wait for it

These Things Are Wrong

2012-01-29T09:56:00.005-05:00

1. Our local chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation hosting a pancake breakfast.

Let it be known that Type 1s can have pancakes. They may eat anything they want if they inject themselves with the proper amount of insulin. But pancakes are difficult to account for, as are bagels and pizza, rice and potatoes. The glycemic index mixes with the fat content to produce a blood sugar unpredictability that I, for one, avoid when possible.

Maybe I would have forgiven JDRF for this fundraiser had it not been for our one visit to their office. At an open house, they served--wait for it--chocolate cake. And soda. And boxes of chocolates.

Once again: Type 1s can have their cake and eat it, too. Theo has desserts often. Yet an organization devoted exclusively to the management of blood sugars could maybe come up with something other than cake, chocolates and pop to serve.

I pulled out the calculator near Theo's cake, and said, half-jokingly, "You're going to tell us the carb count for this, right?"

"Ha!" the director answered. "Good luck with that."

2. Exciting Easter Crosses.

Oriental Trading Company is already advertising Easter, and each year at this time my kids and I hastily flip through their catalog to get to our favorite product: "Exciting Easter Crosses."

In a section bragging "Religious Crafts kids love," you'll find these exciting representations of Christ's crucifixion, which you can decorate with small lambs, hearts, and your name (optional).

Also holding their own in the excitement category are these products:

Inflatable "He Lives!" Beach Balls
"He Lives!" Footballs
Easter Inspirational Paddleball Games

..and my personal favorite,

Plush Long Arm Religious Gorillas

Online descriptions and names differ slightly from the catalog, but I promise you: I'm not making this up.

And, in the interest of full disclosure, I admit to buying the Exciting Easter Crosses once when my kids were really small.

Too much excitement: we never fully recovered.

For Better Or For Worse, Til Death

2012-01-27T21:16:00.004-05:00

I was sad because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.
And I said, "Hey, Footless Dude, guess you won't mind if I take your shoes."
--from It's happy bunny: Life. Get One.

In the early 90s I managed a professional children's choir, which was often hired to sing at weddings. One Saturday, after rehearsing in the basement of the church, we formed a line and prepared to head upstairs for the ceremony. Except...the door was locked.

The director grew flustered. The children scaled the walls to test the windows. But in a time before cell phones, there was nothing we could do but wait.

Months into the rehabilitation of a few injuries, all I can do is wait. And I feel a little like Happy Bunny: unable to summon a spirit of gratefulness. I'm not allowed to hit or jump, so boxing's out, which effectively cancels out most of my self-imposed goals and deadlines.

Some of which is nice. The break--it's nice. When all this first hit, I acted as the choir director did, working myself up, but now I feel like the manager I was back then: smiling and at peace, knowing I've done what I can and the next step will reveal itself.

That's not to say a few identity crises didn't pass by, making me wonder why I ask so much of myself, and why I rate myself according to what I've done. Mostly though, the lessons are what's generally applicable, and worth considering here. Like...

Stuff happens. When injuries started arriving, I thought I was a failure. A knee splint was the red letter spelling out my ineptitude. But limits, when you push them, are found. Here! Here's your limit! You reached it! Some injuries are inevitable.

But most stuff shouldn't. Though I know a fair amount about fitness, I lived with far too many muscle imbalances and compensations that eventually caught up to me. I hear this from people all the time: they live with injuries forever, as if it's just simply part of them ("my bad knee" is a common one). Many aren't meant to be, however, and many will cause you new problems if they're not addressed. Bottom line is you need to seek out expert advice. You need to take care of your body so you can stay active well into your later years. You may think you know what you're doing--as I did--but, as with any activity in any field, it's best to seek out some expert advice along the way.

Because everything's got to work together. Most people aren't asked to do knuckle push-ups during their physical therapy, but that's one of the reasons why Dr. Ross is the greatest: he believes that full out rest won't heal you up. At my appointment last week he asked me to perform the push-ups. Then he asked me to drop lower on my knuckles and hold. A little higher, and hold. I'm laughing, because this is difficult, but the analysis wasn't funny: my triceps weren't firing. Somehow, I'm doing knuckle push-ups without them, because they'd shut down with the other known injuries.

Later tests revealed I also wasn't using my back enough during shoulder exercises, or when lifting a bag of groceries, or a jug of milk, and all this put undue stress on the forearms. I wasn't using everything that's there and waiting to be used.

The last lesson, then, is one of exercise--proper form, people--but also a general one that got me thinking about how I approach life. How you shut off parts of yourself when you go to do this or that. Sometimes that's necessary, sometimes you've got to stop letting your biceps have all the fun during rows, but often, a situation would do best with all of you. You can pull it off, but the stress of that will add up.

Which aspects of you have you been neglecting?

What have you accepted as a cross to bear, rather than a problem to be fixed?

The children's choir, by the way, was eventually found and ushered to the sanctuary in time. And I feel I've been rescued just in time, too.

Sweet and Sour Chicken

2012-01-20T19:39:00.004-05:00

Do I only write sad posts about diabetes? I suppose if my blog were dedicated to the topic, I might regularly explore all sides (like this kinda fun one). However, my blog is dedicated to whatever I'm thinking about, and rarely am I thinking anything good about diabetes.

Today it made me cry, again. I'd like to point out here that although in the first year since my son's diagnosis of type 1 I was a bit weepy, lately I've been doing well. At our appointment with the endocrinologist Wednesday, not a single tear was shed, except maybe briefly when the diabetes educator mentioned...well, something that may or may not have been related to the disease. But otherwise, I was good. And Theo sat reading a book.

Today's tears are hardly worth mentioning had they not caught me so completely off guard. Shortly after noon the school secretary called to say the math I had done for the insulin shot, based on Theo's hot lunch choice of pizza, was now unuseable. The cafeteria was offering instead a special meal celebrating Chinese New Year.

My kids eat hot lunch only once a week, and it's a big deal. And yet it seems every time Theo's turn rolls around, something happens that cuts into his enjoyment. Often he's sitting out a low blood sugar, and the hot lunch is no longer hot. Today, his blood sugar was in range, but the menu threw us a curveball.

I asked that they send him to lunch while we determined the carb count (it's not ideal to eat before the shot, but it's not the worst thing). I hung up to check the carb count online, but it wasn't on the school's site (naturally; it was a last minute change). I called back and was transferred to the head of food service.

A long discussion on the chicken ensued. Was it breaded? Grilled? Seasoned, she said. With breading, I ask? No...she hesitates...just seasoning. Like grilled, then, I say. Uh, yes. So no carbs, then.

He skipped the sauce, so how much is the rice? 24.7.
And the fortune cookie? 6.

The chocolate milk I remember is 21.7; she verifies this. I ask to be transferred back to the secretary.

Jane uses her calculator to add these numbers and divide them by 18, our carb ratio for lunch. Her math can't be right; the number after the decimal point is obviously off. Just as she's doublechecking, a call comes through in their office from the food service woman, who has just discovered that the chicken is breaded.

We do new math, and I account for the fact that although the rice carb count is probably correct as given, Theo's blood sugar will run low if I give him the same ratio of insulin for the rice as for the other foods. I round down and hope for the best.

Twenty minutes have passed. Theo's back by in their office by then, happily eating his fortune cookie. They give him a shot of three units. I go to the bathroom to cry sweet and sour tears.

I Found The Answer, And It Only Cost Thirty-Two Dollars

2012-01-16T14:00:00.001-05:00

Well, maybe not the final word, but this here bag has my kids exerting themselves without any prompting from me.

This, you'll recall, has been a goal of mine. Maybe we should use a grander word here--a quest, a mission, an Oh-God-I'm-Flunking-Parenting desperate grasp for help.

Thank God I ventured out on Black Friday (at night, when Bed Bath And Beyond was as quiet as any other day) and used one of those coupons we all collect like trading cards.

A few weeks later I signed up both kids for a Sports Sampler class at the Y.

They both....wait for it...loved the class.

Stunned, Greg and I asked why. How. Really, you loved it? They did. They just couldn't say why. And that was just fine with us.

Lab Mice

2012-01-06T08:13:00.002-05:00

Two cages side by side, an aging and/or injured mouse in each.

We had recently separated our remaining mice, as Bitey (also known as Bully, Bruiser, and all around Bad Mouse) was relentless in his attack on the other, whose name is either Bobby, Frank or Fred, and, post-injury, called Bleedy.

Bleedy deserved to live out his days in peace, and so we set about arranging the former cockroach cage for Bad Bruiser. Subsequent days were easier on Bleedy, if a little slow. With no one to chase him, Bleedy, whose wounds were healing but whose fur was falling out, spent much of each day sleeping. Meanwhile, Bad Bitey was often found scratching his head, which looked mangier by the minute.

What a way to live--and die, I thought, passing them on my hourly pilgrimage to the laundry room. Not much time left, and some of the spunk is gone. Maybe they could cohabitate once again, peacefully this time?

Yesterday I put them in the same cage. The mice were not consulted in this decision.

Two cages, side by side, with both mice in one of them... chasing and squealing. Almost immediately.

I figured I'd give them a little more time, and then, if Bleedy started bleeding again (or just before), I could return them to the former arrangements easily enough.

Because maybe they actually prefer the calm, quiet, scratch-when-you-need-to life. Maybe fighting all the time is tiring.

And maybe I was projecting a little when I decided to spice things up.

Maybe because I haven't been physically able to box for several weeks now, and have instead been mall walking with the elderly (who are faster).

Simon came home from school that day and first thing, after asking how the mice ended up together (once, when a lid was left open, one was found on top of the other's cage), separated them.

They're back to sleeping and scratching.

I've taken up water exercise (with the elderly).

Maybe this is how it's supposed to be. At least for now.

What Do You Know

2012-01-01T21:52:00.006-05:00

The phrase has come up twice now: what you don't know. In March of 2010, in an effort to bridge the gap between the homeless and the housed, I asked the women of The Open Door what they'd say to those outside of the shelter if given the chance. What don't they know?

I never thought I'd be in this position.

People say, You don't look like you're homeless. What's homeless supposed to look like? Dirty?

Everybody gives money to Haiti; people get help if they're homeless because of an earthquake or tornado. But it doesn't matter how you became homeless. You're homeless, and you need help.

A guy I know hired me to clean his dad's house. He said, "Don't tell my dad you're homeless or he won't like you." Me and the dad got along great! We had a wonderful time. If I had told him... but it would still be me! I would be the same person as the one he liked.

You're not supposed to judge anybody. Some have more, others have less. You are definitely blessed if you have a home.

Some two and a half years later, I found myself using the same phrase with former prisoners. What you don't know was the only way I could help these men explain how their new lives of freedom were hindered by guilt, blame, deadend job hunts and housing restrictions.

You don't know the sense of complete separation and loneliness that is felt while inside, and at times is carried on once released.

I'm afraid.

I need others to know and believe I am sorry.

I am new. Come see.

This phrase could come in handy in this new year. Each of us has a back story, and what I don't know does indeed hurt me, or you, if my ignorance prevents us from connecting in a genuine way. My assumptions could carry a cost.

What you don't know about having a child with type 1 diabetes is that I count out goldfish crackers to a broken fin. I wonder, every morning, if Theo will wake up conscious. I worry I'll badly miscalculate a dose, or that Greg will, and that I'll be angry with him for something I could have just as easily done. I fear that my absent-minded boy won't grow out of his dreaminess, and will have trouble managing his disease on his own when he's older. What you don't know is that Greg and I have few dates because we haven't yet trained a sitter to give shots. And that diabetes is all day, every day, and it gets easier, but it's hard, very hard.

Your turn. Tell me: I want to know.

Thingies and Stuff

2011-12-29T13:22:00.004-05:00

When the kids and I pass by the store "Fitness Things," we feel somewhat unsatisfied. Couldn't they have taken an extra moment or two around the board room table and come up with another name? One that gets to the true heart of their mission?

We worked on some possibilities we feel they should consider. Here are the top contenders.

Fitness 'R' Us

Fitness Crap 'N' Stuff

Thingies Related To Fitness

Fitness Things But No Potato Chips

Several Products Having Something To Do With Exercise

Greg, too, is working on creative projects with the kids. Check out the Theophiles at The Musical Diary of Greg Scheer.

23.5 Books Read* This Year

2011-12-28T14:54:00.006-05:00

I just began The Forgotten Affairs of Youth, if you must know; if finished, it would close out the Alexander McCall Smith category of books read* this year. That's the best I can do: sort. Despite all this writing, I'm not one for reviews. But if you're interested to know more about one or the other, comment on this post and I'll be happy to tell you more.

Boxing/sports books
A surprising number. Add to this I actually read through the sports section of the newspaper now, as well.
On Boxing, Joyce Carol Oates
More Than A Champion, Jan Philip Reentsma
The Sweetest Thing, Mischa Merz
The Boxer's Heart, Kate Sekules
Spirituality of Sport, Susan Saint Sing
Born To Run, Christopher McDougall

Alexander McCall Smith novels
He's just the best. In every way one can be the best.
The Charming Quirks of Others
The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party
The Dog Who Came In From The Cold

Joyce Carol Oates novels
She's in the boxing category, too; she's that cool.
Little Bird of Heaven
Missing Mom
Middle Age: A Romance

Other Fiction
All by women! Hadn't caught that before.
The Rest of Life, Mary Gordon
Final Payments, Mary Gordon
Desperate Characters, Paula Fox
A Visit From The Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
Once Upon A Time, There Was You, Elizabeth Berg

At Random
Aristotle's Poetics, introduction Joe Sachs
Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid, Lemony Snicket
Slouching Toward Nirvana, Charles Bukowski
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
Jesus Hopped The 'A' Train, Stephen Adley Guirgis
Blue Nights, Joan Didion

YOUR ASSIGNMENT

Take note of books you, too, have finished, which overlap with the lists here. Comment below on the connections.
Find a theme woven throughout the choice of books listed above. Perhaps the dangling head on the cover of Aristotle's Poetics has something to do with the boxing books, or with Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid. Explain the themes below.

* "read" meaning "finished"; this year, quite a few books were started, and sometimes nearly finished, before being tossed aside. As I tell my kids, there are too many good books out there; don't waste time on the bad ones.

Everything I Needed To Know: One Foot In Front Of The Other

2011-12-26T14:00:00.001-05:00

As I write, the bone of my kneecap is bruised. The vastus medialis in that same leg has stopped firing, the adductor longus has atrophied, and the patellar tendon thickened and swelled. Both arms are limited by what's called tennis elbow, my right more than my left.

The situation could be much worse; there could be sprains, a tear, I could need surgery. However, I'm a person who discovered something she enjoys and is good at, right when people are settling into middle age, and this something requires the use of these body parts.

But let me tell you why I have hope.

In this second installment of Everything I Needed To Know I Learned In My 41st Year, I'll explain the two sides of achieving a goal, based on my experience.

one step at a time
It started in November. I thought about how far I'd come athletically, from a chiropractor calling me everything but The Elephant Man, to tackling the sport ESPN has deemed most demanding. In the past year, especially, I'd seen significant improvement in endurance and agility. When a coach was convinced I used to play soccer, I shook my head in amazement and vowed to keep up those ladder drills.

Then I put two and two together. If the awkward bookworm could do this, anyone can do anything, and also the bookworm boxer can do a lot more. I vowed to take baby steps to reach two important personal goals: finish my book project, and compete in boxing.

Baby steps. No problem.

The book project went according to plan. I dedicated extra hours each week, and in a short period of time brought the manuscript to a nearly finished point. The book has always flowed well once I could bring myself to work on it, but I rarely would--the nature of its structure demands immersion in the material, and I never had that kind of time; too, the story is an intense one, and holding the writing often required a tissue in the other hand.

Kevin, whose story this is, has been nothing but patient and trusting in me, but I felt I owed it to the people I interviewed to finish it. They trusted me with their stories. Even now, people call or write to talk and cry with me. It's a beautiful story, and I'm privileged to work on it.

Right now I'm waiting on some documents, and with a few more hours should be ready to send it to the agent who showed interest.

Baby steps. As planned. So far.

acute trauma
As for boxing, I had my training plan in stone, leading up to a match in February or April. And then my knee went from feeling funny to being out of commission (my doctors say "acute trauma"--that there's no way I don't remember it happening. A guy at the gym is convinced I drink heavily). My tennis elbow(s) had been a major problem I'd been avoiding, so I figured I'd get therapy on them, too, while working on the leg.

That's both upper and lower body, you may have noticed. Suddenly there wasn't much of anything I could do. Of course, the situation could be much worse--there could be a tear or strain, a need for surgery. But I had goals to reach! How quickly one loses ground.

i'm not actually in control
Thus commenced a brief existential crisis. Who am I without what I can do? I'd be at the gym doing the little things, and I'd become angry. If there's one lesson to be learned in the gym by trainers and trainees alike, it's this: you've got to be doing stuff that suits your personality, or you'll lose motivation. I like a challenge. I like heavy stuff. I'd do one set of these pseudo exercises and then try one set of another boring thing and get annoyed, get nowhere.

And then I remembered my lesson: baby steps. One step at a time will get you there, even when you're thrown back to start, at which point you'll start again.

so start again
I've lost a lot of ground. I can't have any impact on my knee, which means it's very difficult to keep up my endurance. And right during the months when I can actually breathe (no allergies).

But after a few hours wasted in physical therapy, I'm seeing a chiropractor who is also a trainer and a strength coach. Jason Ross knows bones and muscles, and he's a miracle worker. Where the PT had me avoid all lifting, Ross told me the first day what to do while doing pull-ups--he assumed I'd be doing them. 100 squats a day to get the VM firing again. Moving into single-leg squats this week. I love this guy.

I can see progress in my arms and my leg. I've lost a lot of ground, but I know I can get back. It's an opportunity to reevaluate what's important, and also for something else I haven't learned yet. I can tell there are still a few more lessons my knee and my arms want to teach me.

accept where you are before you can travel further
There is an acceptance to moving on and growing. Part of my early crisis was due to the feeling I should be doing something, but not yet knowing what--waiting for the MRI, trying stuff and getting re-injured. But once you know what you're dealing with, you can make your choices.

It reminds me of when Theo was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and people were mailing me lists of scripture verses to pray for his healing. While well-intentioned, this gesture only served to make us feel like it's our fault that he still had the disease. If we did all this praying, we would make the healing come to pass, seemed to be the theory. The power was ours, and since he still was diabetic, clearly we weren't doing our part.

But no. We needed to spend energy on how to manage his care. We needed to accept and move on.

The point that we're not really in control was brought home then, and when my November plans were foiled. But I can try again. I now have accepted that I can't run or jump, but I can do squats. I can't presently do front raises with 25s, but 15s, finally, don't hurt my elbows. I have accepted these limitations and will not jeopardize my recovery. I will take one step at a time.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

2011-12-24T09:44:00.000-05:00

A post from '09. Merry Christmas to all.

Sometimes God chooses unlikely routes of communication.

That's what we talked about Monday night at The Open Door, a homeless shelter for women. How the people called by God aren't always obvious choices (see John the Baptist) and the ways chosen by God don't make immediate sense (see Mary: young, single and not wealthy, carrying the Savior of the world in her womb).

John the Baptist was sent to "prepare the way of the Lord," as we heard in a reading. Mary was the way the Lord had chosen, as we saw in a sketch by my friend John Cosper. But why? Why do this? Why should God put on flesh and be born of a woman?

I cast parts for "The Incarnation" from Cloth for the Cradle, and told everyone we'd read the script through once, tune it up, then perform it for ourselves at the end of the night.

We read. We discussed the meaning. I gathered the two narrators and God, and asked them to pick up the pace.

"I thought I was doing a good job of that," said Evelyn, who prides herself--rightly so--on her excellent reading abilities.

"You were," I told her, "but what feels fast to you will be just the right energy for the audience. At the end, though, don't rush it, Keesha. Linger a little with that last image. Pat: Don't overplay God's emotions or they'll turn comic. Mimes: Exaggerate both your actions and your frozen poses. Don't draw attention to yourself when important things are going on upstage, but at the end, take the spotlight." Everyone nodded in agreement.

Though I mostly run exercises with the women, I'm always looking for ways to throw in terminology and teach actual theatre conventions. I held up the long piece of gold lame I had used as a prop during the read-through, grabbed from under my Christmas tree earlier that evening.

"Did you see how the cloth became a symbol of God's attempts at communicating with us--the rainbow, the manna, the Red Sea? And how it turned into the primary form of communication, when I folded it into the form of a swaddled baby?"

The symbolism is important, I pointed out. Right about then, Evelyn starts toward me.

Evelyn has a bottle-blonde crewcut and wears two quilted jackets she never takes off. The pockets--two on each--bulge with her belongings.

"Here," she says, handing me a small, ratty teddy bear with a ribbon on its neck, the kind you wrap around gifts and use a pair of scissors to curl. I'm confused for a moment, thinking she's thanking me with a gift; I don't know Evelyn well, and though she's aggressively good-natured, I see hints that I could send her reeling with a single look. I want to be sure about this teddy.

"The baby," she says. Oh dear, I think, she wants Teddy to be Baby Jesus. Someone within hearing distance yells a nay to that idea, but Evelyn insists. I start to catch on--she thinks it will add substance to the cloth, make it look like there's a real baby inside.

"Like this? Is it okay that the bear isn't visible?" It is. Evelyn is happy with the final product.

I stuff Teddy into the left pocket of my hoodie, shove the cloth under my arm, and hold the script with the other hand. Carly, one of the mimes, has a moment of stage fright, but she agrees to go on. We're ready for the show.

"The Incarnation," I announce.

"Is this where I'm supposed to stand?" Keesha asks.

"Yes. The Incarnation, Take Two. Wait a minute," I say, "One last thing. If you stumble over your words or movements--which you might, seeing that you've only read it once before--carry on. Don't draw attention to yourself or giggle and make jokes--just pick up and carry on. Doesn't matter that we're our own audience. It's a lesson for the stage but it's also a life lesson, right?"

Amen, they say.

"The Incarnation, Take Three."

"God looked around and saw the world which he had made a long time ago, and what he saw upset him," read Keesha, nice and clear.

"In one place, preachers were talking about peace, priests were talking about peace, prophets were talking about peace. So much talking, but there was no peace. There was only talking to hide the noises of war." The mimes concluded their preaching and held their pose.

"In another place," read Evelyn, "People were building; building banks and warehouses, building monuments to their own greed..." A mighty orator now, Evelyn was catching her stride. "So much building, while the poor became poorer, and the scales of justice were biased to the rich." The mimes put down their hammers, and Pat--God--sighed on cue.

On through the sketch they went, solidly. God tried various means to communicate with his people, but to no avail. Finally, God said, "I'll send...I'll send...I'll go there myself."

I turned toward the lockers, pulled Teddy from my pocket, and wrapped him safe and sound in luminous gold.

Symbolism is important, yes; but sometimes the meaning isn't quite obvious, or doesn't make immediate sense.

And sometimes there are so many layers you keep finding one after the other, like a present inside a present inside a present.

"So the Word became flesh, tiny and frail flesh," Keesha proclaimed reverently, with care. God carried the golden gift to Mary and Joseph. Pat outstretched her hands to complete the final image, an unlikely symbol of God making contact, a nativity for those with no place to lay their heads.

Your Holiday Sea Monkey Update

2011-12-23T08:13:00.004-05:00

There was one bunny and then none, no frogs then a bunch of tadpoles then several frogs then none, four mice then three then two and now two in separate cages.

And then there are the sea monkeys. Once a packet of dust on a toystore shelf, now mating happily into the new year.

Track their timeline back to September, when the sea monkeys were given to Theo on the occasion of his 8th birthday, under the assumption they'd provide a week's worth of entertainment.

Now it's December, with no signs of this letting up.

The large sea monkey population continues its happy swirling and weeks-long mating. But these are not September's monkeys, who made a feminist of Amy, as she watched the large, egg-sac heavy female struggle to swim for food with a mate hanging on; these are the grandchildren of the grandchildren. Generations upon generations have come and gone as I prepare meals in my kitchen.

If I don't feed them, they hover, facing me at the sink, their large eyes (eyes?) on me, their little bodies treading water to hold this pose of intimidation.

I expect personality from the mice, somewhat larger creatures with clearly defined eyes and cute little furry bodies. Of the 4 original mice, one was always a bully. "B" we wrote on his back, to remind us he'd Bite if picked up, this Bully, a very Bad mouse. Finally we had to give him his own cage.

But I do not expect character traits in dust from an envelope.

Sea monkeys staring me down? What a magical time of year.

Today: At Random

2011-12-21T14:08:00.007-05:00

This is the album that will get me through the holidays; the sweet melancholy is perfect on a cold winter day like this. With songs like "Did I Make You Cry?", this guy has captured the nuances of Christmas, and couldn't be more right on with this album, quirky as it is.

I especially like my profile of 88Improv for Northwestern College, mostly because it's really difficult to write about an improv troupe without having been to their show.

A lot of what I'm paid to do at the Y is talk. Answer questions, get to know people, develop relationships--I'm a wellness coach, not a trainer, so my goal is to simply move people toward the next step, which involves getting to know where they are right now.

There's a woman who has thanked me every day for the six months after I taught her to stretch after running, so today I thought I'd really blow her mind and offer to show her the nautilus machines. This worked as planned, and I'm thrilled she's finally building strength right when a woman's body fights its loss.

But then another woman begged for a nautilus orientation, and I agreed, reluctantly, only after insisting she visit her doctor about her shoulder and knee issues. We took things very easy and I suggested she seriously consider starting in the pool, not on the equipment.

A third woman I told to stop exercising altogether. Or mostly, or just take a break--she's 60, and, motivated by a significant weight loss, is high intensity queen. She exercises all the time, and now she's getting sick all the time. I've been coaching her to take some time off, let her body catch up. She's too worried the weight will come back.

It was nice to notice that, even with all the gabbing, I'm not just saying the same things to everyone. I repeat myself often, because many people don't know the basics, but at least I'm making it personal.

Do Not Try This At Home. Only At Hotels.

2011-12-20T07:00:00.000-05:00

Family Fitness on holiday.

KO In The Classroom

2011-12-19T13:58:00.002-05:00

Right across the hall from "Holiday Craftmaking," and down a few classrooms from "Knitting," Simon's mom taught kids how to punch.

Having finally figured out how to make volunteering in my children's classrooms enjoyable (hint: choose something you like doing), I offered to teach boxing for a Happening Hobbies event, right alongside knitting, guitar, origami and zumba.

Four 25-minute classes with 25 kids a piece. They make 5th and 6th graders big nowadays; some of those boys I'd put at 150+, and I could see in their eyes that all they wanted for Christmas was to hit stuff. The mitts took some concentration and serious arm tension (wouldn't have looked good if the teacher was taken out).

You can read in one of my favorite posts the mantra my kids and I usually recite on days when I volunteer; this time, when asked why I did this, I added, "So you can say, 'My mom can beat up your mom.'"

Just sayin'.

You Did It. Now for One More Hurdle

2011-12-14T20:56:00.005-05:00

UPDATE: Shari didn't win. The money went to a brewing co-op idea, which was actually a good one, if you're into brewing beer. It was a fun ride, and it's not over yet; Shari will continue to help her community, money or no money. Thanks for your support and votes along the way--especially to my husband, who helped us get the presentation slides done and emailed at precisely the minute they were due.

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Thanks to all of you and an awesome popular vote, Shari made it to the top five finalists of 5x5 night, and is now one step away from a chance at winning $5000 and making her dream come true.

She'll present her idea, THE VILLAGE: Mothers Raising Mothers, next Tuesday night at the Grand Rapids Art Museum to a panel of judges and a live audience. Tickets are $5, doors open at 5pm, and each finalist has 5 minutes (get it?). Come and take part!

Special thanks to Lisa Bledsoe of The Glowing Edge and Joe Maher of jmimages photography for lending out last minute creativity to the project.

Shari and I met tonight, a little dazed, to prepare for Tuesday. Though a bit overwhelmed, she's not surprised ("God did this") nor is she finished dreaming.

"I just want to leave this world a better place than how I found it," she said.

As It Turns Out, I'm Not Invincible

2011-12-09T21:47:00.003-05:00

I have been prescribed a brace for my knee, a splint for my wrist, and a band for my elbow.

The doctor said she needs to "shut me down" for a while.

The physical therapist said I must "avoid the tendency to overdo things." We had just met.

I left the brace fitting hurriedly, apologizing.

"I'm so sorry to rush, but I need to teach an exercise class," I said, and limped out the door.

Everything I Needed To Know: Power of One

2011-12-08T13:24:00.003-05:00

Everything I Needed To Know I Learned In My Fortieth Year. Let's start this series. Except... the title should probably reference my 41st year, not the 40th, if what I learned settled in post-birthday #40. Right? Who out there can do math?

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Such a silly story, but I can't stop thinking about it.

Kids at the bus stop. Standing on a corner and crossing the street to get on the bus, every day. Every day crossing the street in front of the bus, backing up when the bus driver yells for them to wait for the safety bar to extend, waiting for the bar, crossing again. Every day.

Until the day my husband was out of town and bus stop duty was my turn. I saw the crossing. I scratched my head. I conducted research with the other parents and determined, the next morning, that there was no good reason to stand where everyone was standing.

"Kids, we're crossing the road."

Parents thanked me. Admitted they didn't know why they were standing where they did. Admitted they did it "just because." Every day they had their kids join in on something they were pretty sure didn't make sense. A whole mess of them. Just because.

It took a few days for the change to set in. But now, months later, nobody remembers standing over there.

A small moment in time; my bus story. It's no Rosa Parks bus story, but for me, the implications are profound.

I can change the world. Anybody can. People laugh when I say the shoebomber changed the world, but it's true: people everywhere, everywhere, must take off their shoes before boarding a plane. This man changed everything, and not for good. The moral of my bus story is that you can change things for the good.

In my first post on the year's lessons , I mentioned noticing that all my lessons have a parallel component, like two sides of a coin.

Here, it's this: You don't have to change the world yourself. I didn't say by yourself, I meant you, changing the world through another channel.

When I first heard that a video of my reading with ex-prisoners was played in prison, sparking conversation and tears, the first thing I did was try to figure out what I was doing that very moment.

Probably in my laundry room, I figured, moping in self-pity over the big piles.

The next thing I did was mesh the two thoughts together: I can put time into this one thing, and as I go about the quotidian tasks of life, it can go on making a difference without me.

When I taught Theatre of the Oppressed at a conference, some of my students came to me after and pledged themselves to helping various causes: the sex trade, race relations. I could do this one thing, prep hard and draw on all my training and experience, and it could keep going, and keep changing lives.

When I learned that a local initiative invests up to $5000 in good ideas, I thought of my friend Shari. I could invest a little research and writing time, and Shari's dream, The Village, could come true and help a whole lot of people. (Only a couple more days left to vote: 5x5night.com)

The bus. It keeps traveling through my mind, moving me to the place where goodwill and potential and hard work meet. All aboard!

Everything I Needed To Know I Learned In My 40th Year

2011-12-06T08:37:00.003-05:00

I'm 41 now, and this past year, I learned a lot. Mostly in the last few months. Call me slow; it took four decades to figure out some stuff most of you probably already know (about yourselves, or about me).

But some of the lessons are quite paradoxical, as I saw once I began scribbling them down. Two sides of the same coin. I had hoped to list out my lessons in a post on December 31 and call it good, but now we're looking at a series, in order to get at all angles.

A word on self-awareness: I'm not a fan. At least of the public kind--a part of me is convinced that in the same way that no cashier cards me anymore, and no one is a bit surprised when I tell them my age, you do not care what I learned this year. But another part of me knows that some of what I've finally put together mentally is universal. So that's my only goal here--in this wrap-up and in this blog: relating to you. Hoping to trigger some of these same revelations in you.

And a word on December: Busy. Man, it's busy. But I blog best when life is moving right along, and it's a good excuse to say goodbye to this year by writing about it. You're busy, too, which is why I appreciate you waving alongside me, as well. Bye bye, 2011; thanks for the good time.

One Of The Few Times Facebook Would Be Useful

2011-12-04T11:58:00.007-05:00

UPDATE: A copy was found! Amazing how difficult this series was to track down.

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Christmas: I'm buying the kids' toys and thinking I'll surprise them with gifts I know they'll like that weren't on their list. And then it occurred to me that they'd be just as happy, if not happier, if I simply bought the gifts they requested. It's that simple! In the end, they're getting a mix, and I got a lesson: Just ask. And go with what you're told.

When some friends were going through a tough time, I figured I'd just ask what would make it better.

There was no predicting this answer: Dr. Who. Dr. Who will make it better.

These friends have spent months recovering from a crisis, and one thing that's helping is sitting the family down to watch Dr. Who (the newer one, with David Tennnant) together. They finished Season 1 and would really love to start Season 2, but they can't find it locally, and it's pricey online.

If any of you live around Grand Rapids and own a copy you'd be willing to lend out, please comment here.

Please Do This One Thing For Me--and for her, and for them

2011-12-02T14:11:00.007-05:00

When I spar with Shari, a friend and trainer at the boxing gym, I can hardly land a clean punch. There's no hitting this woman: she'll block your jab and smack away your right hand, no matter how fast the attack. And then she'll wrap you in a hug and tell you what a great job you did.

That's Shari in a nutshell. Life has thrown her a variety of punches, including cancer and a son's disability, but nothing knocks her down, and nothing gets in the way of her concern for others, especially young people.

Even before Shari told me some of her many ideas on how she'd like to help people, I could see the natural way she dealt out love, especially the tough kind, to the kids in our gym. She is exactly what they need. Which means she can do a lot of good elsewhere, too, as she's proven time and again.

A local initiative called 5x5 night awards up to $5000 for great ideas. I helped Shari write up the idea she's most passionate about: Mothers raising mothers. Experienced moms mentoring teen moms through parenthood and life. Our boxing gym has offered space, so the money can be directed toward making the dream happen.

If enough people vote for her idea, she'll be able to present it at their event later this month and possibly win the money. All it takes is going to http://5x5night.com/ and clicking on the green button labeled "Register Now to Vote."

Once you're registered, view the ideas and vote for Shari and THE VILLAGE.

This morning, when we were on the phone working out details of getting together to get this online, Shari started talking to me about bullying, something about a new kind of neighborhood watch, how she's designed a window sticker. I realized that even as we were preparing to launch one great idea, she was ready with the next.

Your vote will mean a lot to a lot of people. Please note that voting ends in just ten days; vote before December 13.

I Want To Be A Princess

2011-11-30T09:21:00.004-05:00

In the final paragraph of The New Yorker profile of Rita Jenrette, a Texan who married a prince and became Principessa Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi, writer Ariel Levy ends with the idea that could the Principessa visit her younger self, much suffering would be spared. She'd tell her, "You're going to be a princess."

Royalty can't travel back in time, however, and all any of us can do is look back. The long view of where life went when we were busy living it--this can be reassuring. Sometimes it's not.

Three years ago, when I volunteered for the Obama campaign, which met up in a boxing gym, you couldn't have told me that I'd be up in that ring sparring. As I waited for instructions, I looked around and thought, Wow! A boxing gym. Pretty cool. Then I took off with my assigned partner and hung election day reminders on the broken down doors of the nearby neighborhood.

Three years ago, while I tried to survive an aerobic kickboxing class, I would have laughed if you'd told me I'd be teaching something similar. And that laugh would have taken the oxygen I needed to keep up with a 70-year-old next to me.

These are minor achievements, yet they're markers I can track from very specific moments in time. They teach me that if I keep moving forward, keep listening and growing, life might just give me a royal surprise.

Has life handed you some welcome surprises?

Larry, George, and Janet

2011-11-28T08:59:00.004-05:00

Next month I need to take an exam for work. It's a three-part test: multiple choice questions on exercise and physiological processes; essays on case studies; training my boss who will pretend to be one of the case studies.

We were given a preview of the case studies. We're to pick two, but three of them appealed to me.

George, who is 40, wants to lose some pounds before a trip next spring. He doesn't like to exercise. Janet is a mom in her 30s and an aerobic queen. She wants to tone the back of her arms, etc. Larry, in his 20s, wants to reduce his body fat from 18% to 14%. He knows his way around the weight room, but never stays consistent in his routine.

That night I woke up thinking of Larry. His BMI, that is--and I worried for him. He's healthy! Why is he obsessing over his body fat percentage? Larry was upsetting me. I knew I'd have to choose him.

And George. He'd be a nice challenge. I like that he used to play on a basketball rec league--I'd sneak in some basketball moves to help him find enjoyment in exercise. Maybe after a few weeks with me, he could even get off those beta blockers!

But Janet, well, she lost my empathy. At first I wanted to meet with her to set her straight on this spot-reducing business--not possible--but then she just annoyed me. I pictured her in her matching exercise clothes and sporty cap and just knew we wouldn't get along.

Larry, George and Janet exist only on paper. But I swear I met up with Larry yesterday in the weight room. He was hopping from one thing to the next with no real purpose, and eventually, on the bench press, got in trouble. I rescued him from under his bar and tried to make light of it, knowing that no guy really wants a girl saving him from heavy weight. I was kind, because I cared.

It Was A Good Day

2011-11-27T11:27:00.005-05:00

My boxing gym won five trophies last night at a local club show. Five wins, five completely different styles: a heavyweight who moved well; a hundred-pounder who danced more than he punched; a young man nobody believed had never fought before; a deaf state champion against a man with arms longer than should be allowable; and a guy who stood looking with me at the bout list, plotting when and how he could get to Burger King and back in time for his turn. I'm pretty sure he was serious.

Way to go, MLK!

Oh No

2011-11-24T22:26:00.005-05:00

The uniform reaction of all mothers looking in on the final wrestling practice was this: "Ewww."

The boys, every last one of them, had their shirts off. They played a kind of flag football with their tops hanging from their bottoms, and it would be the last wrestling activity my son, Simon, would try.

Simon is tall, and lining him up according to height for a sparring showdown showed no deference to his lack of athleticism. He stood dangerously close in line to Jack, a 12-year-old who tips the scale past 180; the boy he did end up wrestling the last day, a kid about his height but with something of a gut, proved too heavy. Simon gave him a good fight but a short one, and that was that. He comes by his fear of the sport honestly.

Though his group would go on to compete in duals, we didn't push him to do so, as the compromise to try this new sport was taxing enough.

On all of us. Mainly me.

"I'll follow your exercise plan, Mom," he told me. He figures I'll let him out of a sport or class if he promises to obey a routine I write up. But his father and I know better. This "routine" will require Mom to stand guard for an hour over Simon's bad posture and form, with the result that no one's happy.

"You'd be crying to go back to wrestling," I said. Five minutes on the rowing machine last week proved this to be true--the crying part, at least.

So here we are again, back to square one, where Mom stands wondering how to help her kid through adolescence. Lord knows I try. I model everything possible--regular exercise, reading, charitable works, good hygiene.

Yet the deodorant stands at full height, and no one wants to sweat. Only the reading has stuck.

The other week, I took my kids to the boxing gym on sparring night thinking they'd enjoy being close to the action. (I'm not convinced this is the sport for them, by the way; I'd rather be the one taking the punches.)

They brought their books.

They're ringside, literally within spitting distance, sweat flying their way, boxers on the ropes just a foot from their faces, and they, the children I bore, opened their books.

From ewww to ohhhh. Oh, what to do?

The Rules of Sustenance

2011-11-10T11:35:00.003-05:00

Head over to The Other Journal, of The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology, to read my essay The Rules of Sustenance. It's a story from my time on staff at a homeless shelter, and one you haven't read here on my blog. Enjoy it, leave lots of comments, and browse the rest of their thoughtful site.

Joe Frazier

2011-11-09T08:47:00.008-05:00

Joe Frazier was felled by a short bout with liver cancer.

Not by the violence of the heavyweight rounds, the kidney punches, or left hooks to the head. Cancer is what took him down.

You never know what's gonna get you. In the end, the obvious danger may not be the worst.

I've pasted a letter above my desk. It begins, "Your follow-up mammography examination showed an area that we believe is probably benign (not cancer)."

"Probably."

You never know what's gonna get you. So what do we do?

Step into the ring. Keep fighting.

Getting Rid Of The Children's Pets, One Lonely Creature At A Time (The Video)

2011-11-05T19:50:00.001-04:00

Theo, age 8, spent the summer collecting frogs and tadpoles from a nearby creek. With the help of his friend Ethan, who is 9 and can answer any and all questions on amphibians, Theo learned to distinguish leopard frogs from tree frogs, and studied their development daily on our back deck.

Theo was so enamored with the whole operation that he wanted to purchase some more exotic strains. We visited a Pets Mart and hovered near a tank until a saleswoman came by.

The right saleswoman, I should say; with disheveled hair and wire-frame glasses favoring one ear, this woman was all about the frogs. She hunched forward as if to let out a call that might travel the road back to our creek.

My main concern was the amount of upkeep these $30 pets would require. "What do these frogs need, because our frogs from the creek...," I started to say, and immediately realized I had violated a sacred rule: removing the animal from its natural habitat.

I tried to play it off. So did she--at first.

"Well, first you'd need a tank, which I assume you already have," she said. I nodded.

"Then you'll need a water filtration system. I'm sure you already have one, because I'm sure you realize that frogs can't live in tap water."

Here I stuttered. And lied just a little. "Uh, creek water, is what we've been using," I said, angling for her good graces. Kill two birds with one big stone: get the water right (though we had added some from the tap) and make the new habitat fairly close to the original one from which we yanked these poor creatures, causing them untold mental anguish.

Creek water appeased her, but only slightly.

"And you'll need to feed them. I'm sure you're buying frog food already."

"Mosquitoes!" Theo chimed in. At this point I believe the two of them had a bit of a tiff on the dietary requirements of respective breeds. I diverted the conversation with a quick thank you and a "Oh, look at the birds!"

We made no purchase that day, yet somehow, the tadpoles turned to froglets without a filtration system, and the frogs survived without vitamin-packed food pellets. And yet, just as with the bunny, after a while there were creatures in our care getting ignored and making me feel guilty.

I mean, they're just sitting there all day. What kind of life is that? I'd wonder from my computer chair.

So once again, I pulled out the ol' "They'll have a better life somewhere else" line, and once again I meant it. The weather was turning, and I didn't want frozen frogs on my deck; already I had dried frogs imprinted, like fossils, on the wood, from when Theo lined up some that didn't exactly take to tap water.

We released them to the creek to do whatever it is that frogs do to stay warm (note to self: ask Ethan).

Theo seemed pleased that the frogs hung out on nearby rocks as he carried out this process, feeling a sense of satisfaction of having raised them and let them go for nature to do as she will.

Note to fish and sea monkeys: You're next.

Be sure to read the heartless story of giving away my son's bunny and also how I killed off all the ants on the farm.

Show

2011-11-03T10:05:00.006-04:00

While my son stood next to me, a wad of bloody tissue up one nostril, the wrestling coach said, "There's something about facing a kid your size and, even if you lose or get hurt, knowing you can take it."

Simon, whose nose was now 1.5 times its normal width, wasn't feeling the love. But I understood.

I have come to understand that my week doesn't begin until I've been boxing. I need to wrestle--box--my demons before I feel I've earned my self-esteem for the week. Or maybe I need to be knocked out of my head, both literally and metaphorically, in order to relax and enjoy life. Either way, it works for me.

As soon as I can get my knee healed up, I'll be sparring again, because I miss that day-after, on-top-of-the-world sensation. I'm thinking of bringing Simon along so he can see what his mom is made of. All my push toward sports hasn't added up to much, so, as they say in writing, "Show, don't tell."

Best (Worst?) Halloween Story Ever

2011-10-31T08:04:00.006-04:00

My children are named Simon and Theo, and not for The Chipmunks, though we acknowledged, even at the second birth, that this connection would be made.

One Halloween, we went so far as to dress them as their chipmunk namesakes. I, Amy, was the remaining chipmunk, Alvin.

At thrift stores I found long turtlenecks in red, blue and green. For Simon I found black glasses (which would complete a Harry Potter costume a few years later), and for me, a red cap.

However, the costumes didn't feel finished with only these suggestive hints toward the characters. I tried shading with brown makeup to highlight chubby chipmunk cheeks, but the look still wasn't complete.

Teeth, I thought. The defining feature of a chipmunk is its teeth.

Once again I experimented with makeup, thinking I'd black out all but their front two top teeth. The makeup for this was waxy and wouldn't stay stuck. I'll just buy teeth, I thought.

I drove to several costume shops and quickly determined that their stash of brown with crowns wouldn't do.

At the last store, a saleswoman approached me. By now I'm tired of this hunt, so I come right out with it.

"Do you have buck teeth?" I ask.

She opened her mouth to answer, and I saw that she did.

The Sacrament of Work

2011-10-30T19:13:00.004-04:00

There's an element of vulnerability in each of the jobs I do that sometimes shatters me.

The ex-offenders entrust their stories to me, the playwright, to find ways to communicate them to a broader audience. Today I heard stories of stabbings and molestation. And repentance. I am the keeper of these stories.

For my book project, I've been given the journals of a woman who died in a car crash. That her former husband would hand me this tall pile is humbling, and to read her private thoughts a sacred act. I met with the man who killed her because he would do anything for this family. He willingly gave me his very difficult story. Molestation. Murder. And forgiveness.

At the gym, one of my jobs is to clean exercise equipment. I know so many of the people who use these machines, their habits and schedules, that when I clean, I can picture who I'm cleaning for. I wipe away the sweat and dirt and make it new, for them.

A man I didn't know, running on a machine the other night, lied to me about his daughter's age. I caught him on it but tried to keep friendly, insisting that she could exercise today but not next time.

Later, as I cleaned a treadmill near him, he struck up a conversation. I stood holding my cleaning rags and talking; this posture, somehow, undid him.

"I'm sorry I lied," he said. "I'm so ashamed."

"It's okay," I said.

"I'm so ashamed." His family came back into the room. He had to leave; he moved toward the cleaning station in order to do the expected quick wipedown after his workout.

"I'll clean it for you," I said.

"No. Are you sure? No, I'll--"

"I'll do it."

I sprayed down the machine, and all that wasn't clean was wiped away.

This Pill, Broken For You

2011-10-29T20:08:00.005-04:00

I'm reading The New Yorker today and in a theatre review see the name of an actor I once knew. This happens here and there for those of us in the business: You're at the movies, a face appears onscreen, and either you yell out the actor's name right then in your surprise, or else a vague feeling of intimacy sweeps over you, ultimately giving way to the memory of communicating this guy's five-minute pre-show call in the shower. Stage managers spend a lot of time with undressed actors.

Throughout the 1990s, I worked in Pittsburgh theaters. For one particular festival, performers were brought in, sometimes with their own stage managers, and this was the case with the actor whose name came up today. With the other shows I'd usually call cues from the booth, but D's stage manager insisted that he sit up there, and that I wasn't really needed.

Then he ran up and down the aisles swinging a thurible of incense while chanting. I opted to sit offstage and keep quiet but available.

D had arrived in town wearing a neck brace and requiring extra care after a minor car accident, but he was performing well. He was funny. He filled his one man show with characters he could play with comic soul and depth, and I sat absorbed off left until the moment when he walked toward me--not entirely odd--and kept walking.

I froze. This was one of the main professional theaters in town, not some little back alley joint, and an actor doesn't leave the stage of his one person show. I'm not to be needed. The incense was intended to prevent moments like these.

Moments like D and I nose to nose with him whisper-yelling this: GETTHEGREENPILLOFFMYDRESSINGTABLEANDCUTITINHALFANDMEETMEBACKHERE.

I may have asked some clarifying questions in my horror. GREEN?

YESGREEN.

Then he calmly walked into the lights.

I dashed backstage, ran through the green room, burst into the dressing room. The green pill was there, as promised, but it was small. Cut it in half? How? I tried. It was crumbling.

If a little green pill is worth walking offtstage for, every bit of powder counts, I figured. I can't keep sawing.

So I used my teeth.

I stretched my lips out of the way and bit down. Then I stood offstage with the moist remains cupped in my hand.

D finished a character and headed toward me again. I raised my hands to him with all the solemnity of a Catholic priest. He took the pill, this shadowed figure backlit by the stage, his face in my hands. And then the show did go on, as it always finds a way to do.

Later that night, I would learn that D's neck pain hit him midshow, and he was grateful for my efforts. His stage manager thanked me for going against his wishes.

Eighteen years later, I think to myself that there's no way half a homeopathic pill kicked in before the end of the show, and that the effects were purely psychological. Also, that someone who would walk offtstage for half a pill midshow, and who was convinced it saved him, would have been horrified had he known that someone's saliva was involved.

But what he didn't know couldn't hurt him. Helped him, in fact.

I give full credit to the incense.

And The Costume Theme This Year Is...

2011-10-28T00:01:00.000-04:00

...no big surprise.

blogging through the month and almost done

I Miss Him

2011-10-27T10:01:00.002-04:00

Freddie went back to his rightful owners, and there's no longer anyone winking at me as I pass through the living room. Instead, I must contend with these damned sea monkeys, who swish and swirl and mate happily all the live long day. If the sea monkeys are a music video for Rare Earth's I Just Want To Celebrate, Freddie is Philip Glass--the same thing over and over with only the occasional changeup. His winks were among the few movements of his day. A much more manageable approach to life than the sea monkeys'...or is it?

How To Choose Your Kid's Sport, Part 2

2011-10-26T12:34:00.000-04:00

Simon on his bike. Can you read the sign he made and pasted onto his back? "My dad made me do this."

After writing the first post on how my son and I are similar, and the ways I try to help him find a sport now instead of in his 40s, I realized I was a lot like him as a kid.

Never would I have had the wit or chutzpah to make a sign like this, but I certainly didn't take to athletic activity. And what I'm doing now with my son was also tried by my mother: buy the kid some athleticism and grace by enrolling in a class.

Mine was ballet.

Dear God.

The little pink plastic carrier opened at the top, for my leotard, and on the side, near the bottom, to hold my peach silk slippers. I liked the whole contraption. The class I could do without, but I was obedient back then, and did everything I was told. I plied and whatnot, without much flair.

Then one day I no longer had to go. Talk of "missing too many classes," "not allowed."

For years I referred to this as my "getting kicked out of ballet." Now, as a parent myself, I realize this was more about my mom than me. She didn't get me there, and surely I didn't remind her.

The thought counts for something. Though ballet is the last place I'd think to start a backward kid like me, it was among the few options available to little girls in my small western Pennsylvania town. It didn't take with me. Few physical endeavors did, though I would go on to play tennis in high school. Only in my mid-30s, when, in a pilates class, I felt my abdominal muscles contract, would I find the trigger for everything that followed.

Though I'm seemingly following in my mother's footsteps, the similarities end at handing over the money for a class. She would go on to find fault in much of my physical appearance, and I see now that ballet was just the beginning of trying to change me. But I am not trying to change Simon; rather, I'm trying to help him find that trigger to move him toward physical and emotional wellbeing. I'm convinced it lies in sports, for him, because the rest he has down. The comics that litter my dining room table are witty and well-crafted. The substitute lyrics for Justin Bieber's That Should Be Me, written on the spot this morning, were hilarious. He's a good boy.

We'll see how this wrestling business turns out. My little pink box ended up carrying Barbies instead of ballet shoes, and it's just as well, because now I carry a big Converse bag filled with boxing shoes and 12oz gloves. Simon's backpack, when he left this morning, held his shorts for afterschool practice, and I have to wonder what it will hold next.

One Mean Dolphin Sandwich

2011-10-25T17:22:00.002-04:00

Music on the way to a massage: Nine Inch Nails

Music at the massage: ocean waves/pan flute/dolphins

Music on way home from massage: Nine Inch Nails

What I Do With Bananas

2011-10-24T15:44:00.005-04:00

As I am unable to reconcile banana carb counts with skin and without*, I choose to go without--which means if I'm packing a banana for my diabetic son to take to school, it must be peeled, then wrapped again.

So I make squids.

Simon's photo doesn't quite capture both eyes of my giant squid, but you get the idea. I hear he's pretty slimy by lunchtime. Realistic!

*Advice on this from you other d-moms would be appreciated. We do 6g per 1-oz unpeeled.

How To Choose A Sport

2011-10-23T16:50:00.002-04:00

There are two types of people in the world: those who watch boxing movies and then want to beat someone up, and those who watch them and don't.

My family splits down the middle.

Simon, 11, is a lot like his mom. He's gentle, and yet you sense a buried fierceness in there. He's strong. At his age, he is unable to harness any of that power, but he's drawn to try.

Only to a point. Also like his mother, Simon suffers from attachment issues, and he's not about to give himself completely to anything he enjoys. Disappointment may come, so why get involved in the first place?

When I first saw him punch, I knew he loved it. I held the mitts for him here at home and encouraged him to keep going. Nah, he said, and headed back for his book.

When he came home from school after a PE class in wrestling, I saw him beam with delight. I got to flip a kid onto the mat! he said. Then he went back to his book.

I stopped in to talk to the PE teacher about the wrestling. Among the list of concerns I had was Simon's lack of body awareness--he's awkward, and doesn't move from his core. Won't he get hurt?

The teacher eased my fears. He told me about his own son, a nonathlete, and how this was a great sport for him. After talking it over with Greg, about how we've got to get the kid in something, how the moodiness is here, the deodorant is needed, he needs an outlet and fast, I signed up Simon. And he was horrified.

But he made it through the first week, with a promise from me that he can be done in a month, when the class finishes. I told him day one will not look anything like the last week. That we can't be good at something all at once. How his wits will save him in a sport like this. That he needs to learn what it feels like to literally throw himself into something and see it through to the end.

My prediction: He'll enjoy it but won't want to do it again, and we'll have to start this process over (we've tried your basic boot camp classes here and there, as well). He likes swimming, but that won't provide the aggression outlet. Boxing requires too much core and legs, and he's not ready. Football, too much agility.

I'm running out of sports that suit his personality, which is where you need to begin. I, for one, could never take up running. People in my circle are always running 5Ks, but I could never run a 5K. This is not a matter of strength or endurance. My mind will not let me do anything hovering on the brink of tedium; ask me sometime about my foray into knitting. The only way you'd ever find me running a race was if zombies were chasing me.

So while any race is hard work, which I would never discredit, running is not the sport for me. Personality and sport must meet somewhere, and mine tend toward power and a higher level of risk. Why do it otherwise?

Simon is 11 years old and 115 pounds. If he leans into me, I could fall over. I've told him that the minute I can no longer pick him up, I'll stop feeding him. (He's got a while--I can pick up his father.)

After watching a boxing clip with me, he exclaimed, I just want to BEAT SOMEONE UP! I really do! He was downright beside himself.

Me, too! I said.

Then he went back to his book, and I to my blog.

RERUN: How To Get To The Other Side

2011-10-22T20:46:00.002-04:00

Hello? Are you there? I've committed to writing a post a day this month. Today, I am full of feeling but out of ideas. Here's an old one that captures some of what I want to say, and thankfully, I've said it already.

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The introduction of Roadkill, the armadillo character in the film Rango, is startling: a tire width indentation has cut through his middle, leaving tread tracks, and he struggles for breath. The animation here is more realism than not, and the effect is disturbing. Yet you can't look away, and the view from your seat places you directly into his struggle as he says, "I must get to the other side."

The other side, he's heard, is where enlightenment is to be found. He knows this is a metaphor, even; "We all have our journeys to make." Over the course of the film, the lead character Rango, a chameleon, will find this to be true, and when the two characters meet again on the other side, some wisdom has indeed been gained, the smoke cleared.

The other side, however, is just that, and each creature must return to the side from whence he came. The armadillo, still a bit battered, must hope that traffic patterns align with his stars, and Rango must return to the site of all that led him to his new revelations, one fraught with large snakes and despairing souls brought so low they could be capable of anything.

Even when we've reached the other side, we need to go back.

There is no arriving, then. There is arriving, regrouping, and returning. And you will most likely be battered and bruised as early as the first leg of that journey.

In my bathroom right now there is one butterfly and four chrysalises. We have watched as tiny caterpillars became small ones, then large ones, then fat ones, and as they made their way upward to hang, upside down, for about a week's time. Inside the chrysalis, a caterpillar's parts turn to soup; and in one of nature's most miraculous events, that fat furry caterpillar becomes a fragile, flying thing of beauty.

In the hours after it emerges, the butterfly doesn't yet know what it can do.

And soon, we'll release it outside, where dangers abound.

But the caterpillar can now fly. The next stage of its journey has begun.

Which Creatures Shouldn't Be Together In The Same Room?

2011-10-21T20:30:00.002-04:00

I'm Alone In The House With This

2011-10-20T14:39:00.000-04:00

Because I Could Get Hit By A Bus

2011-10-19T22:18:00.004-04:00

With the insurance paperwork, multiple doctors, a list of prescriptions, school forms and daily tasks, managing a child's type 1 diabetes feels a lot like a part-time job that lasts all day. It's not the only thing you do, but it's something you do all day long, and hopefully, there's a team of at least one working with you. My husband gets cc'ed on any diabetes-related email I write, because he might be the one to get the call from school tomorrow. Any insulin dose change gets written into our log, highlighted with a post-it, and verbally called out to Greg (or virally: You saw the Levemir change tonight, Dear?)

This system of cross-referencing at every turn makes this "job" feel like one I did many years ago. As a stage manager in professional theaters, I kept many a prompt book, which contained all the information needed to run a performance. Light cues, actors' blocking, costume notes...all in there. I was groomed in the "hit by a bus" school of stage management, which instructed us to be so clear as to be able to be dead and yet: the show would go on.

With diabetes, I have to think this way. I have to organize in a highly logical fashion, because Greg needs to be able to make decisions in my absence, and vice versa.

It's a very practical method, if a bit morbid and facetious, but selfless, too. Others come first: the show must go on, your death be damned.

What if we approached every job, every day, like this?

If this is all there is, how might I best spend today? What's best for those left? Have I done the best job I can with what I've been given?

It's tough to sustain this day in and day out, both on the job and as an approach to life. Today, there were things I did not do that I should have, and words left unsaid.

But I'm indoors now, and counting on tomorrow.

Putting the Personal In Tire Flipping

2011-10-18T10:00:00.006-04:00

My left arm will not extend above my head. Yesterday, I couldn't make use of either forearm.

I blame the tire flipping.

Lately, I've been trying new approaches to my exercise routine. A little P90x here, some basic grunty strength training there. Raw, straightforward lifting no longer does for me what it once did, and though I've lost strength, I don't miss it a bit. I often spend my Y time on power routines, hence the tire flipping. It's only a hundred pounds, so I thought I'd do a 3 minute round. Then another. Then I couldn't use my forearms.

After not vomiting, I wondered how it is possible to kick my own butt. Shouldn't it be like tickling--impossible to do to yourself?

When I design workouts for my husband, I know to avoid anything he might find tedious. I need to throw in supersets and some crazy stuff no one else in the weight room is doing. That's why it's called personal training--you tailor it to the person.

One of my coworkers saw me arrive to take his shift one day not long ago and declared, "Train me, Amy." I'm looking at him--young, big, soccer player, rides a motorcycle to work--and made some quick assessments. One, he's an athlete. Two, he's a bit of a wild man in need of excitement. Three, he just got out of school for personal training and doesn't need me instructing him in your basic moves.

Before you know it, I've got a barbell loaded up and standing on one end, and a fellow trainer is commenting, "Now that's a broken nose waiting to happen."

I knew he wouldn't sue me, and I knew he'd love it, which is why I chose the exercises I did. I was right on both counts.

Now I'm prepping to train a woman I don't know well. She's told me the muscles that give her trouble, and she names these with remarkable precision, due to her professional field. She's had some injuries, and I need to take it easy with her.

No tire flipping. No one size fits all.

So even though I'm the one you find in the weight room hanging upside down off the back extension, I can't be asking that of her. I'll keep things controlled but challenging, and be ready to adapt when necessary.

I like being imaginative and unique, but I realize the need to pull out your basic meat and potatoes once in a while.

With maybe a little gourmet dish on the side.

There's a smaller tire near the hundred pounder, after all. A minute wouldn't hurt anybody, right?

blogging every day, trying not to be like this

Meet Bobby, Frank, Fred and Charlie (RIP)

2011-10-17T12:37:00.004-04:00

Just hours after Dottie's departure, we saved these sweet little mice from the jaws of some cagebound rattler. You call 'em feeder mice, we call 'em pets; a buck seventy-five's worth of utter cuteness.

(Charlie, seen here in the food dish, died during the night. Ah, but do not grieve for him; he lived a short, eventful life.)

(blogging through November but trying not to be like this)

Mr. Rogers Was Right

2011-10-16T11:59:00.003-04:00

Here's a reprint of a post from November 2009. Some of the details have changed--I'm now nearly 41, and my dress size keeps shrinking--but the essence of what's here is still on my mind today.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since 1985, English musician and musicologist Clive Wearing has had what neurologist Oliver Sacks calls "the most devastating case of amnesia ever recorded": a memory span of mere seconds. Along with the present his past has slipped away as well, including the memory of meeting his wife, Deborah, and falling in love with her.

Yet emotional memory provides Clive with a basis to remember Deborah at a fundamental level, as Sacks writes in "The Abyss" (The New Yorker, September 24, 2007):

For many years he failed to recognize Deborah if she chanced to walk past, and even now he cannot say what she looks like unless he is actually looking at her. Her appearance, her voice, her scent, the way they behave with each other, and the intensity of their emotions and interactions--all this confirms her identity, and his own.

To Clive, his wife was more than the sum of her parts, and was, in fact, unrecognizable in parts; but taken wholly, she was Deborah. The essence of the woman he loved was something Clive could never forget.

It's a moving story, and it's helpful in getting amateur actors to understand that a simple posture change does not a character make. Yes, you may need to lower your voice, thrust out your jaw, and slouch a little, but if these traits fail to converge into the core of a character, your portrayal will not ring true.

Off the stage, I find the story reassuring.

As a mother about to begin her fortieth year, I think a lot about identity. As a woman down to size 4 from an 18 (Greg says I'm "every woman in the world" to him), I often wonder about what's left when you strip the non-essentials away.

Attending my twentieth high school reunion last year was interesting in this regard, as was my short sojourn on facebook. After 15, 20 years, you are distilled down in the minds of people from your past, and it's surprising what they'll think, say, and expect. That's a book right there, but I'll just say that the Distillation of Amy was mostly positive, leaving me pleased, if somewhat bitter ("If you all liked me so much, why didn't I have more dates?").

On Monday night at the homeless shelter, I noticed three things:
1. nobody laughed at my jokes,
2. my deep thoughts were quickly bypassed,
3. everybody was glad to have me there.

Reconciling these observations took some time, I tell you. I like to think that at some level I'm funny and interesting, and if pressed I'd say these qualities make people want to be around me, if they do at all. Take away a small-busted gal's sense of humor, and what's she got?

But here was a roomful of people who liked me for me.

Much as I like to define myself by my wit, intellect, or deltoids, these women respond to something deeper at the core of who I am. It's humbling both to have your best traits ignored and to be appreciated anyway. Humbling, healthy, and right on.

(here's someone who says it best)

Goodbye Dottie

2011-10-15T14:54:00.001-04:00

I will be the first to admit that I've used the term "evil" when referring to our bunny.

And that maybe on occasion I've let her out to "play" in the backyard until a neighbor knocked on the door to report that "the bunny has escaped." This only happened two times. Maybe three.

But I meant it when I told my son that sometimes, when we love someone, we have to let them go. We have to do what's best for them, which may not be what we want. And maybe I didn't bring up the parts about them coming back if they were really yours, etc.

Dottie first came home with us about five years ago, while Greg was traveling in Uganda. Internet connections were spotty, and I remember getting out a short email that said, "And by the way, we have a pet." Dottie unofficially became Simon's pet, arriving right when he needed something furry to hug and hold. She stayed in his room at our first apartment in Grand Rapids; I have pictures of him reading with her on his lap.

When we moved to our new house, we tried giving Dottie her own little room in the basement, but soon we realized that the furnace was sucking in bunny fur and spreading it all over the house. Somehow, our animal allergies weren't triggered back in the apartment, but here, both Greg and I really suffered. Dottie moved to the garage.

In good weather, we'd move her outdoors for the day. But in winter, she stayed in the garage. You don't send your kids to play in the garage in Michigan in February. Dottie was fed and cared for, but we couldn't give her the time she deserved. Too, the kids loved her, but it began to be an "in theory" love that Greg and I noticed wasn't fleshed out with any action.

So when our new neighbors asked us some bunny care questions, I told them to hold off on that purchase. I talked to Simon and planted the idea that with winter coming, maybe Dottie would have a better life with them. We had approached this topic last year, but he wasn't ready. Again, I let him make the decision.

Days later I was ichatting with Greg, who this time was in Ukraine.
"Remember how, when you were in Uganda, we got a pet?" I wrote.
"Uh oh."
"No, it's all good."

The family came today to get Dottie and all her earthly belongings. I apologized for her long nails, but they didn't care--the young girl just wanted to brush her fur, and the dad dreamed aloud of specs for the cage he would build. He told me of their fenced-in backyard, and the room waiting in their basement. And does she like the peel of apples, or just the core, or should he peel some slices?

She'll be fine. As will we; Simon knows he made a good decision, and frankly, he's grateful to be relieved of cleaning duties.

Plus, I promised a hamster.

Your Friday Sea Monkey Update

2011-10-14T09:27:00.004-04:00

Big mommas: running the place
Babies: growing faster than you can say, "But where's its crown?"
Stud monkey: expired

In The Stars For Me: A Man

2011-10-13T08:06:00.003-04:00

SCORPIO (Oct. 23 - Nov. 21)--You've been looking forward to promoting a certain idea for some time, and today's evolution tells you that the time is now.

I had read my horoscope not long after saying this to my coach: "I need a man."

While on the heavy bag, a girl approached me. We had been partners last week, and I liked her--tall, thin, peppy, with a pleasant demeanor. She had boxed just a little in Ohio before moving back here.

"You ever street fight?" she asked me.
"No," I said.
"Really?"
"Really. Why--have you?" I couldn't quite picture it.
"Oh yeah. Twelve, maybe 15 times. You can do anything in a street fight--claw, scratch, pull they hair."
"And what's that like?"
"It feels good. That's why I took up boxing. Because when I street fight, I make sure I win."

Next thing I know the coach is asking me if I can spar the next night. I couldn't. Woulda been with hair-pulling girl. She's working hard on technique, but I can't imagine that her do-or-die instincts are fully knocked out quite yet.

"How about a man?" I said to the coach. It's not unheard of to spar males with females, but in my gym you don't see it. I hadn't had an opponent for awhile because the female contingent was limited. Now that more are showing up, the coaches are looking to me to spar them.

Some of you might be wondering why I consider it safer to spar with a man than a woman, no matter how crazy she may be. Because craziness is key--I'm not sure what she might do, and if the coaches would catch her beforehand. Things happen fast, and it's her instincts I'm worried about, not her motives. Whereas we had one girl step on her opponent's foot, holding her in place while she snapped her head up. Could have called it an accident except hmmm, she did it again.

Generally speaking, the guys in our gym are the most dedicated of the sexes. They're the ones jumping rope, sparring intensely, getting their roadwork in outside of gym time. A few are smart enough to know how to control their power with someone like me; if they do this, my game will step up a good deal in order to meet their fancy footwork and combos.

It's just what I need: A man. The coach said he'd think about it. But I'm pretty sure it's in the stars.

Amazing The Stuff You Find Online

2011-10-12T11:22:00.005-04:00

Happened on this photo from the conference I taught last year. Participating in my theatre exercise here, in the foreground, is Doug Berky, a very funny guy.

Also found this video, wherein I wave my hands a lot when I talk. Must be those Italian genes.

And then this photo, which my husband says looks like I'm flipping someone off.

A Category Can't Contain This

2011-10-11T15:04:00.004-04:00

Lisa over at The Glowing Edge has my blog listed under "Women and Sports." Girlboxing has me under "Boxing Blogs." And D-Mom Blog has me as a D-Mom, of course: a mom of a type 1 diabetic.

But when I signed up for National Blog Posting Month in October, those categories didn't exist. Their list includes health, hobbies and anonymous foaming. I went for "Humor."

Looking now over the posts of the last 10 days, I'd call about half of them funny. Like, if there was a funny meter, the arrow would point just past the middle.

There are a couple sad ones, like yesterday's; thoughtful ones, like the one about my theatre work with former prisoners; and then a few I read later and wonder why I chose to bring up that topic in public.

I'll work on the funny. In fact, I'm saving one of my funniest stories for the last day of this month. It's Halloween-themed, but my kids make me tell it to them all year round. So stick around, you.

blogging every day whether you like it or not

A1celebration (under a dark cloud)

2011-10-10T12:42:00.005-04:00

The body's report card validated our work: Theo's A1c level was 6.9 today, down from 8.3 three months ago.

Good control of diabetes prevents future complications, and this number proves we have good control. We were patted on the back for our work. I felt really proud sitting there with my healthy son, a big binder spilling intensive insulin therapy worksheets onto my lap.

Good control prevents future complications. Control + genes = risk for complications. Genes are unchageable, which is why our endocrinologist focuses his efforts on control. He's a brilliant man. He talks more about the books my kids are reading than diabetes, and I really like him for that.

At an appointment the day after our diagnosis, the nurse had to step out of the room for a moment. I picked up a brochure from the handful of materials we were to take home that day, and just as she reentered the room, I casually flipped it over to read the back. "Uh uh," she said, gently taking it from me. "You don't need to be thinking about all that right now."

It was a list of all the health problems that could happen to my son. She was right; day two was not the time.

I took her cue, though, and avoided this talk for a long while. I held firm to the good control rule. I'd will the complications away with my math and diligence.

Until last week, when Theo had his diabetic retinopathy exam. He looked good, which the doc said he would use as a baseline before seeing us back in a year. We'll be like this next year, I knew, because we have good control.

"We'll avoid eye problems because we have good control," I said to him with confidence, not even bothering to phrase this as a question.

"Uh, no, unfortunately," he said. He kindly explained that the exams are held to catch and treat problems early. He looked me in the eyes and pretended they weren't filling with tears.

Today, at the endocrinologist, after a discussion of the children's book series The Time Warp Trio, I asked Dr. P about diabetic retinopathy. He gave me a thorough view of all sides, reassuring me that our good control would indeed make a difference.

And then he reminded me that none of life is completely in our hands.

When you spend every day counting every carb in everything your kid eats, it's hard to believe you're not God. And yet there are days when we do everything right, and his blood sugar runs high or low with no explanation.

Keeping all these charts are life's games that we must continue to play, but might not win. And yet today, we'll celebrate our small victory.

blogging every day in October

Things Said To Me This Week That Could Be Taken Another Way, But Made Me Feel Good Nonetheless

2011-10-09T12:51:00.003-04:00

"You have an interesting way of looking at the world."

"You look like an action figure, Mom."

"I didn't expect you to hit that hard."

blogging every day

My New Boxing Gear

2011-10-08T07:11:00.008-04:00

Initially I had chosen some cheaper gloves, but when they didn't fit right, TITLE Boxing hooked me up. I love you, TITLE!

These gloves have both gel and foam, which protect my old lady hands. I went back to regular wraps (instead of gel) with them, though, and suffered, at least in one hand. Let's blame it on my powerful right, shall we? Because I like the gloves. And all the coaches were jealous.

These shoes are listed at TITLE as boxing shoes, but they came with a tag that labeled them "wrestling." My man at TITLE--yes, they treat me as if I, a beginning boxer, am I major account--told me they're for both sports. The extra ankle support takes some getting used to, but I'm tired of the tread on my usual trainers grabbing the cloth in the ring.

And I couldn't resist the wasp on the bottom of this shoe, but once I owned them, the metaphor tripped me up. Do I float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, or simply smoosh them with my new shoes? Either way: badass. Shiny and badass.

And finally,

When I've been boxing, I tend to bob and weave a lot--with my car.

Maybe I should ask TITLE about this.

(for National Blog Posting Month)

Favorite Lines from James Thurber's The 13 Clocks (so far)

2011-10-07T19:30:00.001-04:00

"He wore an indescribable hat, his eyes were wide and astonished, as if everything were happening for the first time, and he had a dark, describable beard."

"'If you have nothing better than your songs,' he said, 'You are somewhat less than much, and only a little more than anything.'"

"'Half the places I have been to, never were. I make things up. Half the things I say are there cannot be found. When I was young I told a tale of buried gold, and men from leagues around dug in the woods. I dug myself.'
'But why?'
'I thought the tale of treasure might be true.'
'You said you made it up.'
'I know I did, but then I didn't know I had. I forget things, too.'"

(for No D DAY)

Guilt Trip for Greg

2011-10-06T15:13:00.003-04:00

A couple of days into Greg's trip to Ukraine, there were guys all over the house. My own two boys, running around playing; a friend, mowing the lawn; and a friend of the boys, whom I found digging. His plan was to extend the nearby creek into our backyard. I stopped him.

Last night I saw that my left headlight was burnt out, yet another reminder of the need for my man in the house:

Shortly after this video was taken, I had the idea to open the instruction manual. It was determined that pliers are not actually needed for changing bulbs. I followed directions, and yet:

Got my hands into the greasiness again. Was getting late for work. Cursing Greg. But then this:

The Chore List: A Non-Traditional Primer

2011-10-06T10:00:00.002-04:00

My supervisor, the health and wellness director at our Y, seemed genuinely surprised when I said there's exercise on my kids' chore list. So did someone else, when I mentioned it. Which got me thinking that maybe not every parent pays their kids to do jumping jacks.

It started this summer. I'd been frustrated handing out money at the end of each week though my kids, good ones at that, hadn't really applied themselves around the house. I also didn't know how it was possible for them to feel full from supper after dropping a significant portion of the meal onto the floor below, and leaving it there for the ants to parade through.

At the same time, I was frustrated with myself. There I was, 40 years old, starting a new sport, doing pretty well but knowing I'd be better had I started 20 years earlier. (Reference the recent Mayweather-Ortiz fight; few believed the ancient 34-year-old Floyd could keep up with a man ten years his junior.) Why hadn't anyone got me going earlier?

My kids approach the body as I did for about three and a half decades: arms are for holding books, not barbells. Reading is, well, fundamental; but moving is just as important, especially at their age, and the only way I could make sure it happened was to enforce it rigorously. My younger son has type 1 diabetes, and tends to need more insulin in the summer when school isn't demanding all his energy; this needed fixing (more insulin=bad).

Hence my summer chart, which included the following categories:
How Can I Move? How Can I Help? How Can I Be Smart?

The goal was to accomplish something in most of the categories each day.

How Can I Be Smart? was covered easily with the reading. Drawing, writing, and making things also counted here.

For How Can I Help? I listed possible chores, but also put out the idea that helping others counts, too. When we go to the mentoring program at the boxing gym, we're helping others, even though we benefit, too. When we're kind, we help others.

How Can I Move? included various exercises. The butt-shaking contest we held yesterday, for example, would count here. (I won; the deciding factor was speed.) Other, more strenuous activities were listed, and eventually I had a separate chart announcing The 15-Mile Club. Simon met that by the end of the summer (and, uh, won the prize of a book).

Before bed, we'd fill in the chart by talking through the day. I can't say we got to this regularly enough, but I really liked the plan in general.

With the wide open days of summer behind us now, life needs to be a bit more structured, so a new chart will be revealed today. This one is narrowed down to chores and exercise, because I trust the smart and helping categories are becoming a regular part of their lives. But even the moving is, too; Theo's been spending a lot of free time hopping and climbing, and Simon came home from school after a PE class in wrestling just beaming. "I got to pick up a kid and throw him on the floor!" he said, a big smile on his face.

Then he picked up his book and sat down. It's progress.

Grunting: It's Natural

2011-10-05T23:59:00.000-04:00

The kids on the playground were yelling.

"Sounds like torture going on out there," I said to the woman ringing up my soup mix.

"Yeah, that's every day," she said. "Yelling. I wish I would have yelled when I played."

"Never too late," I said, grabbing my change.

I spend a significant portion of my job, somehow, talking about this sort of thing, Usually it's while joking with guys in the weight room: "I knew you by your grunting," I'll tell a guy, because it's true. In a gym, the noises one makes are as identifiable as the voices, both of which I hear on a regular basis. Sometimes we'll debate the validity of making noise. Expressing oneself in this manner is somewhat of a vulnerable act, and it always calls to mind the woman who told me she made no noise during any of her four childbirths. Courage or repression, I wondered.

In my classes, I'm always yelling for my people to breathe during mitt work with me, as it's a natural tendency to hold one's breath while getting that big punch out. Hence the "sss" or "fff" methods of letting out some air with each punch. I'd been doing a pretty good job of making a lot of noise and spit, but lately more noise was coming out. Yells, even. And I'd recall that guys in my gym did a lot of "ha ha"-ing themselves. So I decided to follow my instincts and let it go.

Tonight this got me through some intense mittwork, my trainer backing me into the ropes at the end of the round when I was beat. So I let it out. Primal grunts assisted the work. I liked it. I'll keep this up--it gives me more energy than the little breaths. Probably a mouthguard will get in the way eventually, and maybe someone someday will teach me the "right" way to breathe while punching.

But for now, I'm yelling. No time like the present.

Happy Birthday, Greg!

2011-10-04T21:04:00.005-04:00

My husband, who is in Ukraine, turned or is turning 45, depending on when and where you read this. When we did a live chat with him this afternoon, midnight struck on his birthday, whereas it was still a day away here.

Follow his activities in Ukraine at this blog, or his general musical musings at his regular blog.

Check out his really cool brainchild of a database and his official website for all things Greg.

And wish this great man a great day!

In A Grand Rapids Boxing Gym The Monday After A Floyd Fight

2011-10-03T15:45:00.001-04:00

What I expected came to pass: walk into the boxing gym that Monday, hear loud conversation making use of words like "headbutting," "legal," and "Pacquiao's next."

Floyd Mayweather being a native son, any talk of Saturday's fight was in his favor, the subtleties of sportsmanship drowning in deep loyalty. I'd wanted the opinion of the gym to help pull apart the images replaying in my mind: the knockout punch; Ortiz and his dropped hands; Floyd's empty gaze; the ref looking away. Were they on a break when the knockout happened? And even if the punch was legal, was it cool to do?

Clips are now all over the internet, and I see now that the ref clearly motioned for them to resume boxing. And that Floyd hesitated after that left hook, giving Ortiz enough time to cover, which he didn't take. Bam.

Watching the knockout live, in a theater full of people in Mayweather's hometown, was disconcerting. The break ended quickly, the ref's signal seen by Floyd but few others, which made those final two punches seem particularly menacing. The crowd roared, but my jaw dropped; it felt like watching a street fight. Clean shots. The guy just standing there. Pure, straightforward violence.

"He put it back into the boxing," a friend at the gym said. She was referring to revenge; Ortiz had headbutted Floyd's chin seconds earlier, an illegal move that only cost him a point, but could have slowed his opponent. Dirty fighting. Floyd took the fight back into the ring by waiting for the signal but not for his opponent. Bam. BAM.

That same night at the gym, we ran through stations with partners. I saw that one of the men on mitts was someone I worked with before, who stops by from another gym to help out.

I didn't like this guy.

The person with the mitts calls the shots, holds the power. This man was aggressive with me, probably due to inexperience. I learned a lot from him, but not in a way I prefer. He'd lunge at me. Run at me. Call out a couple of punches, which I'd execute, and then suddenly shove me around the ring with his body.

Apparently I was supposed to fall into a pseudo-sparring mode--I think--but no one told me that. I thought I was hitting mitts. I threw out my right elbow a little, something I never do.

(Fortunately he ended the round by having me punch him in the face multiple times. He was demonstrating how to catch a punch, whereas I was appreciating the opportunity with full-on violence.)

Power: he held all of it.

I told my partner and she took him for me, and I worked with another guy. My friend and I are going to spar soon. She has 40 pounds on me and seven years, but I'm in better shape than she is. The pounds don't worry me, because I trust her. She'll give me as good of a fight as I want, but she won't be looking to hurt me. It's going to be a lot of fun.

It got me thinking back to Floyd. Separate out the boxer from the man, and you may just be on his side. The man used his power appropriately, cunningly, within the rules, something not everyone knows how to do.

Sure, Yeah, Why Not.

2011-10-02T11:54:00.001-04:00

I'm going to try to write every day this month. I think. Yeah. Maybe I'll head on over to NaBloPoMo and sign up again.

I need an outlet for recording the little moments, such as finding a fake mustache on my laundry room floor today. Events like this clearly need to make their way out into the world.

You with me?

Degrees of Separation

2011-10-01T21:38:00.008-04:00

After watching a video of "Even In the Darkest Place," a reading by former prisoners, a man new to the group had a question.

What's the purpose of telling your crime? he asked. I had written it into the script, five men announcing what they did and how much time they did for it. It happens at the end of the play, after you've heard their stories and come to like them.

Some of the men answered him, claiming it's better to get the truth out of the way and let people think what they will. I explained a little of the history, an essay's worth of a story I'll someday write. It all made sense to him, he said, but he wouldn't do it.

My crime is worse than all of yours, he said.

We all think that, Tony, someone said.

But it's true for me, he said.

I have to admit that when I wrote this part into the script, I didn't know how to fill in the blanks. "My name is ______ ," I typed. "I did ___ years for _________ ."

At the first read-through, as the men filled in the sentences, I scribbled in what they said. But look now at that first draft, where I got down only this: "murder." "Twenty-one years." Apparently I didn't take in much after "murder."

Second-degree, though--the man probably caused a car crash while intoxicated, something like that. Very bad, but not intentional. Second degree.

Then came "CSC." I googled it at home: criminal sexual conduct. I started noticing write-ups in the newspapers--men who went after young girls and boys were charged with CSC. I hated them.

And now this: men I've come to respect did something sexual, criminal. Men whose lives have clearly turned all the way around. Men who are repentant. Who did their time.

But what did they do?

And what will I do when I know?

It's precisely why I wrote that part into the play: The audience must face their feelings toward these men now that they know the truth. And here I am, not knowing the full truth, nor what I'd do if I found out.

To rank the worthiness of men according to what they've done: Maybe my crime is worse than theirs.

Jump In

2011-09-30T21:28:00.004-04:00

It's a Friday night, my husband's away, I'm not in a particularly good mood, and I'd like to finish two things I started last night: True Grit, and a bottle of wine.

But I need to jump around instead. And get to bed early, so I can jump around in the morning.

The life of a fitness instructor: no one warned me. The body must be ready, as must the mind. The body, however, requires more discipline, in my opinion. You can wing the mental stuff, but the physical tests your humility. You thought you were Wonder Woman, you're not Wonder Woman. And here's the proof.

As for jumping tonight, I need to test out some of my ideas before I insist on them tomorrow. My class is a lovely bunch, very appreciative of any and all ass-kickings, and I must deliver. This is not the kind of class I can instruct from afar--I'm doing and demonstrating through most of it. Jumping jacks. Taking some guy's hard punches into the mitts and demanding he hit harder.

Holding off on the wine and movie is worth it--I discipline myself in order to push others past their limits, to show them that they can do what they thought they couldn't.

I Was In The Ring Behind Hugh Jackman

2011-09-29T15:39:00.002-04:00

...a couple months earlier. Dang it.

I'm In The Mood For (A Few Weeks Of) Love

2011-09-27T21:41:00.009-04:00

Don't tell the internet filters, but something had to be done. Googling "sea monkey sex" was the least I could do; six hours had passed since I took note that two were still attached. SIX. Then seven. Eight. Finally I read the small print and learned they may keep this up for a few weeks. On my kitchen windowsill, whirling about while I slice strawberries and scrape the pots and pans. WEEKS. While swimming.

Those not attached at the present are already with child, and each of these ladies may produce 20 offspring. I tell you, the babies aren't babies for long; it was all cute when the specks finally became visible, but the rate at which they grow is alarming. Twenty each would equal 60 more, and once the amorous couple takes a breather, it's safe to say we'll have 80. That'll be in two weeks, right about when my husband returns from a long trip. At least someone's getting some action around here.

And what are these things, anyway? Crustaceans, yes, but they were sitting on a shelf in a rundown Toys R Us when I bought them for my son's eighth birthday. And now they're mating. Right when you think you've got it all figured out, powder from an envelope is mating at your kitchen window. I understand nothing.

What's with all the posts on mating? Time to go back and read my post on the mating style of the sloth. And another experience raising small creatures: The Ant Farm: She's Come Undone.

Come See Our Fair City: ArtPrize 2011 Is Here

2011-09-26T20:51:00.000-04:00

The Social Experiment

2011-09-21T13:14:00.005-04:00

It's the third week of school. My husband had been taking the kids to the bus stop, a new location, and I would pick them up afternoons until Tuesday, when I filled in the morning shift. Walking the few blocks there, I spied the other kids and asked mine why they were all standing across from where I stand to pick them up.

"I don't know," my son said. "We just do."

The bus arrives, stops, flashes its lights, extends its gate, and the kids begin to cross the narrow neighborhood road in order to get to the bus's door. The driver yells at them to wait for her hand signal. They back up to the corner, she waves, they cross again.

"Why doesn't everyone just stand on the other side of the road like we do in the afternoons?" I ask a mom who stands with me every weekday at 4pm.

"I don't know," she said. "We just do."

Wednesday. I walk my kids to--you guessed it--the other side of the road. Some kids remain standing in the usual spot. One kid crosses over to us but it's a noncommittal act; he leaves his backpack on the other side. A parent approaches me and offers thanks.

"I'm really glad you did this," he says. "It didn't make sense to me that they'd cross the road in front of the bus every day."

The bus appears around the corner. The rest of the kids run across the street to us well before it pulls up. They jump the line in front of my kids, figuring they've been in line longer.

Day Two. We line up on the other--new?--side. Most of the kids are there. The mom's middle boy is put out by the switchover.

So, Class: What do you think will happen next? Describe your predictions and their subsequent social implications.

This Way and That

2011-09-13T14:31:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I led an 81-year-old man through an orientation on nautilus machines. Later that night, I hung out at a boxing gym and got to know a 16-year-old boy whose world is very different from mine.

Today I interviewed a woman in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for an article I'm writing. Tonight, I'll attend curriculum night at my kid's school.

Later this week, I'll lead a fitness class, and on Sunday I'll start some former prisoners talking about their next play, which I'll write and direct. Today I revel in the variety of jobs I do, yet there have been moments when I wished I had, at some point, specialized in a subject area. I wonder if my inability to settle derives from my childhood growing up between two homes, and if there are aspects which are unhealthy. Today, however, I will be thankful for the diverse people I meet, and grateful for the work I have to do.

Your Questions Answered: Which Comes First, The Learning Or The Doing?

2011-09-07T17:00:00.001-04:00

UPDATE: LISA RESPONDED TO THIS POST. Check out her expert advice at The Glowing Edge.
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This isn't a Your Questions Answered so much as I Had A Question But You Wanted To Hear My Thoughts First So You Can Respond In Your Blog So Here's What I Was Thinking.

I had asked Lisa at The Glowing Edge a boxing question, because I really respect her opinions, and she answered my question with a question. Don't you hate when people do that? But Lisa wanted to know more, and promised to reciprocate; she'd blog in response to my post addressing her question based on my question. What question? How much should you learn before you spar, and at what point do you get in the ring and learn there? It's to do with boxing, but there are general theories at play here, so I welcome the input of boxers and nonboxers alike.

Dear Lisa,

The young man faces me, squatting as he lowers the headgear to check its fit. "Too tight," I slobber out, my cheeks squeezed, my mouthguard hindering speech. Behind me now, he moves my ponytail and works to lessen the pressure.

Another man holds my hands and laces up the gloves; yet another comes by to tape them down. I move toward the ring, where an older fellow holds the vaseline that will protect my face. He dabs and smears, and when he finishes another man motions with a water bottle. He offers a squirt and I take it.

A man holds the ropes for me as I climb through. "First time?" he asks, and I nod. "Well then, cover up. Protect yourself."

The spa of sparring. An entourage tenders full and intimate care, fussing all over you. They're your team. In your corner. But the moment that bell rings, it's you and you alone. Protect yourself.

Kate Sekules opens her boxing memoir, The Boxer's Heart, with a recounting of her trainer's plan for her first professional fight. Throw the first punch, he told her. What then? she asked. He replied, You'll know what to do.

"That's it, the entire plan," she writes. "Slam a big right into her face and 'knock her thoughts out.'"

Of course, Sekules had lots of training behind her to call on. My story, however, ends at that first piece of advice: Cover up. I'd practiced a few moves, took a lot of direction on the bags, but at my gym, the real lessons come only when you spar. You try something in the ring, and you're offered advice on what to do next time.

So I went in there aiming to protect myself. First time sparring should not be analyzed too carefully--some people say you forget everything you've learned the second you get hit--but I think I can safely say I absorbed more punches than I needed to, even while covered. Because while everyone told me to cover up, they didn't tell me to move. My footwork was good, they tell me, but my head was too still a target. It hurt; I left thinking I need to learn a few moves before doing this again.

In the following weeks I would approach a favorite trainer and ask him specific questions. He worked with me. We fell into a rhythm of getting together evenings when I was there.

And the time came when I asked a question and realized it's all getting a bit hypothetical. I noticed I've been avoiding Thursdays, the sparring night.

Experienced boxers, theoretically, own enough control to give you only what you could handle; however, I knew I'd be matched up again with someone with no more experience than I have. I can't tell you how many times I've heard phrases like, "On the street I be like this, but here they have me do this." Many of these kids are street fighters with minimal boxing finesse, but working on it--on my body. Help.

I can't say that I've learned a whole lot more since that first sparring session, but at the same time I wonder if I won't learn much more until I get in there again. Sparring, after all, helped me understand the point of shadowboxing and all the rest, and provoked the questions I needed to answer for myself.

In the end, it's just me that gets in there, and no entourage can help me. I need to be ready.

But do I prepare quietly, or at the expense of a handful of ibuprofen and three days of a vice grip on my head? When do you cross over (or under the ropes, in my case), stop thinking, and just do?

Amy

Have a question? Make a comment! I'll respond in a future post.

Mistakes I Made This Past Week

2011-09-06T08:56:00.000-04:00

1. Bought shorts as school clothes just before the weather turned

2. Took kids to wrong bus stop on first day of school

3. Walked around husband's staff party with toilet paper hanging off my pants

Your Questions Answered: The Mind Body Connect

2011-08-31T21:08:00.011-04:00

The blogger behind Holyoke Home, a wonderful and witty place of home renovation, answered my request for writing inspiration with these words: "I am really interested in what goes on in your brain WHILE you are working people out. Where does your head take you while your body is demonstrating things physically?"

Dear Holyoke Home,

First off, let me tell you about the microphone. I won't wear the microphone while teaching fitness classes because I don't want to be like this:

So I turn the music down low. But the minute my jumping jacks match the beat, I feel like this:

It's not my natural habitat, the group exercise room. Catch me in the free weights and I'll teach you proper form, but give me an hour in a big, empty, mirror-lined room, and by golly, I've got to work to feel right. Thankfully, most of my work is as more of a coach than anything; I offer general advice to beginners and new challenges to the hardcore guys.

But you're not asking about my comfort level, are you? You want to know something about how the mind and body come together in these times for me, because you teach, too.

When I look at someone moving, I can feel what they're feeling. Where the person is straining, if the lower back is compromised--I know and can help them out. I know what I know because I've experienced these processes physically; my body remembers, and I supplement this experiential learning with books and research. But sometimes I think my body remembers better than my brain, because ask me about my theatre stuff, and I can't recall specifics if I'm not actively doing it. But ask me how to stretch your rhomboids, and I'm there.

Fitness is a fairly straightforward pursuit: do this, and health and wellness will result. None of us gets it all right all the time, but we know what's good for us and what will take us where we want to go. With the bench press competitions, I knew if I kept at it, I'd see slow but incremental increase in the weight I could lift. And my goodness, the fact that I was doing it at all after never being athletic proves my point.

Injuries may sideline us, and yet the path is straight and paved. It's a relief from all the thinking work of my other fields. All those pesky anatomical terms still remain to be learned, but otherwise fitness is comfortable work for me, aside from the occasional sweating.

With school nearly here, the other day I wondered how I would spend the hours without my kids. Boxing, I figured. I'll put in a couple extra hours a week, get to a good spot, then find some matches.

Follow that logic for a moment: do this, then this, and this will result. I'd set my mind and body to something, and win it.

Then I wondered why I didn't do this in other areas. Why not devote all my energies to finishing my book and getting it published? Put in a few more hours a day than I have been?

Because I don't believe the end is guaranteed there, to be honest. I don't fully believe that will happen, even though it's good stuff.

Why do I assume I'll win a fight but not a publisher?

To answer your question, Holyoke Home, what's going through my mind when I lead exercise is not enough. It should not be this: if I can do this, I can do anything.

Amy

Have a question or writing prompt for me? Comment here!

Empty Brain, Willing Heart

2011-08-28T16:50:00.006-04:00

Writing prompts can be found anywhere, but I'm at a loss and turning to you, dear readers, in a time of wanting to write but having nothing that moves me.

Though teaching a fee-based fitness class yesterday had me really wondering how Miss Can't Skip (see kindergarten report card) got here. And

...coming home from that and being seriously sore had me comparing this job to other, less physical prior vocations. Then,

...being sore and cutting hair on my back deck, reminded me of when, as a teen, I once took a salon customer of my mom's while she was in the hospital, and granted him one of my very first haircuts. Also

...prepping again, among mounds of papers and supplies, to send my diabetic son to school, jars the psyche once again.

I don't know. Help me out here. I'm counting on you for inspiration. Last time, you moved me to connect celibacy with cooking. What could be next?

Setting The Prisoner Free

2011-08-21T18:37:00.008-04:00

If you click back through my previous posts on theatre with former prisoners, you might notice that the reading we take to churches, Even In The Darkest Place, usually has five men on the stage.

Not today.

One man went back to jail. He's out now, but has not reconciled himself back with the group, who prays for him.

I once spoke with Wally Lamb, author of Oprah pick She's Come Undone and writing teacher at a women's correctional facility. At the time I was doing theatre with homeless women, and I admitted that I envied his position: Your people have to show up, I said. They're not going anywhere!

Selfish, I know, but it's a hazard of working with any group not locked inside four walls: People get sick. They don't show. Or maybe they go to jail.

I rewrote the script for today and took out parts that were personal to this man; other lines of his (the script is comprised of their actual words put together in stylized form) were spoken for him. The charisma of the fallen man breathed through his friend, almost as if he had been with us.

It's something to sit through a church service with men who have done time. You shall not steal, the pastor read to the congregation, and to a man who had done fourteen years for just that.

You shall not kill, he said; in front of me sat a man who had. Twenty-one years he spent in prison.

And which commandments have I broken?

The service concluded with the singing of Charles Wesley's Oh For A Thousand Tongues.

He breaks the power of canceled sin;
He sets the prisoner free.
His blood can make the foulest clean;
His blood avails for me.

Little Things Mean A Lot

2011-08-19T14:55:00.002-04:00

Right when I broke a Ritz cracker in two, it occurred to me: Everything means something. An extra half cracker could send my son's blood sugar where it shouldn't be. This small semi-circle, now placed back into the sleeve, could elevate his blood glucose level throughout the long night, and we would sleep unaware. Diabetes brings to light what most of us don't see. Your bowl of cereal is actually two and a half portion sizes, the bread with your pasta makes the carb count soar. If you exercise, you'll feel better.

But this is not about diabetes. I only have time to write a few small sentences, which I trust will make the difference.

The Ant Farm: She's Come Undone

2011-08-11T09:39:00.007-04:00

Got an email today advertising an ant farm. (I also get emails for bed rails; marketing has missed my age bracket by a gap each way.) I have an ant farm story I tell in bars. It's better with hand gestures and under the influence of alcohol, but this attempt might almost get there.

When my kids were smaller, they received the makings for an ant farm as a gift. You mail a form, and in six weeks time a tube of live ants appears in your mailbox. This tube is to be placed into your freezer, where, in fifteen minutes, the cold will slow the ants. This is essential because your next step is to get the ants into the narrow opening at the top of their farm, which is comprised of two sheets of clear plastic held about a half inch apart; would they thrash about, they'd never make it in to rural bliss.

Before depositing the ants, the farm is to be filled with sand. You've seen the pictures; the ants will work to make interesting tunnels through this sand. They get to work on this right away, even making separate rooms, just as the instructions said they would.

"There's the kitchen!" I'd tell my kids, pointing to a small area where the ants had carried some of the bread I gave them. You're supposed to give them bread, as well as some drops of water to build some humidity. The proportion of the two I couldn't get quite right, however; the section of bread was always a little too big, even for the more industrious of the ants, and the water would puddle too much over here, with none over there.

As time passed, the balance of their little world, cheerily woven through with tunnels this way and that, was tipping. The bread in the kitchen became moldy, but of course I couldn't reach in to replace it; the ants over here were looking dry, but as I added water, it traveled elsewhere.

Let's take a moment to look at how farm renovations were accomplished. These are ants, after all, small creatures; and though they can lift a weight equivalent to a human lifting a car, their bathroom, for example, was made one grain of sand at a time.

Eventually, the ants saw the need to accommodate their changing society.

They needed to build a cemetery.

In the way that I knew the kitchen was a kitchen, by seeing the ants carry the bread there, I knew the cemetery by its first visitor: an ant carrying his friend. Subsequent visitors would carry a grain of sand to bury this first casualty.

"Isn't that touching!" I'd tell the kids.

Then another one died and was laid to rest as was the first. We watched this as well. The next one, too.

By now, the ant farm's wavy tunnels had fallen in on themselves for need of sand to bury the dead. In fact, the whole farm was now a long, 70-degree arc of a hill stretching up to the burial ground, where small bodies lay firmly packed. Those who remained spent their time making the long trek, a friend on their backs. No longer did they bother trying to break apart the too large piece of moldy bread; they knew their time would come.

"You're right, honey; those ants aren't moving. How about we read some books?" I'd say to the kids.

When the last living ant stumbled up the long hill with the last of the dead, the work of burial left solely on his shoulders, I, like the miniature society, came undone. I quietly covered the whole thing and carried it outside. Drips of water spilled out as I hoisted the shrouded farm above my head to throw it into the dumpster.

"The ant farm? I'm not sure where it is right now, dear," I said to the kids, happy that it was the God's truth.

The Right Book At The Wrong Time

2011-08-05T09:04:00.003-04:00

Books I've read in the places I've read them.

Man's Search For Meaning
...in Chuck E Cheese

Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
...on the periphery of Barnes and Noble's Story Hour for children

Zen and The Way of the Sword
...in the waiting room of the mammography center

It's Been A Whole Freakin' Year

2011-08-02T09:41:00.004-04:00

Enough with the depressing posts lately. Instead of trying to articulate a year of living with type 1 diabetes, I thought I'd interview my charming son.

A Boxer Reads Genesis 32

2011-08-01T11:00:00.002-04:00

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” --Genesis 32

We take what we read and hold it up against what we know. Wrestling with God--yes, we say, I've done that, I've questioned God when life didn't go as I hoped, prayed hard, shed some tears. A story is taken as metaphor and lessons are applied as appropriate.

The story of Jacob and the angel is one that can be read that way. Or you could take it at face value.

The man saw that he could not overpower him.

It's dark, Jacob doesn't know who he's fighting, but doggone it if he's going to let go. He's a good match for whomever it is, so much so that his opponent has to resort to unorthodox tactics.

When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.

In boxing, it's allowable to punch opponents in the shoulder, I recently learned. It'll slow them down and wear them out. There are other moves that accomplish the same ends, but they're a bit dirty. Low blows.

That's what Jacob's opponent pulled out of his hat when nothing else worked.

Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

And all Jacob wanted was a little respect.

Boxing is violent, people say, and they're left perplexed when the guys punching each other end a sparring round with hugs. I've experienced it; in my first and only sparring session, my girl, after trying to lay me out, threw her arms around me as thanks for a good fight.

It's about the respect. And gratitude for something hard won.

Opponents test each other; they're the only ones in the world who felt what happened in that ring. Boxing, like wrestling, is one on one, and it gets very personal.

Which is why I don't like that this man, soon to be revealed as God or an angel, betrays that intimacy. He purposefully injures his opponent and begrudgingly gives him respect. Wrestle with God and get not a hug, but a torqued out hip?

Jacob limped out of there, satisfied with the blessing he procured. The Amplified Bible translates the new name he was given as "Contender with God."

He passed the test, got the respect, but his hip was never the same because once the sun came up, the rules changed.

Over our twenty years together, my husband has learned that if it ever appears I'm picking a fight, it does not necessarily follow that I'm angry. I like sparring, and I'll fight to the end to defend my point, a person, an idea. Until you beat me. Until you convince me that you're right, you're stronger, at which point I'll concede the win and cheer you on. But before then, I'll hold on for all I'm worth.

For a while there I'd offer to have a friendly go round with God, but he stopped showing up, so I left the ring. Came back to church yesterday and the preacher preached on Jacob's match. He got it all wrong.

I coulda been a contender. But there's no one fighting fair.

The Test

2011-07-28T15:57:00.005-04:00

When the technician on my mammogram said not to be surprised if I'm asked to do this again, if they call because the pictures aren't clear, something like that, she didn't say they'd call and get specific, saying the tissue looks "different" in the left breast and that there's a "nodule" to be further examined.

I wasn't going to write about this.

It's common to be retested. Any melodrama made now could be made null in a week, after mammogram number two.

But then again, this could go either way.

You know how when you're traveling, and you step into a hotel room, or someone's guest room, you take it all in as new? You might lie down on the bed as you would your own, yet you're aware of the feel of it, the spongy spring to the mattress and the laundered scent of the blanket.

That's what's happening to me.

The test, then, is not only what comes next week, but whether I can keep a hold on this way of being.

To Sleep No More

2011-07-25T21:24:00.006-04:00

I leave the elevator alone and walk into the black. Suddenly there are trees; a sparse forest of pine trees in eerie twilight, and still, I am alone. The music pulses, it builds, and I want to be afraid, but instead relax into the sound and emptiness. And I keep walking.

I had traveled to Manhattan in part to experience Punchdrunk's production of Sleep No More, a dreamlike telling of Macbeth spread over five dark floors of the former McKittrick Hotel. Audience members are handed masks as they enter and told to stay silent for the duration, which, depending on the time you arrive and your endurance, could span up to seven hours. You walk through the hotel rooms, ruffle through their contents, and chase actors and music that cues you into knowing something will soon happen. I followed Macbeth through a graveyard, stood next to him on a balcony as he watched Lady Macbeth below. I pulled back the bloodied sheets of a hospital bed. A clue?

The curious will be rewarded, we had been told.

My own sense of curiosity guided this trip--not only towards Sleep No More but also into Brooklyn, and up the stairs to the storied Gleason's boxing gym. My training session with Lennox Blackmore took place on a 104 degree day and it, too, was like a dream; within minutes of meeting me, Len secured my eyeglasses into his locker, which is papered with photos such as one with him, Hillary Swank and her Oscar for Million Dollar Baby, partially won for her work here.

I couldn't see my way around the country's oldest boxing gym, so I kept close to Len. So close that, for the first time in my life, I was accused of behaving like Joe Frazier. What, you're Joe Frazier? he'd say, and push me away from him. I'd come in again and he'd use both hands to push me back. This went on until I realized what he was trying to teach me: I've got a good reach and I should use it. I can punch from all the way back here.

The rest is a dream sequence. I remember certain combos, the 100 crunches, Len teaching me how to drink the water he poured into my mouth while my hands were laced up. Passing belt holders in the shower. Piling up my sweat-drenched clothes and heading back out into the heat.

A blur. But one that opened up into a world of color, one that Manhattan streets can't help but maintain. "Sharing-And-Caring," a resident of park in the East Village: thank you for your poems. Alexander McQueen's Savage Beauty at the Met. Zarkana, by Cirque de Soleil. My world is brighter and richer now, for you.

The curious will be rewarded.

I left the forest to find myself wandering into a hotel lobby from the 1930s. The sign-in register had been scribbled on, but no point in adding my name. Instead, I took the small bell and jingled it. An actor approached and reached for my hand. He led me to a chair in front of a piano, and other masked audience members gathered. After playing a few keys, he lip-synched Is that All There Is? for me. Tears streamed down his face. He left the stage, took my hand, and led me back to the desk. He held out a cloth, and I knew I was to wipe his tears. One cheek--he's not moving--then the other. His forehead. I handed it back to him. He buried his face in the cloth, put it down, and kissed my hand. I knew that was my cue to walk away, and move on.

On A Journey

2011-07-25T16:24:00.005-04:00

seeing the city

from different angles

with old friends

and new

finding yourself

reflected back

How Does It Happen

2011-07-16T21:47:00.003-04:00

That it's a beautiful day, you have a list of things to do, you're tired from work, the sheets are ready to be transferred to the dryer, and yet you find yourself typing in a Google search for "cats on catnip videos"?

Sitting With The Secret Service

2011-07-13T20:10:00.002-04:00

Seeing former first lady Rosalynn Carter at Betty Ford's funeral in the news this week reminded me that I've been near the woman myself. Here's the story.

Where we lived in the late 90s was a morning's drive from Plains, Georgia, the setting for a small, unassuming rural church with avocado green carpeting, where Jimmy Carter taught Sunday School.

I summoned a friend to accompany me there one Sunday morning with the sole task of this: securing an autograph on a photo of Carter riding through my Pennsylvania hometown. My father, who collects presidential memorabilia, took the photo and had proudly displayed it in the decades since. He was the person who had alerted me to my proximity to Jimmy's church; he was sure the farmer former president would genially sit down with me over the photo and swap stories.

The church was not hard to find; the tour buses occupied more space than the building itself. Janet and I were ushered into what turned out to be an overflow room. He'd walk through here on his way to the sanctuary, but that, we gathered, was the best we could hope for. We'd have to take in the lesson on Blind Bartimaeus via the large screen television, whose volume was just loud enough to hear, if you leaned. I thought I made out something about no autographs after the lesson, but figured it was a way of telling people not to make a fuss during the church service. It was difficult, after all, to remember that this was a church and not a tourist site.

After the walkthrough and the lesson, we were surprised to hear that a busload had left, and room was now available in the church pews for the morning service, which Jimmy attends but does not lead. Janet and I quickly nudged into the line of southern elderly folk, eventually finding our way into a front pew next to a young woman sitting alone.

Christy was one of the few longtime church members, as would be demonstrated shortly when anyone who was not a first-time visitor was asked to stand. Only a handful, including the president and his men, would rise.

I knew this because shortly after we met Christy, we were joined in the pew by the Carters and their Secret Service. This was their pew, it turned out; we hadn't seen the Reserved sign posted at the other end. Rosalynn slid in next to Christy, then Jimmy, then a Secret Service. The other agent sat next to Janet at our end of the row. When we'd reach for our large purses on the floor, he'd move with us.

Church went on, and we tried to play cool the fact that we singing hymns mere feet from a former president. When the service concluded, we were led outside and into a line, where we were told that no autographs would be given; pictures with the president only. Disappointed, I decided if I couldn't have an autograph, I'd settle for a picture of the picture--with Jimmy.

I fished the frame out of my bag and left it to the side of the line as we waited. "Ma'am," a Secret Service agent said. "Please pick that up." I did.

On our turn, we handed our cameras to a church member. I showed the Carters the picture and said, "Beaver Falls, 1980!" We flanked the couple and smiled. We were immediately ushered away, at which point I heard a wife nag her husband.

"Jimmy," Rosaylnn said. "You can sign that one, can't you?"

I didn't dare look back. But moments later, I heard the Secret Service calling me again: "Ma'am?"

I turned. He asked if I'm in a hurry. I'm not. He told me to play nonchalant near the back of the president's limo with pen in hand. "We'll get you that autograph."

I dig in the large bag once again. Jimmy finishes smiling for the rest of the line and walks with his entourage to the limo, where I'm standing, nervous. I hand him the pen and picture and say, "To Dave." He never looks at me or says anything. He leans the frame on the back of the vehicle, signs it and hands everything back to me. The Secret Service whisks him inside.

The limo windows were dark, but I like to think that had I been able to see inside, I would have caught a wink, one woman to another.

Everything Makes Everything Else Easier, Except for Eve

2011-07-11T15:38:00.004-04:00

I'm a keen observer of perspective shifts. How a thing can be seen differently even while it essentially remains the same.

Getting better at something, rendering it less difficult than it was: My kids and I do this running-in-place one-mile race together at home (via DVD; the mileage, then, is not completely accurate). We noticed today how it's getting easier, though we still sweat and huff and puff quite a bit. We could, theoretically, get to the point where this activity that used to kill us--we'd skip parts, stall-- is no longer a significant challenge to our cardiovascular systems.

Experiencing something more difficult than the thing that was thought the worst: One consequence of sparring for the first time Thursday night was the feeling that I could rule the world. Another was that the other aspects of training that used to get my jitters up--5 rounds of shadowboxing under critical eyes, performing on the bags--now seem like nothing. After what I did, I can do anything. Bring it.

Living with bad makes less bad feel better. A guy in the former prisoners group I work with mentioned yesterday that he no longer has to carry around the box that tells the state where he is. He still has a big thing around his ankle, but golly he was happy to give up that box. The chunky ankle bracelet is now easy to bear.

Knowing what could be, rendering what was satisfactory less so. When Eve ate the apple, she was sampling from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, we're told. I'm thinking this means she got a taste of the possible, and what she had--what looked real good when she knew nothing else--no longer appealed. Her eyes were opened, and this would not bode well for her nor her husband and the life they had.

Any examples of perspective shifts in your life? Good or bad?

What's Happening In My Head While Someone's Hitting It

2011-07-08T09:49:00.009-04:00

Thoughts While Sparring For the First Time

--Hey. HEY!
--Oh yeah? Oh yeah?
--I can take that. No problem. Come at me again.
--She's street fighting. This isn't pretty.
--I WANT to LAND a solid RIGHT. Get your FREAKIN gloves out the WAY. Lemme try again.
--Her head snapped back. THAT'S what I'm talking about. Wait: should I feel bad about that? Her mother is watching. I'm hitting this woman's daughter.
--Actually, I don't feel bad at all.
--She's tired. She's MINE.

Thoughts Later In the Night After Sparring For the First Time

--My jaw hurts.
--Holy Sh*t I was boxing.
--Why isn't this tylenol kicking in?
--Why does my head still hurt?
--What is this bruise on my chest?
--Holy Sh*t I'm 40 and I was BOXING.
--What did any of that training have to do with someone standing there trying to hit me?
--Must learn more defense before I do that again.
--Will you do this again?
--Yeah, sure; a little more defense first, though.
--But my head. It hurts. Ow.
--What did you expect?
--Yeah, I guess I should expect to hurt a little after all that.
--Those girls were half your age.
--I rock.
--Do you?
--Sure. Hell, I wouldn't have been able to do this even three months ago.
--Yeah, you didn't even sit down between rounds.
--See? I rock.
--Maybe.
--Stop it. I want to feel good about this so that the pain in my head doesn't take over.
--You really want to do a sport that causes pain in your head?
--Maybe.
--Why don't you just recover today and see what you think?
--I'll do that.

The Theatre of Boxing, and Life

2011-07-05T08:46:00.005-04:00

"Truth is, I played at other people's styles so much I never found my own."

We'd just finished padwork, and the trainer was suggesting I watch video clips of certain female boxers. But they've got to be good, I told him, because I take on what I see. He nodded. He'd done too much of that, he said, and he never thought to turn what worked for others into something he could call his own.

When I first started boxing, I played pretend. The coiling in, the chin tucked, the elbows tight--I had to play at what I'd seen boxers do. It wasn't natural. It wasn't me. I was drawn to the sport, but the posture was not yet mine.

But with time, the fighter's stance became automatic. I stopped pretending to be a boxer; I just box. I get into position. It's what's done. My feet get a little wide at times, but I'm working on that. In general, I look like I should.

Stance, posture...it's the dissertation I'll someday write. In Where Do You Stand, I addressed how we take on roles but how certain postures are default in us, make us who we are. But I'm still wondering if trying on something new can be incorporated into our sense of self. For the good, though it could go the other way.

The trainer: he never found his way. Maybe the style he tried on fit him like an oversize jacket. A jacket that was in style, but that nonetheless didn't look right on this guy. On others, yes, but not him. He was the pimply boy in evening attire, the old lady in the trendy teenage dress.

But maybe the color was good, and the next jacket he shopped for could have been this color, but in a different size. There must be a reason why the jacket was popular, same way there's a reason Joe Frazier's lumbering won him fights.

Greg and I were hashing out some marital discord the other night, when it came to blows--or could have, had we not been reasonable people trying to solve the thing amicably. As for my end of the resolution, I realized that the thing I promised to do better at would take a little pretending, at first. Not something totally out of character, but a good way of being that had lost its way over the years.

I'm not acting. I'm not trying to be someone else. Instead, I'm urging out a little of the me I'd like to see more of.

Taking on the stance that's required. There's your default posture on the one hand; there's the guy who never found his, on the other. And then there's the figuring out how something else can become part of you again.

Dealing In The Tangible

2011-06-30T12:54:00.005-04:00

Bach and My Father by Paul Zimmer

Six days a week my father sold shoes
To support our family through depression and war,
Nursed his wife through years of Parkinson's,
Loved nominal cigars, manhattans, long jokes,
Never kissed me, but always shook my hand.

Once he came to visit me when a Brandenburg
Was on the stereo. He listened with care--
Brisk melodies, symmetry, civility, and passion.
When it finished, he asked to hear it again,
Moving his right hand in time. He would have
Risen to dance if he had known how.

"Beautiful," he said when it was done,
My father, who'd never heard a Brandenburg.
Eighty years old, bent, and scuffed all over,
Just in time he said, "That's beautiful."

"Bach and My Father" by Paul Zimmer, from Crossing to Sunlight Revisited. (c) The University of Georgia Press, 2007. Found in The Writer's Almanac, June 28.

I thought it might happen, and people who know me figured it would.

Here I am in the fitness business. So rarely does the impostor syndrome hit that I sometimes push myself to the edge of doubt: What do you think you're doing here, leading an exercise class? Who are you to try and solve that lady's back problems? I pass my own test every time; I know what I know.

When I come home from work, my husband asks, Changing lives again today? Because this business of the body is directly connected to everything else, as I've often written. I can't tell you how many times I've had a client cry during a session over something highly personal--the body business brings it all out. Too, the mere regular proximity of these sweating bodies and the familiar and kindred spirits they contain bring out the personal. You haven't seen me awhile because I've been depressed. My girlfriend left me. My husband--same old stuff. I work with the whole person, not just the muscles and bones.

But what has happened, predictably, is this: the work is so tangible I have lost sight of the thin places, as the Irish call them, those areas that can't be pinned down by the location of the knee above the foot or a right balance of fat, carbs and protein. I'm so busy figuring out things for people that I've all but forgotten there are things that are beyond us. Things we can't see. Artists address these in poems, in music. But we all sit in these places, whether or not we have the language to address them, or the ability to dance. I've forgotten that, and am becoming dull. Sad, even.

In the manner of the prescriptions I dole out, I am changing my diet: more poetry, more beauty, more contemplation of what cannot be contained in a diagram. Just in time. Won't you join me?

ShoutOut

2011-06-29T09:53:00.003-04:00

I need to get a blogroll going so you can see where I like to go out there in the vast internet. Meanwhile, here's a shout out to some interesting women.

Girlboxing. Malissa does a great job keeping us current on the state of women's boxing. And she keeps up her end of the sport at Gleason's, where I plan to meet her next month.

Creative Urges. I met Carol yesterday and bought a bunch of cool leather bracelets. I instantly liked Carol, not just because her first words to me were "So what's your story?" but because she's competing in The Warrior Dash next month (I never wanted to do a 5K, but now I definitely will). Go see and buy her stuff at her online store.

Mosaic Language Group. It was at Jill's house that I met Carol. Jill has lots of great ideas in her interesting head, and she's now following one of those dreams by starting Spanish language classes for families. If you're here in Grand Rapids, consider this.

The Glowing Edge. I don't know how Lisa does it, but she manages to make a variety of topics equally interesting. So even if you're not yet a fan of boxing, or bands, or foodie food, you'll love her blog.

D-Mom Blog: the sweet life with a diabetic child. Thanks to Leighann for highlighting my post The Last Lunch, and for all the quality work she does for the type 1 community. Click here to get there:

Comparing My Hobbies: How Live Boxing Differs From Live Theatre

2011-06-27T21:42:00.006-04:00

You can call out instructions to the performer, and he might do them.

You can drink beer.

The person behind you, who is related to one of the performers, can yell the name of the performer in a loud voice continually over the course of the time said performer is visible.

When a performer leaves the stage, people will stop him and list what he did wrong, and all the ways he can go about things differently next time.

Flying Monkeys and Me

2011-06-22T19:43:00.004-04:00

There's a video wrap-up of the Applied Theatre Conference I taught at a few months back. If you're wondering what I'm saying during my little segment, know that I am, too; that's the day, as I recall, I walked around claiming to see flying monkeys. The exhaustion was worth it; it was a great conference. The large group of people waving their arms around was the last exercise I conducted. 80 some people doing Theatre of the Oppressed. Mighty cool.

The View From The Asylum

2011-06-20T08:30:00.004-04:00

May 16, 2011

I've done just 7 days of Insanity: The Asylum, spread out over the course of two weeks. A few things got in the way--boxing, recovering from boxing, and an exercise class I help lead on Saturdays.

And then there's the fact that I couldn't put any weight on my right leg for the past two days. It's a little better today.

Let's not blame The Asylum. I've built a complicated defense for the program that turned me into an action figure, at least before the whole leg thing. Doing these extreme moves really had my body working the way it should. I felt like a well-oiled machine. A few pounds dropped away almost immediately, which had the effect of turning my muscular look into more of an athletic one. Then I ate that entire bag of chips. Anyway.

The leg problem, I believe, arrived after a series of events. The second time through Speed and Agility, which I believe to be the toughest of the workouts, I went barefoot. Blisters immediately formed on my toes, and in trying to avoid pain, my proprioception was thrown off, which is a fancy way of saying I walked funny. Other muscles in my legs compensated. By the time I got to my Saturday class, one wrong move and my knee was done.

The injury happened two days after the last Asylum workout; that fact, coupled with the results I've seen, makes me place the blame otherwise.

But considering I can't jump right now, I'm out of The Asylum until I can.

June 20, 2011

Every 5 minutes, a body part of Amy's gives up the ghost.

After recovering from the May knee injury, I tried fitting Asylum in again among the boxing and such. But doggone it, something's always tight, something always hurts. Yesterday, I swear the injuries played hide and seek--one minute it'd be my left knee, next my right elbow, then this little pain on the right side of my lower back.

I'm listening to these complaints and adjusting my physical exertion accordingly. I'm also nudging back that familiar voice that whispers, This is it. You're old. Give it up.

But I must admit that once I realized that The Asylum is impossible, I didn't give it everything. The Asylum is impossible, in that the exercises last incredible lengths and keep on coming. When you can bring yourself to look up at the screen, what you'll see through the dripping sweat is that the ex-Marine behind Shaun T has paused to catch his breath and shake off the pain, and that one of the women is actually miming half the stuff rather than using the resistance band you're about to take the scissors to.

That's the point--pushing yourself. Telling your central nervous system that you actually want to teeter toward the edge of cardiac arrest. But it had the reverse effect on me--I give up. I can tell myself all sorts of motivational mumbo jumbo, but the rest of me knows the truth: Shaun T will shut up when I hit "Eject."

With the priority being boxing and not jumping as high as Shaun T, I'm favoring what's required there--getting everything loose and agile in time for my day at the gym. Asylum has contributed to that, but I need a break from it. I'll dabble in it occasionally--I like the one mile race sequence at the start of Game Day, and the Fitness Assessment is in itself a nice workout.

I like looking back at the workouts I've thought were tough in the the past, because what I see is progress. BodyCombat, which had me heaving a few years back, would be cake now. My first fitness boxing attempt, which was awful, would be doable. My second fitness boxing class, which was like the first except ramped up and nonstop, would be a nice workout rather than an impossible one.

And now The Asylum. A year ago I would have crumpled to the ground in the first minute of any of the DVDs. So there's that. But I'm still unhappy with my reaction to pressure. I desire the challenge, yet I fall prostrate before it. Because why make life any harder than it already is? Your advice is welcome.

Mmmmm

2011-06-15T09:49:00.003-04:00

It being summer and all, I'm often outside when the paper is delivered, which reminds me of this post from February.

---------------------------------------

He's finding his way through the snow, the orange stripe of his heavy bag crisscrossing his chest. He's carrying the news. He's a paper...man.

You see men delivering the news in my part of town nowadays, not boys. I have to make this clarification when declaring my crush on the guy who used to pull up in his dented white Ford. The world would move in slow-motion the moment his door opened and his blue eyes lit on mine; somewhere in my garage, Take My Breath Away would begin to play, and I would find myself saying things before completely thinking through the implications. On the day he pulled in while my kids and I waited for their playdate to arrive, I told him why we were there and added, "But you can stay and play."

And you wonder why my husband is happier when I stay indoors.

But my efforts paid off: the paper appeared right on our doorstep without fail. No trudging out in the cold for us! Then one day, a beat-up Cadillac pulled near the base of our driveway and tossed the paper a few feet, managing to throw it in the exact path our tires travel. Every day I'd smoosh the paper until Greg finally asked him about it.

"Where would you like it?" the large man bellowed.

"Near the front door," Greg said.

"HA! I bet you would!" he said.

We had little hopes of ever reading a paper without tire tracks again, but Cadillac Man came through. To stay on his good side, we made him a plate of chocolate chip cookies at Christmas.

He sent a thank you note with our next paper. It began with this sentence:
"Mmmmmm cookies."

It also included a business card for real estate.

So we're good. It's probably best that Blue Eyes is gone; I can focus my attention elsewhere.

Because have you seen the mailman?

Found On My Camera

2011-06-12T15:38:00.000-04:00

The Last Lunch

2011-06-08T14:07:00.001-04:00

Today I wrote the last note of the school year. No more pencils, no more books, no more notes counting out each carb my boy will eat at lunch. No more waiting for a phone call at 12:05 on a high blood sugar requiring some calculations.

"I'm mad at diabetes," Theo said the other day, and also a few days before that. Diabetes is getting in the way, and although we've done all we can to keep life normal, he knows it. Some days it's just what we do; other days, we're mad. And that's okay. You need to sit in the mad, sometimes.

Because for the past nine months, packing a lunch has surprised me with its stress factor. I must pack a lunch that's healthy. That comes from the items on hand. That's not too substantial and can be finished in a short period of time. The carb count should range in the 40s to 80s, with no items too high in the glycemic index, or I'll get another call at 2pm. And finally, one I'm not embarrassed of--peanut butter and jelly again?--because a secretary in the office will see it every day.

So I'm mad.

I'm mad. I'm mad that this disease takes so much of our lives. I'm mad that we have to time Theo's baths with his shots. I'm mad that he can't sleep in. That he can't eat seconds. That if he's stuck in a tornado drill, as we were a month back, and is without food, he could fall into a coma.

That people tell me about grandma losing her leg. That I'm supposed to check his feet every night. That I have to keep these prescriptions filled and not forget anything. That people say "at least it's a manageable disease." That they have no idea how much managing there is.

The last supper Jesus had with his disciples had everything to do with food, body and blood; these elements have come to the forefront for us this past year, and have culminated, briefly, in this last lunch.

“My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow,” he said to them.

Cornerman

2011-06-05T12:05:00.008-04:00

Down the street from our apartment in Tallahassee, and just off the lovely Lake Ella, sat the offices for an Alzheimer's nonprofit. They placed an ad in my church's bulletin calling for volunteers to sit with a person with Alzheimer's while his caregiver took some time for herself.

I had a grandfather with Alzheimer's (listen to my spoken word piece here) and, though I didn't know it then, another grandmother just shy of a diagnosis. I offered to help.

Weekly I'd drive to the small home and greet Mabel before she left for her hair appointment. Mabel was from Alabama, and her mouthful of marble talk made communication tricky. I sensed she wanted me for herself, was lonely for the company, but needed her hair set. I waved her off and sat with her husband, John, who was only slightly easier to understand (he had Parkinson's, not Alzheimer's).

The shades were drawn most of the time I was there, and occasionally I'd suggest letting in a little light, but both John and I knew Mabel liked her surroundings a certain way. He had a wit about him that the disease couldn't fully take away, and would joke while demonstrating his new recliner's ability to lift him to a standing position.

Though I liked John, those were long hours. I comforted myself in the fact that I was helping Mabel and providing John with a welcome distraction. But I also couldn't wait to be done; the room was dark, the silences long, and I'm not naturally at ease with the elderly. It didn't help that our two years in Florida were already a long stretch of uncomfortable events, culminating, finally, in a move to Iowa.

There's helping people, and there's thriving as yourself. When the two can meet, the approach is holistic, better, best. After sitting with John I still made some wrong moves in my efforts to help others--teaching a cooking class to young city kids comes to mind first--but I started looking for ways my talents and abilities could mesh with others' needs, rather than make that common mistake: thinking that helping had to hurt, had to be a sacrifice.

Last week I began as a volunteer mentor at my boxing gym. Not all the kids stay to box and neither do most of the mentors, as it's a separate program. But I like that it's housed there, and that I can give back to the place that has welcomed me and taught me so much. The nine-year-old girl I'm paired up with is a sweetie, but there are some tough kids in the mentoring program, some still without a mentor. I felt like I was adopting when J ran to me upon the announcement; she'd been waiting a while.

After we finished, I changed clothes and wrapped my hands. Some of the tougher girls, I saw, were watching me with new eyes: no longer was I just some white woman smiling her way through a volunteer session; I was here to sweat it out alongside the others (and punch one of the other mentors).

Mentoring is just an hour one day a week, and it's a lot easier than my work in the homeless shelter. But finally, a comfortable fit, a match. Surely, as with all volunteering, J will give back as much as I give her; but for starters, I can give thanks that all is in order on my end.

Even more organic a match is the scene four nights a week at the boxing gym: a group of mostly African-American men guiding a group of mostly African-American boys. Eight hours or more a week. Their devotion to boxing meets the boys right where they are, and allows them a natural mentoring role. This isn't part of the mentoring program I mentioned above, and I'd guess most of these men are unpaid. I love catching moments between them that have everything to do with boxing and nothing at all.

These men are in their corner because they want to be, and the young guys know it. That's how it should be.

The Popsicle; Or, Having A Field Day With Diabetes

2011-06-01T13:36:00.006-04:00

The popsicle was due to arrive mid-morning, midfield.

The mother served her son jelly beans--five, then five again--and remembered the popsicle. Would it be a cherry one-stick pop or the break apart and share kind? The crab walk, bottle lid toss, and flag football required the energy a popsicle would provide, but not retroactively, if we could help it. Another relay. Two more jelly beans. The popsicle?

The PE teacher drives the golf cart by. How's he doing?

Just fine, the mother says, but about those popsicles.

At lunch, he says, tipping his cap, driving away.

Ah, at lunch. To be added into his regular insulin shot, then. Good timing.

A kid walks up to the mother. I had diabetes once, he says.

You probably didn't, she says.

A break. The mother walks from the schoolyard to the cafeteria. The popsicles, she says to the lunch lady, they're coming at lunch?

I heard 11:15, she says. From Joe. A minute ago. They shrug.

But are they here now? The popsicles?

They are. The lunch lady lifts the multipak from the freezer, tears open the plastic. The mother removes a box (assorted, cherry orange grape) and turns it over for the nutrition label: 10 carbs.

Ten plus 40.5 carbs packed into lunchbox equals 50.5 divided by 20 equals 2.5 units of insulin.
Did he have his diabetes yet? another kid asks the mother.

Huh? she answers.

Did he...have his diabetes yet?

Did he have his shot yet, do you mean? He nods. No, not yet. He'll get it at lunch. Right now he can eat jelly beans without a shot, because they give him energy for all the games this morning.

The teacher approaches the mother and says, 11:40. The mother performs mental calculations. What's 31 jelly beans divided by 34 carbs equal per bean, again?

C'mon, Mama! Next game! The boy grabs his mother's hand and leans his warm head on her arm. He smells like butter.

At 11:40, the mother tells her son to choose a popsicle and meet her for a blood sugar check.

No popsicles.

On the back playground right now, before lunch, the teacher calls. A blood sugar check, then: 118. Very good. The shot, in the hallway, surrounded by the children. They line up and walk away.

Eat your lunch and a popsicle! the mother calls out. Soon! She gathers her belongings, checks supplies in the school office. Just as she prepares to leave, the line of children appears again around the corner, headed back toward her.

No popsicles. The son hugs the mother. The mother fishes out part of the son's lunch and instructs him to eat.

At lunch! They'll be at lunch. The teacher has solved the mystery. Or has she? The children line up again to head back to their classroom. The mother kisses goodbye her child, the one who washes his hands when told to brush his teeth. Will her remember the popsicle? There can be no underestimating the importance of this popsicle.

The popsicle! she calls after him. Don't forget!

He turns and smiles; his blue eyes know. Then he joins the group and together, they walk away.

How Cool Is Grand Rapids?

2011-05-26T21:43:00.005-04:00

The world record for biggest lip dub was set right here in Grand Rapids, Michigan, this past weekend. At the helm of over 3,000 people was Rob Bliss, a young man known for staging large scale group events, such as massive pillow fights and choreographed paper airplane takeoffs from tall buildings, here in the city. Back when I worked for Inner Compass, I suggested a show on Bliss, and played roles as director and editor on parts of the episode. Since then, Bliss has done even bigger and greater things, one of which you can watch here:

...And After

2011-05-25T14:40:00.002-04:00

I counted; there are no less than 24 bottles of hair care product in my WC. And yet I somehow manage--daily, consistently, without fail--to look like a Before picture.

-----------

"Are you 40 yet?" the woman asked.
"Yes."
"My friends and I call the 40s the effit years."
"The what?"
"The effit years. You know, 'Eff it, I'm wearing what I want,' or, 'Eff it--I want to eat that.'"

Fair enough. Except it's only been in my late 30s, early 40s, that I've paid any attention to what I wear or eat. Just last month I figured out that if I wear these undies with those pants, an unsightly pantyline will ensue. If I eat that, I'll walk around with it between my teeth unless I brush. Yesterday, for example, I drank a protein shake during a staff meeting, and a seed took up permanent residence between my front teeth. But at least I knew it.

So the effit years, not so much. It's more like the "ohshit" decade...there aren't enough years left.

In her essay Fighting Time, champion Australian boxer Mischa Merz writes about older female boxers she's met:

What an extraordinary way to play out the narrative of female ageing in this society. The standard options are to sink into a torpor over what you have lost, lamenting some illusory power that came with your attractiveness to men. Or else you can reclaim that lost allure with plastic surgery and turn yourself into a Cougar. Or just vanish. Become a soccer mom and retreat to the sidelines.

What defiance, then, to transgress the conventions of both gender and age and remake yourself as a warrior, demanding attention and standing alone. Here was a group of women heading in a new direction entirely, finding means of exerting power and expressing themselves that seemed to be more sustaining than whatever might be gained from the ability to make men drool. In the era of the middle-age sexual predator, the ‘glam-ma’ now were some genuinely courageous individuals who, as women, didn’t want to go over the same old ground, didn’t want to bat eyelash extensions at busboys or buy enhanced cleavage.

Although I've recently chosen this warrior's way, I still do some lamenting over what's lost; it's not such the bad thing Merz makes it out to be, as would wanting a body worth its weight in drool. She's right--the path is unconventional for women my age, but I'd like to think this is not a separate path; rather, the fight is part of a larger battle on all fronts, instead. For me, it's not an either/or situation--I box because I've given up my looks, or I'm going to work on my looks and not risk a broken nose. It's "Eff it--I'm doing what I want" with a touch of "What I want is good for me." The confidence and athletic prowess gained from boxing can produce an attractiveness the Cougars can't buy.

So I'll continue to spend about five total minutes on my hair each morning, and slowly work my way through those 24 bottles. But if none of them helps me step out of the Before photo, I might just buy some more.

Is It Wrong,

2011-05-23T21:21:00.002-04:00

given current events, that my screensaver is this?

Doubt v. Possibility

2011-05-20T18:25:00.013-04:00

Thursday morning at jury duty--or, rather, jury selection, during which I was selected for not one, but two cases--I sat watching the judge. Cool woman, I thought. Friendly but firm. Jokes but keeps control. I'm a lot like that; I could be a judge.

Then came some attorneys. "When your name was called, ma'am, you hesitated. Why is that?" asked the one, of a woman who would admit she'd rather be at work. Wow, I thought, that would be something--asking direct, pointed questions to take matters where you want them to go. I could do that.

By the end of the four and a half hours, my what I want to be when I grow up list grew by several options. Never mind that each would take years of study and training; my world had expanded. I now see why Take Your Kid To Work Day exists. And why fifth graders trek to that same courthouse for field trips. To discover I could do that.

By the time I arrived at the boxing gym that same night, the sense of omnipotence had faded. For two months I've shown up regularly, and for what? Why start a new sport at age 40, one that takes hours upon hours of practice at muscle memory?

I slogged away at the bags half-heartedly through the first hour and a half. With a short time left to spare, I sucked up some self-esteem and asked if someone would work mitts with me.

The trainers looked to each other and I cracked a joke, worried that maybe nobody wanted the old lady at the end of a long night: "I know I'm intimidating."

They laughed. Then one said to the other, "You laugh, but Amy here has potential."

Ah. I had hoped for as much, and I sure needed to hear it tonight, especially from a guy who doesn't effuse praise easily. But potential--it's a word commonly reserved for those with a whole lifetime ahead of them, like the young man, a fellow boxer, who would work mitts in the end.

"You want to work out, or you wanna learn," was the first thing he said.
"Learn," I answered. "I can get my workout elsewhere."

We began. The pop was strong and crisp off the mitts. His snap equaled my punches. He was young and he kept me out there, stringing endless double jabs at the end of a long night. I jabbed 'til I yelped. Second round, I knew no one was watching the clock. "Is this five minutes?" I managed to say. He smiled and kept calling out the punches. I kept up until lactic acid and exhaustion prevailed; he was still smiling, looking as pleased as I felt.

"She's in better shape than us!" he yelled to someone down below. The she and us are warranted; my age, gender and race keep me from blending in here. But they were watching, I could feel it, and these minutes may have bridged the divide.

"That was really good," he said, almost surprised. "Really good."

A young man of maybe 17, his is the face I've seen regularly each week. He's dedicated to the sport, has given years of time and will continue to work hard every chance he's given.

"You stretch good tonight, all right?" he called to me as I was leaving.

And then he added, "Ask me for mitts any time," knowing he'll be there again next week, and so will I.

Top Ten SIde Effects From Prescription Drug Ads

2011-05-20T15:34:00.004-04:00

10. a rash on your cheeks or other parts of the body
9. red scaly patches or raised bumps that are filled with pus
8. yellow skin
7. feeling "high"
6. suicidal thoughts or actions
5. increased sweating
4. dark urine
3. clay-colored bowel movements
2. tuberculosis
1. burping

I Like What

2011-05-18T12:02:00.002-04:00

It came to my attention that I use the word "what" in post titles quite a bit.

There's The What If, a recent post about an obese woman who found a supportive community just in time. It's a story I can't get out of my head.

There's What's Left, in which I manage to tie together being hit in the head and having a son with diabetes. I like this one. Go read it.

And then, just for balance, read What's Right as well, for an honest glimpse at bitterness bumping against charity in my hard heart. I like this one a lot, too.