fell together.  I'm not sure what this says about me or my apparently permanently frustrating weight loss journey.  I'm sure it says something.

Psychoanalysis in the comments will be gratefully accepted.   

Musings on Exercise

About a year ago, I had a dream, one that woke me from a deep sleep. I woke with a smile on my face (a rare occurence for my sleep-deprived self). In my dream, I was running. I felt so free, so happy, so in-tune with my body. That dream shocked me. I thought about it for days. I'm still thinking about it, still trying to understand both the happiness I felt in the dream and the shock I felt at dreaming it.

See, people like me don't run. People like me are not athletic. People like me hate to exercise.

Wait. Is that true? Why does it have to be true?

When I was a child in elementary school, I was very active. The tribe of children on my road (we didn't have a street, but a road -- a gravel road bordered by a thick hedgerow of overgrown vegetation and, beyond that, a corn field) were always playing tag, olly-olly-in-free, chase games that involved throwing things at one another (apples, plums, peaches from the trees in our yards, gravel from the road, etc.), hide and seek, hiking in the woods, playing in the stream, building "houses" in the hedgerow by whacking at the vegetation with sticks.

No sitting for hours in front of flickering screens for us.

In school, we had a great gym teacher (Mr. Ahrens) who, in his first teaching position right out of college, loved us children and received our adulation in return. He encouraged us to do things that were at the limits of our physical and social abilities -- climbing ropes up to the ceiling, playing all kinds of games, learning to work together in teams. Mr. Ahrens made you feel good about exercise, made you feel good about yourself and what your body could do, made you feel strong.

At our end-of-year field day in fifth grade, Mr. Ahrens encouraged me to run in the hurdles race. He told me that I was really good at hurdles. I believed him and ran a great race -- I don't remember whether I won, but I do remember feeling really proud of myself, and really accomplished.

Fast forward to the horror that was middle school gym. When I mentioned writing this entry to my younger sister, M., she said, "oh, you mean the torture show? Those horrible women who were our "teachers"?" and we spent a good five minutes reminiscing about Mrs. S. and Mrs. O.

They spent our gym classes riding in a golf cart behind us as they herded us forward in the "cross-country running" portion of the class, at best. At worst, they sent us out in the rain to run as they stayed in the gym office playing Boggle and eating Bugles.

The nadir of my experience in middle school gym class came in the spring of 6th grade and serves as a perfect counterpoint to my experience with Mr. Ahrens. It also completely changed how I thought of myself in terms of athletic ability and coordination. During the track and field unit, we had to choose three "events". Naturally, I chose the hurdles. I was good at hurdles, remember?

I'm not sure what happened. Instead of gliding over the hurdles as I leapt like a gazelle, I knocked them all over, falling flat on my face at each. At the beginning and end of the course, Mrs. O. and Mrs. S. stood, watching, assessing, laughing.

Laughing. At. Me.

Mrs. S. thanked me, guffawing, for giving her the best laugh she'd had all year. "I have to give it you, though -- you kept going when anyone else would have given up," she said. Of course, when your teacher laughs at you, it's okay for everyone else to laugh at you too. When your teacher says, in effect, "you should have given up and spared yourself the embarrassment," you listen. I wasn't good at hurdles after all. I wasn't athletic after all. I wasn't "good" at the things you do in gym class.

From that point onwards, gym was a torture in which I had to participate. From the horrible uniforms -- one piece, baby blue "rompers" with a HORIZONTAL pinstrip at top (all the better to highlight our budding breasts and developing waists and hips) to the enforced communal showers -- teachers inspecting us as we left the spray, clutching our inadequate school-supplied hand towels to cover our nakedness. Team sports where teammates groaned when I was assigned to them. Mean girls making comments about other girls' bodies, attractiveness, prospects.

Obviously, I'm still working through all that -- how can I reclaim that child who was good at hurdles? How can I become someone who exercises and moves for sheer joy? How can I burst through the limitations that I let other people, people who didn't care a fig about me, impose?

Me. Somone who exercises. Someone who LIKES to exercise. Whoa.