Soggy Shoulders

November 14, 2013

Soggy Shoulders

            For whatever reason one of the things I worried about most when I began walking on the shoulder of the road was getting caught in the rain.  I became obsessed with cloud interpretation.  Were they getting darker? Were they moving faster? Prior to heading out for my stroll, I would scan the skies with the frantic intensity of a post apocalyptic survivor searching for imminent signs of acid rain.

            I’ve had some close calls. I’ve walked in some light mists and one brief, moderate shower, but on those occasions I was prepared and carried a plastic poncho, so the impact of the precipitation was minimal.  My concern was being caught completely unawares in a downpour at the farthest point in my daily stroll…..and that’s exactly what happened last week.

            I mistakenly believed the television meteorologist who assured me that, despite the gloomy skies, there would be no rain.  The deluge started a third of the way into my walk. There was nothing to do but pull the hood of my apparently not waterproof windbreaker tighter and keep walking.  As I stood on the concrete island at the intersection which serves as my turnaround point, I could see the drivers waiting to make their left turns staring at me, and I suddenly realized that this had been my great fear….looking ridiculous, being the focus of critical stares, appearing foolish to strangers.  It was a situation I’d been desperate to avoid my entire adult life.  On the heels of that first realization came another one----I didn’t care. 

            In that moment I remembered a summer afternoon many years ago when my now-grown daughter was just five or six.  A sudden, non-violent summer shower caught us in the yard, and, because our house is isolated from neighbors and street traffic, we stripped to our underwear and danced in the rain.  I watched my sweet girl, sturdy, brown legs lifting and pumping as she pranced and jumped around with her long, dark hair hanging in wet waves down her back, her grinning, gap-toothed face turned to the sky, arms outstretched, and marveled at the picture of pure, unadulterated joy of being she presented.

            Somehow my daily walk has not only changed the way I look, but has also changed the way I look at the world. As some of the drivers and their passengers grinned and waved at me, I grinned back.  I did look foolish.  Here was this crazy lady standing in the rain, water running down her face, and, apparently, she was enjoying the experience. I was enjoying it!  I was soaking wet, raindrops dripping off my nose, and it was a hoot!  I’d gotten caught in the rain, and, despite what some of my former students might have expected, I didn’t melt into a hissing pile of workout clothes, wailing, “What a world! What a world!”  And, more importantly, I didn’t morph into the shamed, humiliated individual I was so often in the past. I turned my face to the sky, grinned at the clouds, and just kept walking.

            I will shamefacedly admit that, when I encounter some Chicken Soup for the Soul type saying, I’m the person who rolls her eyes at the over-simplified, sickly sweet sentiment.  After my shoulder stroll in the rain, however, I remembered a plaque I saw at a recent art fair.  It read, Life isn’t about avoiding the storms; it’s about learning to dance in the rain.  Hmmmm….okay, so maybe that one has some merit.

Zen and the Art of Shoulderwalking

October 15, 2013

Zen and the Art of Shoulderwalking*

                                               * with apologies to Robert M. Pirsig

         

          The self-improvement program I began two and a half years ago was not my first attempt.  During the thirty-three years of my career, I started some diet program or exercise regime at least once a week.  Some would last for several weeks or months; most didn’t make it through the end of the first day.

          While trying to balance the demands of my career, childrearing, and housekeeping, any attempts to exercise more or eat better were simply additional tasks that went on a “to do” list I grudgingly struggled to complete.  Eventually, they became abandoned, unchecked items on that list, just another self-condemning indication, like the size of my thighs, of my failure.

          When I did exercise, my focus was always on getting through the experience as quickly--because there were always a thousand other demands to tend to--and painlessly as possible. Exercise was a burdensome task I didn’t want to dwell on.  I continued with that same attitude when I began walking on the shoulder of the road.  Initially, I listened to audiobooks as I walked and then changed to a music playlist.  Regardless of what was playing in my ear, my goal was the same --- to try to mentally remove or distract myself from what I was doing.  That attitude, I discovered, was my mistake.

          Any familiarity I have with Zen comes completely from pop culture. Scenes of serenely smiling, robed masters dispensing pearls of ancient wisdom from cloud-enshrouded mountaintops or comical attempts to “be the ball” come to mind when I consider what I supposedly know about Zen. While I’ve never studied the philosophy and, admittedly, my sources of information have been skewed by the media, I do think I’ve uncovered some nuggets of beneficial information.

          One of the most accessible Zen concepts to understand focuses on mindfulness, being present in the moment.  Philosophers tell us the past is unchangeable and the future is unknowable; in order to experience life abundantly, therefore, the present should have our complete attention.  On the shoulder of the road this concept translates into concentrating on the walk, to embracing all aspects of my daily stroll, the pleasant and unpleasant alike…..and, perhaps even more than merely accepting all aspects of the walk, I’m expected to revel in them.   

          In the last few months, in particular, I’ve been working on that reveling, on taking delight in all elements of my exercise routine.  Rather than grouse about the heat of summer days, I’ve tried to soak up the warmth and think about its benefits.  When the day is gray and cloudy, I focus on the positive aspects of a shadier walk and the relief of receiving some rain.  Whether it’s the scores of cars streaming past me or the miles of black asphalt I travel on, I’ve attempted to find the uniqueness of each seemingly similar walk, to find some enjoyment in each day’s journey.

          Reveling in the walk’s physical demands has proved more challenging.  In his magnificent poem, I Sing the Body Electric, Walt Whitman catalogues, in great detail, the parts of the human body down to eye lashes and finger joints, but not only does he enumerate body parts, he celebrates and rejoices with awe and wonder at the delight of being a human being, with heart pumping, lungs filling, eyes to see, and mouths to sing.  My aching knees, swollen feet, and painful back hardly seem to be sources of jubilation, but, when I use the discomfort to remind me that my body is strong, moving and working as it should, the appreciation for how I’m made and the privilege of being able to exercise comes.

          Whether my approach to embracing my daily stroll seems influenced by Zen philosophy, the count your blessings admonition of my Christian upbringing or, even, the cotton candy teachings of Pollyanna, I’m attempting to find the extraordinary in my ordinary routine which reaches the same finish line every day.  The larger lesson is, of course, abundantly clear; all of us---all of us---are headed to the same ultimate destination. Our mindfulness and celebration of this one trip we get will determine how much we enjoy ourselves along the way.

The Shoulder is an Erogenous Zone

August 12, 2013

The Shoulder is an Erogenous Zone

I love to make the people stare; they know I got that certain savoir-faire.”

                                                                                          -Christina Aguilera from Express

My daily walk turns me on.

Let me be clear. I don’t mean that the increase of endorphins and serotonin levels resulting from the physical activity creates a euphoric sense of well being in me.  I mean (Here’s where we cue the familiar background music from 70’s porn movies---“ bow chicka bow wow”) the walk turns me on.  Like another pleasurable pastime adults enjoy, I eagerly anticipate my walk; I’m totally enthralled in the experience while I’m doing it; and I’m completely sated when it’s over.  Two or three important elements contribute to making me feel all worked up and stimulated each day by my eighty minutes on the shoulder of the road.

Spandex is one of the reasons I feel so good when I walk.  When I first began my daily stroll, I wore loose-fitting shirts and stretch-waist polyester pants in an attempt to disguise my shape.  As the months went by and I continued to walk and lose weight, I confidently chose more form-fitting workout clothes, spandex shirts and pants that smooth and shape and cling in the most flattering way. I also discovered a wide world of athletic undergarments, including – who knew? – an underwire sports bra.  While such a garment might not appeal to some ladies, I come from a long line of buxom women who proudly display their curves, so no bosom-flattening athletic bras for me.  I’ve always had an hourglass figure; it’s just that, prior to the weight loss, the hourglass was extra large.  Now I love striding up and down my hills in sleek, flattering workout clothes that don’t need to disguise a thing and actually sort of demand, “Hey, look at me!”

While the clothes I wear make me feel pretty darn sexy during my walk, part of the jazzed up feeling I get also comes from my posture.  Following the sports experts’ advice about effective walking, I’ve focused on how I hold my body when I walk –head high, shoulders back, chest out, stomach pulled in with rear tucked under, and pelvis tipped up.  While all those steps sound complicated, they blend together to create a stride that is powerful, confident, and just happens to show off the body to its best advantage.  Actually, it’s not so much a stride as…..well, it’s a strut!  There’s no other word for it.  Arms and hips swinging, I strut my way past lines of traffic with a posture that shouts, “How ya like me now?”

Another factor that makes my walk such a turn on is the music I listen to.  I’ve talked about my walking playlist in a previous post, but there are a few songs, in particular, that lend themselves to on-the-road hotness.  From her opening lusty grunt to her last whispered, “Oo la la” in the song, Paris, Grace Potter along with The Nocturnals demands that a hesitant lover make his move and then boldly describes what she would do in his place. In Sexy Back Justin Timberlake’s lascivious invitations to “get your sexy on” would make any girl tingle all over, but especially when she’s already hot and breathing hard.  The queen of provocative walking songs on my playlist, however, is Christina Aguilera.  In two songs from the movie, Burlesque, Aguilera growls her suggestions to the listener to get up, strut, and show off those sexy moves. Some days I get so caught up channeling Christina’s wanton encouragement playing in my head that I’m just a pole short of delivering a full-throttle runway show for the folks speeding down the highway.

This newly-acquired comfort with showing off puzzles me.  I’ve spent most of my adulthood trying to avoid being looked at.  I have a reputation for being obsessively punctual, and even habitually early to events, but people never realized that my compulsive punctuality was the result of being mortified at the thought of walking into a room already filled with a large group, searching to find an available spot, tugging and squeezing my way between rows of seated folks, and wedging myself into a usually too-small chair, the focus of everyone’s attention.  While my deeply buried, internal performer has always desired attention, the overweight, insecure, exterior me cowered at the thought of facing humiliating criticism and ridicule.  My sense of freedom on the highway shoulder is probably fostered, in part, by the fact that my audience speeds by at sixty miles an hour.  Whether they approve or disapprove of my display, the ambiguous honk of a horn fading in the distance is all I ever hear.

      My daily walk is most satisfying.  After being all pumped up for eighty minutes or so, I arrive home from the shoulder of the highway breathing hard, sweaty, and happily exhausted.  It’s a good thing I don’t smoke, or I’d need to light up a cigarette.

Shoulder Savages

May 31, 2013

Shoulder Savages

            A fight broke out in my neighborhood at three a.m. the other morning and woke me up.  Neighborhood is a little misleading, since the houses in my subdivision are separated by large, wooded lots, and the noisy altercation was a lot closer.  I was awakened by the thud of bodies hitting my roof! The vicious growls and high-pitched squeals of desperation indicated a raccoon brawl was taking place just above my bedroom.

            Ordinarily, I wouldn’t write about the fight, since it didn’t take place on my daily shoulder walk, but the next morning, as I walked through the narrowest, most heavily wooded section of my gravel road, I heard a distinct growl in the underbrush nearby.  Suddenly, I reconsidered whether the menacing growls I heard on the roof were really those of a dominating raccoon.  There have been cougar sightings in our county.  One of the big cats decimated a livestock herd last summer in a nearby town.  Could that have been what I heard in the undergrowth?

            I have to give my mom and dad credit.  When I told them my theory about the sound from the bushes, they managed to keep completely straight faces with almost no eye rolling at all.  They’ve listened to my wild imaginings for fifty-eight years and have learned how to respond.  Could the source of the sound have been something other than a wildcat running amok in High Ridge they asked, using the calm, deliberately neutral voice of skilled, mental healthcare workers dealing with an excitable patient?  I conceded that it was possible the sound might have been the deep-throated croak of a bull frog; although, I quickly pointed out that the two sounds are similar, so we couldn’t completely rule out the cougar possibility.

            It’s true that I haven’t run into too many wild critters on my daily walks, and few, if any, of those could truthfully be described as savage.  The largest animal I’ve encountered was a white-tailed buck standing in the middle of my little gravel road very early one morning last July.  If I understand how to count the prongs properly, he sported an eight point rack and considered me with something more like disdain than savagery. After giving me a bored glance, he strolled---it’s the only word for it---up the hillside into the woods.

             Other animals I’ve met on the road were considerably smaller than the deer.  Rounding a bend on my street last week, I was surprised to see a line of three tortoises, each separated by twenty or thirty feet, moving down the road.  I felt like I was bringing up the rear of a very slow moving parade.  None of them took note of me as I passed by.  Actually, most of the animals that cross my path on my walk pay little attention to me.  Rabbits and squirrels dash back and forth across the road as I march along, taking care of their business despite my presence.

            Not surprisingly, the animals I’ve had the most contact with on my daily stroll are dogs.  When I first started walking, I carried a large stick, but only through one section of my route where there were lots of dogs.  I stopped toting the stick when I realized that my neighbors are pretty responsible; for the most part, the dogs were all secured.....with a couple of exceptions.

            One morning last summer as I was returning home, a dark streak moving through the trees caught my eye.  I wasn’t sure what the movement was or even if I’d really seen something, but as I entered a straight section of the road, I could see two hundred feet in front of me, standing stock still, a large, black Rottweiler. I came to a halt, uncertain whether I should continue toward the dog, and it stared straight at me without moving. In my head, I began to hear the music from The Omen.  Remember that old movie from the ‘70’s, where every time the large Rottweiler appeared, accompanied by mysterious Latin chanting, some type of horrible mayhem occurred?  (This is the kind of melodramatic thinking that my parents have had to deal with for years.)  After a moment, the dog turned away and raced off up the road.

            My neighbor’s Rottweiler is a mild-mannered sweetie named Raven. I decided she had escaped somehow and was the dog I’d seen that morning.  When I commented to her owner that I’d seen the dog on the road, however, he maintained that she’d never left the yard……cue the music from Twilight Zone.

            My other canine encounter had a different outcome.  As I was moving through that section of the neighborhood with the strong dog presence, I saw a medium-sized, shepherd-type fellow racing toward me across a couple of unfenced backyards, yapping all the way.  I grabbed up a completely insubstantial tree branch and tried not to panic. Deciding that the best defense is a good offense, I turned to face the dog, pointed my stick at him like Moses condemning Pharaoh with his staff, and, using my best James Earl Jones voice, bellowed, “Nooooo!”  Instantaneously, the dog’s perky tail clamped down between his legs, his ears flattened, and he dropped to the ground.  From his belly-dragging posture, his whole demeanor whined, “Geez, lady! I was just trying to be friendly. Chill!”

            Okay, so maybe savages is a bit of an exaggeration,…..but I’ll keep looking out for that cougar.

Off the Shoulder

May 20, 2013

Off the Shoulder

            The first official Earth Day was celebrated in 1970. I was wrapping up my freshman year in high school, and, thanks to some community-minded teachers, I took part in a celebration activity that first April.  In all honesty, I don’t remember which teachers headed up the push to get involved or exactly what we did to mark the occasion.  I think we worked to clean up a local stream or highway.  Regardless, I was excited to be part of the nationwide effort to improve the country. Mine was a generation instilled from our earliest school days with a desire to make things better.  Just a couple of years ago, while going through some old boxes, I found a Weekly Reader with a cover story about Lady Bird Johnson’s campaign to beautify America, so the desire to “Give a Hoot. Don’t pollute.” has been drummed into me for a lot of years.

            I thought about all those efforts and all that idealism on my daily walks as the 43^rd Earth Day celebrations were being covered in the news a few weeks ago. Before my shoulder walking days, when I zipped along the road in the car, the appearance of road crews with their bright, yellow bags, picking up trash along the highways made my heart swell with pride and satisfaction.  It felt good to think that our efforts have had a lasting impact, have made a difference. The regular appearance of crews picking up trash allows us to convince ourselves that the problem of roadside litter has been solved. The up close and personal point of view I have now while walking on the shoulder, however, makes me think we might be kidding ourselves. One glance under the trees reveals hidden oceans of trash that don’t go away.  The crews clean up the edges of the highway, and we feel good about the job being done because we don’t look off the shoulder.        

            I know that some roadside trash ends up there by accident, but too many items can only be on the road because folks choose to toss them there.  Just recently on a side section of my daily walk, a sofa and chair were left on the shoulder.  The two items didn’t just fall off a truck; someone left them to…what?  Such big pieces will sit there for months slowly breaking down, a blight on the scenery.  On my own little street, someone dumped a mirrored, bi-fold closet door, the glass shattered.  The broken glass makes the door both a danger and an eyesore.  Are the trash dumpers simply able to pretend they had nothing to do with the mess?  In the coming weeks as they drive by the spot will they simply avoid glancing at the side of the road? I’m puzzled by the thinking that allows folks to leave their garbage for others to deal with, and I know it’s a odd segue from litter to self deception, but I wonder if the cavalier litterbugs illustrate the fact that being human means being able to delude ourselves. Goodness knows, I’ve done it enough. 

            Recently, while changing my winter wardrobe for warm weather clothes, at the back of a high shelf, I found a pair of slacks from my pre-weight-loss days.  The pants are the only piece of clothing I’ve kept.  I knew they were on the shelf; they weren’t a surprise.  This time when I looked at them, however, I had a surreal, disjointed moment where I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that these were my slacks. If I’d been in a movie, there would have been that strange in and out of focus effect to illustrate my confusion. I was suddenly struck by how large they really were.  I knew that I had worn these slacks weekly when I was working, that they had actually started to fit snugly.  I knew it, but suddenly, as I held them up with my hands nearly three feet apart, I knew it. Standing easily in one leg of the pants, I realized how deluded I’d been about my size, and I was overwhelmed with shame and humiliation. I flashed on moments from my teaching days when I struggled to move up and down the classroom aisles or to slide into a desk to sit next to one of my students, and the reality was simply too painful to dwell on.

            And maybe that’s the answer; perhaps self-delusion is a survival technique, meant to help us humans survive the difficult realities of life.  Maybe it’s too cruel to ask us to face the cold, harsh truths about ourselves and our lives every second of every day. Maybe it’s a blessing that we’re able to turn a blind eye, ignore the obvious unpleasantness, conveniently forget our past mistakes, or kid ourselves about the real motives behind our actions.  So I guess it’s a good thing that spring has arrived, and the hillsides are leafing out.  For a few months, at least, the scenery off the shoulder will be lush and green, and we’ll be able to feel good about the appearance of things.

           

A Soundtrack for Shouldering

April 30, 2013

A Soundtrack for Shouldering

            My taste in music is eclectic; I blame my parents.  I was raised in a household where, while the primary music genre we heard was country and western, there was nothing unusual about hearing Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, and Nat King Cole all in the same day.  I remember the day when I was eight or nine, and a package arrived in the mail from Columbia House Records.  Dad had apparently decided that we needed some musical culture in the house and had ordered the Great Masterpieces of Classical Music, four or five giant LP’s that were played so much that the phonograph needle eventually stuck in some of the grooves.  On a single day in our house we might move from the melodic strains of The Blue Danube to the pounding piano chords of Great Balls of Fire and on to Fats Domino’s Blueberry Hill without thinking that anything unusual had taken place. Considering my musical upbringing, it’s not surprising that my playlist for walking on the shoulder of the road is a mixed bag of styles and artists.

            Initially, I listened to audiobooks when I was walking.  I thought listening to a book would distract me from the physical demands of the walk.  The books were enjoyable enough; I chuckled at Rachel Maddow’s snarky narration of her book, Drift, and the crazy premise of Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer kept me totally entertained as well.  I did quickly discover, however, that I couldn’t listen to erotic romances.  I kept slowing down and closing my eyes, not a good idea on a four-lane highway.

            My move from audiobooks to a music playlist occurred by accident.  On one of my walks, the audiobook I was listening to failed, so, two miles into my route, I was forced to switch to a recently created playlist.  I discovered that the music energized me, and I knocked several minutes off my total walking time.

            Creating a playlist for my iPod was a newly acquired skill at that point.  I got the idea after reading Fifty Shades of Grey.  Yes, I know, lots of people got lots of ideas after reading those novels, but one element of the books that I’ve never heard discussed were the music references that occur throughout the trilogy.  I investigated some of the titles and discovered a gold mine of wonderful music, classical and pop.  I tried my hand at setting up a playlist on my computer, and the result was one list I called, Grey Tie Songs—the sensual, sexy ones—and another entitled, Classical Grey, a compilation of breathtaking operatic and instrumental pieces.

            At the same time I was learning to create playlists, I discovered a website, walk.jog.fm, that provides a long list of songs based on their beats per minute as a means of creating a more rigorous walking program.  The website included titles of all different genres and time periods, and, while my playlist includes plenty of familiar classic songs, thanks to the website, I incorporated songs that were new and unfamiliar to me, even though some of them had been released a number of years ago. These tunes and the groups who performed them probably weren’t on my radar because I deemed them too young for me or some of that weird music the kids were listening to—say that last part in a crotchety, old geezer voice.  Since I only wanted musical pieces as background to my walk, I let go of any judgment about my music and their music and just enjoyed.

            The Black-Eyed Peas are a perfect example. Of course, I knew who the Black-Eyed Peas were.  Heck, I even knew who will.i.am and Fergie were, but I’d never really listened to their music.  Now, Pump It, Rock That Body, and Boom Boom Pow are three of my favorite, most energizing songs to walk to.  In the same way I would never have listened to Green Day’s American Idiot or Fall Out Boy’s Sugar We’re Goin Down before the playlist; I love both songs.  It wasn’t Adam Levine’s antics on The Voice that made me a fan; I came to appreciate him as he, and the rest of Maroon 5, crooned in my ear that it was, “getting harder and harder to breathe.”  Maybe feeling better about myself, physically and mentally, has made it easier to move out of my rut; anyway, my internal geezer is off in a dark corner somewhere waiting for me to come to my senses.

            Some of the songs appeal to me because they have distinctive beginnings that refocus my attention on the road and help me maintain a lively walking pace.  The opening chords of Joe Walsh’s Rocky Mountain Way always lead me to include a little head banging motion and some air guitar while I step a little quicker along the roadside.  Although Roy Orbison’s Pretty Woman and Justin Timberlake’s Sexy Back certainly aren’t contemporaneous tunes, the sensual, pounding start of each song causes me to throw my chest out and add a little more swing in my backyard as I move down the highway. And, when I hear the iconic opening notes of Grand Funk’s We’re an American Band, all I want to do is yell, “More cowbell!” and pump my legs even faster.

             I’m transported back in time by a lot of the old tunes on my playlist.  Peaches and Herb’s disco classic, Shake Your Groove Thing, makes me smile as I remember being on the dance floor with friends, …bumpin’ booties, havin’ us a ball;  while Eddie Money’s Take Me Home Tonight and Led Zeppelin’s Black Dog call to mind steamy car windows and some heavy duty make-out sessions in high school.  And, even though I’m outside walking on the highway, every time Born to be Wild begins to play, I swear I can smell a distinctive aroma wafting through the air.

            Some of my favorite walking tunes are what I think of as “tough broad” songs.  When I’m walking on the side of the road, and Alannah Myles starts threatening to Rock This Joint, I suddenly feel like I’m wearing a black, leather jacket and motorcycle boots, and any bikers who hoot at me as they ride by get a curled lip snarl because on the shoulder I’m as tough as she is.  I’m able to tear up the hills faster with more energy when Kelly Clarkson assures me that what doesn’t kill me makes me Stronger.  And, whether it’s Carrie Underwood’s Cowboy Casanova, Shania Twain’s Any Man of Mine, or, even, Aretha Franklin’s Respect, I figure, along with the exercise, I’m getting some great relationship advice from gals who know what’s what.

             I’ve never fallen while walking—although, I probably just jinxed myself—but I’ve come close on a couple of occasions when I was unconsciously trying to dance and walk at the same time when the first guitar chords of Footloose began to wail.  Elton John’s You’re Sister Can’t Dance has the same effect on me.  Two or three songs on the playlist, like Gloria Estefan’s Conga and Ricky Martin’s She Bangs fall into the Latin, salsa genre that also make me want to dance.  I have to be on guard against allowing too much derriere swinging out on the highway when those songs come on. Don’t want to distract any truck drivers.

             I won’t let myself listen to the playlist unless I’m walking, so I don’t get bored with it, and I’m always looking for new songs to include, ones that have the requisite number of beats and, maybe, some sexy undertones. But whether it’s the godfather of soul declaring to me that he feels good or Carly Rae Jepsen pleading in her baby voice to “call me maybe,” I love every number on my eclectic playlist.

Cold Shoulder Redux

April 2, 2013

Cold Shoulder Redux

            When I wrote the first Cold Shoulder post, I felt some pressure to publish it quickly.  After all, the essay was about walking in cold weather, and…well, spring was suppose to be coming.  I really did fold away my long underwear and put away the gloves I used when walking.  So after the big Palm Sunday snowstorm, when I was finally able to move outside once again, with the now unpacked gloves and warm undies, I spent the first few minutes of my walk grousing to myself, grumbling about how I didn’t think this kind of weather in March was natural, how I just knew all this snow wouldn’t be good for the spring plants, how I thought it was high time all the winter weather was gone.  Then….and I mean this….really…I heard the universe chuckle.  The sound was probably inside my head, but it seemed to come from all around me, and I heard, “How many times do I have to remind you, PJ, you’re not in charge?”  Then, as if to punctuate the point, as I walked under a snow-laden evergreen tree, a shovelful of melting snow tumbled onto my head and down the back of my shirt.  Momentarily stunned, I burst out laughing and said out loud, “Okay, I get the point. I’m not in control.”

            That slushy reminder stayed with me on my walk as I pondered a couple of recent episodes in my life which, while vastly different in significance, both caused me some pain that, ultimately, I couldn’t do anything about.  Just prior to the snowstorm I spent three days at the bedside of a dear aunt who, after nearly ten years of battling cancer like a warrior, was moving finally from struggle to peace.  As the hours ticked by around that hospital bed, I witnessed the harvest that results from a life spent reaching out to others. My aunt personified love.  Her motherly instincts drew her to children, in particular, and they to her.  In the hospital room I saw tiny children, unfazed by the sights and sounds of medical machinery.  Their happy focus was the lady they loved lying in the bed.  Their little hands reached out to touch her, and they were eager to kiss her cheek.   I watched daughters, biological and adopted, minster to their mother with untiring patience and tenderness.  I saw sisters determinedly put their grief temporarily aside as they stroked a fevered brow and sought to bring some comfort to their baby sister. My sweet aunt, who even with waning strength smiled at and caressed sweet babies and softly teased her children, was too young and too dear an asset to this world to pass on, but the decision wasn’t ours to make.

            The second unhappy, and certainly less momentous, event occurred when I returned home from my sad vigil. I discovered that, due to a difference in opinion, I’d been ejected from the group of high school classmates who were organizing our fortieth class reunion. The fifty-eight year old adult me was a little surprised at how sharply the high school teenager inside felt the sting of that rejection. I once observed to a therapist friend that I thought relationship behavior never really advanced beyond high school. He raised an eyebrow and said, “Oh, PJ, it’s worse than that; it seldom gets beyond junior high.”  I understand his point now.

            As I puffed my way through slush and snow, up and down the highway, I experienced that kind of clarity that happens for me so frequently on the shoulder of the road.  The only certainty in this world, I realized, is that, like my walk, life will be full of hills and valleys.  Loved ones will pass on; petty cruelties will be inflicted, and I’ll be helpless to prevent any of it.  I won’t be able to cling to those I love, and I won’t be able to change the hearts of those determined to hurt me.  On the other hand, I thought, as I acknowledged the timelessness of snow covered trees and rock bluffs under crystalline skies around me, I’ll experience a lifetime of emotions and sensations…..the touch of my parents’ kisses against my cheek, the feel of my child’s tiny fingers wrapped tightly around mine, the sound of my family’s laughter when we gather together.  I get to watch sunsets, swim in the ocean, smell freshly mown grass, and eat ice cream.                                           

            So let me get this straight, I don’t get to have any real control over what happens in this life of mine, but to compensate for that helplessness, I’ll be touched by exquisite moments—large and small—of overwhelming love and beauty?  I think, maybe, that’s a deal I can live with.  Although, since I’m absolutely certain that spring is here to stay, I’m putting those long johns away, and I am not getting them out again until November…..unless…. you know….it gets cold again.

Shoulder Bags and Other Accessories

March 16, 2013

Shoulder Bags and Other Accessories

            Some of my fondest childhood memories have to do with our weekly summertime routine of driving around to yard sales, more honestly called rummage sales in those days.  My mother and another neighborhood mom would throw all the kids in the car and off we would go on our treasure hunt. In the old days there was some economic necessity involved in searching for a good bargain at a yard sale.  These days, however, the excitement of a unique find is my primary motivation. I still love a good flea market, estate sale, or, even, a trip to Goodwill.  The local Value Village has a half off sale the last Wednesday of every month……I mark it on my calendar.  Coming from that kind of background, it’s no surprise, then, that one of the most delightful aspects of my daily walk is all the cool stuff I find on the shoulder of the road.

            The first thing I remember finding on my walk was a promotional bag made from recyclable materials like the reusable shopping bags sold in grocery stores.  The name imprinted on the side sounded like a technology firm or a pharmaceutical company-----“Mega-prima-dyne” or “Ultra-acme-sync.”  Anyway, it was a clean and dry, tan bag with a drawstring that I used to bundle up some clothes for Goodwill---circle of life.

            I’ve come across several more bags in the last year, but a lot of other things as well.  Of course, I’ve found money, lots and lots of pennies, but quite a bit of other change, too.  I even found a dollar bill one morning after a nighttime storm.  Clinging damply to the grass at the edge of the pavement, in another ten minutes it would have been dry enough to flutter away.  How the money gets on the road intrigues me.  Do people throw money out car windows?  Are there really enough numbers of people walking on the road with holes in their pockets or change falling out of their pants to account for the amounts I find? I figure I’m averaging two or three cents a day. I’m saving for a Lexus.

            Another puzzle had to do with the number of razor blades I noticed on the shoulder of the highway.  Why would people throw single-edged razor blades out the car window?  The answer came to me after I saw the first of many discarded syringes.  I’ve noted in an earlier post that lots of interesting activities are occurring in cars traveling along the highway.  Obviously, there are some terrifying ones as well.

            Happily, I’ll never have to buy another bungee cord.  I’ve found eight of them this year.  Most of them have been the black, thick rubber kind clearly meant for heavy duty tasks, but there have been a few light-weight, colorful ones, too.  I imagine ladies with gardening gloves using those to secure flats of annuals in the back of their Volvos.   I wouldn’t have thought that there’s a lot of skill involved in using a bungee cord, but, clearly from the number I’ve found on the road, I don’t understand the expertise required.

                        My long list of found objects includes a fan belt, a pair of safety goggles, three pairs of sunglasses, a grouting sponge—still in the package, most of a roll of weed whacker string, a nut driver—which sounds provocative, but is just a hand tool—which sounds provocative, a pair of work gloves, and a crowbar. Why does a heavy, metal crowbar get thrown to the side of the road….someone trying to ditch the evidence?  I also found a Missouri vehicle license plate and an Illinois driver’s license.  The driver’s license belonged to a twenty-something young man with light brown hair and blue eyes. I anonymously mailed the license back to the address on the card.  I imagine the kid reacting either happily—“Hey, dude! Somebody sent my license back!”—or in freaked paranoia—“Duuude…..who would send my license back?”  Both scenarios make me grin.

            Speaking of grinning, in December I found the treasure that brought the biggest smile to my face.  Lying in the grass, all shiny red and round, was a giant Rudolph nose that had obviously fallen off the front of someone’s automobile.  I attached it to my own car, and, throughout the holidays, the sight of it never failed to make me giggle.  Next year I hope to find the antlers.

            Lots of children’s toys and parts of toys end up on the side of the road.  When I spy their bright, primary colors or sparkly pieces of trim, I wonder if they’ve been accidentally dropped or deliberately tossed, the victims of a cruel older sibling or a fed up parent.  The most disturbing toy part I discovered was a tiny, disembodied Santa head that stared at me with blank, black eyes and a benign smile as it rolled gently back and forth in the breeze—a very Stephen King moment.  Recently, I found an intact blue and orange, plastic space gun.  I’m certain it was set for stun before its intrepid owner was forced by some marauding alien to drop it on the side of the road.  I’ll keep it close at hand in case I encounter the nasty fellow on my daily walk, and he tries to snatch one of my found treasures.

The Cold Shoulder

March 9, 2013

The Cold Shoulder

            Long underwear has never been a fashion consideration for me. Even when I saw them in an old movie or in a Three Stooges rerun, I never thought, “Hmm, now there’s a look.”   So finding myself standing in a department store considering the merits of one kind of long underwear over another was a completely novel situation.

            I realized around the end of October that, if I planned to keep walking into the fall and winter, I would have to make some specialized clothing purchases. An acquaintance of mine once camped out in Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon—I forget which—in the dead of winter.  She described how despite all the high-tech equipment her group used, they all slept with small piles of M&M’s on their chests, so they would have a vital source of energy close at hand when uncontrollable shivering woke them periodically throughout the night.  The story was told with much pride in their accomplishment and fortitude, but I never understood the appeal. I had no intention of trudging my way through piles of snow in sub-zero temperatures. I just wanted to be able to maintain my walking routine as far into the winter as comfortably possible, emphasis on comfortably.

            Despite my vision of a derby-wearing Pa Kettle in a heavy, thermal union suit with that handy button flap in the back, the long underwear I ultimately purchased was delightful.  Thin and silky, its sensual, caressing quality was unexpected. It slipped softly over my skin and smoothly under my workout clothes. Frequently after finishing my walk, I would pad around the house in my filmy, winter undergarments just because they felt so good.

            The other apparel I was forced to don against the cold weather was less appealing.  There was too much bulk. After all, my goal was to shrink my silhouette, to move more gracefully and lightly through the world, not to add layers to my frame and shuffle my way down the road.  I didn’t like wearing hats or scarves; my hair kept the first from fitting properly, and the latter made me too warm. Thin gloves didn’t provide enough protection from the cold, and thick ones felt awkward and caused my hands to sweat.  I did purchase a cool pair of earmuffs with built-in headphones for my iPod.  I thought they’d be a perfect way to keep my ears warm and listen to my playlist.  The problem with them was two-fold.  They made my ears too hot, and I couldn’t remove one side to listen for the traffic on my small subdivision street.  I spent most of the cold season adding and dropping various articles of clothing, trying to get the balance just right…without much success.

            Becoming a long john wearer wasn’t the only thing that ended up surprising me about my cold weather walks.  My plan, initially, was to simply endure, to shoulder through the daily challenge because continued walking was necessary for my self-improvement program. I would simply grit my teeth and get through the ordeal each day.  So I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that I was enjoying my chilly strolls. Even though I no longer walked under the vivid, blue skies of summer or surrounded by brilliant autumn colors, like a man comparing the airbrushed picture of a magazine model to the real girl, I came to appreciate the unadorned loveliness of a winter day. There was unexpected beauty in the bare limbs of the trees, in the slate grey skies, and the breathy puffs of vapor that punctuated my climbing. The shapes of distant hills were easier to see, and a lake hidden by foliage in the warmer months was revealed in the cold clarity of winter.

            Although more plentiful in summer, wildlife seemed more noticeable, ironically, in the cold season.  A lone hawk high in a tree was easier to spy with no leaves as camouflage.  Squirrels and rabbits provided entertainment as they scurried around in the thinner underbrush of the season.  Even the occasional deer could be seen wandering through the trees.   When there was snow on the ground, all sorts of tracks were visible.  I recognized the big trident of the turkey and the double half moon print of a deer, but the rest were an interesting mystery.  Just recently as I walked along the highway, a flash of brilliant blue caught my eye, and I watched a bluebird perch on a bare limb.  I laughed aloud as he stared grumpily at me, puffed out his feathers to ward off the cold and became the spitting image of one of those famous Angry Birds.

            So now in these days between the end of winter and the beginning of spring when the tiniest hint of change is showing on the trees, as I reluctantly fold away my silky long johns for the season, I feel a certain nostalgia for my chilly strolls.  Contrary to conventional wisdom, the cold shoulder is lovely and welcoming.

Shoulder Safety

February 28, 2013

     While my friends and my parents--my two most avid cheerleaders--have all been extremely supportive and encouraging of my weight loss work, in the last year almost all of them have expressed concern at some point about the fact that I'm walking on a busy, four-lane highway.  I do understand their anxiety, and I'm not blind to the possible dangers.  One day last September a flat-bed semi blew one of its re-treads all over the north bound lanes while I watched from the south bound side of the highway.  Fifteen minutes earlier, I had been walking on that very spot.  Thinking about those possibilities, and other physical exercise issues, I decided to say something about shoulder walking safety.  I guess this is my disclaimer.
     First, and most importantly, I have no credentials, not in medicine or in physical training.  I'm not making any recommendations about anything because I don't know anything.  Any practices I talk about have grown out of my own ignorance and what seems right for me and shouldn't be construed as a suggestion or advice.  Second, the purpose of this blog is not to promote walking on the shoulders of highways.  Frankly, my family and friends are probably right in thinking that it's not the best idea.  I appreciate their concerns, but I do take a lot of safety precautions.  I never walk in inclement weather or when visibility is low, and I wear brightly colored clothing.  I always walk toward the traffic--although, in the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that, when I first started walking and hadn't developed enough stamina to do the full loop, I would retrace my steps back to the start which meant walking with my back to the traffic.  I was never comfortable in that situation, and I think that discomfort motivated me to keep pushing on to make the full loop as quickly as I could.
     I know that walking facing the traffic doesn't mean that I will be able to leap away from an out of control car, but I always watch to see if the oncoming drivers are paying attention to me.  On my route I walk close to the far edge of the Highway 30 shoulder which is wide and well-maintained.  The rumble strip at the edge of the highway pavement alerts drivers when they begin to drift which is fortunate because it probably won't surprise anyone how frequently I see drivers holding their cells at the top of their steering wheels as they attempt to text and drive, and, not surprisingly, drift around their lane of traffic.  Actually, it can be entertaining to watch what the drivers are doing.  There's a lot of eating, drinking, singing, laughing, arguing, and kissing going on in cars speeding down the highway.  Who would have thought the interiors of our moving automobiles were such a hotbed of activity?
     Assuming drivers are going to do what they're suppose to do is dangerous, so, even when the signal lights which mark each end of my loop are in my favor, I wait until the traffic has come to a stop before I step off the curb to cross those four lanes of highway.  At first I experienced some real fear about those two times I cross the road on my daily shoulder stroll.  There's a pulse-fluttering moment of vulnerability when stepping over that white line onto the pavement where pedestrians don't really belong.  Early on, after checking that I couldn't see any cars for nearly a mile, heart in throat, I scampered fearfully across the lanes as though some phantom semi would suddenly materialize and mow me down.  As I've grown physically stronger, however, I've developed a certain confidence that keeps my overactive imagination and fearful negativity in check.  Crossing the highway more easily now, I'm also more willing to take on new challenges like performing in public, sharing my creative compositions, and even, terror of terrors, going on blind dates! Yikes!
     I do listen to music as I walk--more about my playlist in a later blog--but, when I walk on my two-way, subdivision street, I always remove one ear bud, so I can hear the traffic coming up behind me.  Although the majority of my neighbors sweetly wave at me or even call out encouragement when I'm walking in our neighborhood, that small street is, ironically, where I've felt the most uncomfortable; not everyone slows down or gives me a wide berth.
     As for dealing with the actual physical exertion of doing the walk, I don't have too many guidelines.  I don't carry water with me.  My five-mile trip takes an average of 75 to 80 minutes--I'm not setting any land speed records.  That amount of time seems short enough to go without a water bottle even in the early morning hours of July and August.  I do chew gum to keep my mouth moist.  I drink water regularly each day, but not immediately before I walk.  I can't be stuck halfway through my routine and need to use the bathroom.  I always use sun block and wear sunglasses, not just for the glare, but in case grit from the highway flies in my face.  I invested in a good pair of walking shoes and some wool socks which I have to replace soon.  It makes me grin to think that I've literally worn out a pair of athletic shoes--me!
     The concerns of family and friends not withstanding, I'm being pretty careful, and my walk is the highlight of my day.  Okay, end of disclaimer.  More posts to come.

Shouldering the Load

February 26, 2013

     On March 21, 2011, I was 56 years old, six months into my retirement after having taught high school English and theatre for 33 years, the single mother of an only child who had left home for her first year of college, and I weighed 280 pounds.  I'd love to say that I woke up that morning knowing that the day was going to be a turning point in my life, but I can't.  I never believe people who say they knew they'd reached a pivotal moment in their lives.  Life doesn't work that way.  The only way we know we've crossed a threshold or reached a tipping point is when we pause to look back.  So I had no idea that day would end any differently than the hundreds of other times I had pulled out an old Weight Watchers program and a small, spiral notebook and began, again, to try to do something about my weight.  I don't remember what my thoughts were.  In my heart of hearts, I probably thought I'd end up putting the papers and notebook away at some point without being successful, again.  So no one was more surprised than I was when, day by day, I continued to stick to the plan, and not just day by day but week by week and month by month and, ultimately, year by year.  I'm a little less than a month from the two year anniversary of that day in March, and I've lost 115 pounds so far.
     As significant as that weight loss journey has been, however, it's not the subject of this blog.  That story is merely background.  The events of this blog begin nearly a year after that day in March when I decided that I needed to add some exercise to my program.  I had lost about 55 pounds, but progress had slowed, so I decided to take a walk.  My community isn't particularly conducive to walking.  There are no sidewalks, no paths, not even much paved roadway unless you count the nearby state highway which is what I decided to do.....walk on the shoulder of the highway.  And that's what I've been doing for nearly a year -- shouldering the load on the shoulder of the road.  Pounding away nearly every day at my five mile route on the shoulder of the highway, I lost the additional weight, but I also began to realize that there was more to the load I was carrying than ounces and pounds.  I came to understand that insecurity, loneliness, fear in a thousand different forms, disappointment, and a crippling inferiority complex were all part of the burden that weighed me down as much as any of the fat that hung from my bones.  The hours I've spent striding up and down hills as the traffic roared past have allowed me the opportunity to focus on those elements of my weight, and, the more closely I examined those encumbrances, the more they began to diminish along with my hips and thighs.  Trekking alongside the highway, I've had some moments of clarity, discovered a few insights, and enjoyed some silliness.  So I thought over the next days or weeks or months, I might share some of the things that I've discovered and experienced as I've shouldered the load.