Spring Into Summer
I get lots of catalogs. They always feature whatever is going to be in style for the coming season, so along about March they’re filled with shorts and swimsuits and cute little sundresses. They also feature women prancing around gracefully on sunlit beaches or basking on the decks of sailboats. I find it all very inspiring. It’s not that I am personally planning to do much prancing or basking, but they do serve to remind me that summer is coming and I will no doubt soon shed my layered look for something cooler and perchance a bit more revealing than my jeans and tunic length sweaters. Such thoughts inevitably lead me to consider “getting into shape.”
Last Spring I mentioned this to my daughter, who has no need to consider such things since she is thirty-five years younger than I am and is busy “staying in shape.” She is a helpful daughter however, and in her gentle and loving way she suggested some ideas.
First, she downloaded an app to my smart phone that allows me to track everything I eat. Then this miraculous app magically totals up my calories all day long and lets me know when I have reached my daily goal … usually around noon. She also suggested engaging the services of a personal trainer at the local YMCA, where my husband and I are members. “You already go several times a week,” my daughter said. “I’m sure they have trainers.” True, I have been working out there for a couple of years, but I kind of like my routine: 30 minutes on the elliptical machine watching the morning news, then 30 minutes of exercises on a variety of machines and a floor mat while chatting with a friend. Although not super vigorous, at least it is a routine that allows me to assuage my guilt and break a sweat. But my daughter has a point. I suppose the trainers are there for a reason. Her last suggestion was to “find a kind of exercise you love,” but I can tell you right now that is not going to happen. I did, however check out a few options that are out there. After all, I want my adult daughter to know that I value her opinion.
One morning I tagged along with a friend who goes to a Pilates class, although I was quickly disappointed to realize it had nothing to do with actual lattes. The class opened with some gentle stretches set to soothing music. I liked that. I could get used to that. But then the music kicked up a bit, and we started to do things that I truly believe are impossible. The instructor, an extremely calm and encouraging young woman, told us to lie on our mats and pull our navels into our backbones, then scoop our abdomens while stretching our arms forward and lifting our legs off the mat. She kept reminding us to “breathe deeply,” which was a good thing because I was starting to see little sparkly objects and getting light-headed from holding my breath. I’m not sure I ever saw my toes come up off the mat, and I can’t even tell you where in the world my navel was in relationship to my spine. We did this kind of thing for about 45 minutes. I learned a lot. In particular I learned that Pilates and I were not in love.
So I signed up with a personal trainer at the Y. She was neither extremely calm nor encouraging, nor young, for that matter. She was, however, a very energetic and muscular 50-something from Eastern Europe who may or may not still be fighting the Cold War. “You need discipline and you need to vork hart!” she announced when we first met. She jabbed her index finger toward the elliptical machine: “I see you on that machine. You go nowhere!” I was about to point out that it was bolted to the floor, but I thought maybe that wasn’t what she meant. For the next hour she put me through my paces and demonstrated challenging exercises with painful sounding names like “plank” and “burpee” and “crunch.” The “dead bug” sounded a bit more doable but trust me, it wasn’t. I think I was more in the market for exercises with names like, “napping tiger,” “rocking granny,” and “meditating jellyfish.” After my first (and last) hour with Brunhilda even my hair hurt!
When summer rolled around, I wasn’t in much better shape than I had been in March. Fortunately, I didn’t have much time to feel discouraged, because in late July the Fall catalogs started to show up in my mailbox. And I am happy to report that they were filled with a lovely selection of stylish jeans and figure flattering tunic tops. Maybe I’ll start thinking about shaping up next Spring.