The Great Exercise Dilemma

I’m having a hate affair with exercise. Getting people to the gym is no secret; somewhere between only 30 and 45% of Americans get regular vigorous workouts, according to one study, and most who do are white with middle to upper class incomes. OK, so I’m Caucasian. But that still isn’t compelling me onto the treadmill.

I did some heavy thinking (as opposed to lifting) about why I’m so gym resistant, and came up with some answers. It’s not exercise I dislike, it’s artificiality. In fact, there’s nothing I love more than to go for walks and bike rides; not only do you get your aerobics, but you get to feel the wind or sun on your face, to observe the neighborhood, to stop and smell the roses along the way. It gets you out into the world.

On the other hand, going to the gym feels as obligatory and uninteresting as flossing teeth, or spending a day with people you can barely tolerate. All these things certainly feel good when they’re over, but the time spent doing them brings up, for me at least, feelings of deadness rather than aliveness. (See my earlier post on "Quitting the Gym" in March 2009.)

I finally see that what I am waiting for is a lifestyle that requires me to be out and about in the community, or on the go, much of the day. I want to get my exercise by living, by seeing, exploring, discovering, and doing - not by being around sweaty people reading magazines or watching TV and running in place. The problem is, I don’t know how to make this happen at the moment. And, I hate being cold and wet, so no amount of rain gear is going to make me excited to go for long jaunts in the chilly drizzle of Seattle.

I try hard to do things well, and either because of this or because of my sensitive nervous system, get easily overwhelmed. Even after relaxing my efforts and standards quite a bit recently, having to add yet another thing to keep on top of adds to the overwhelm. Information streaming in from all fronts imbues every choice with heaviness: what food, clothes, cosmetics, and home furnishings contain the least toxins? How can I get to work and heat my home without contributing to climate problems? Is aerobic exercise enough or must I lift weights? Am I getting the newly increased RDA for Vitamin D, and if not, will I get cancer? Is instant oatmeal as healthy as the kind that cooks for five minutes? How can I think about self-fulfillment when half the planet can barely feed themselves? Were these shoes made by child slaves in a foreign sweatshop? How can I eat eggs and meat with the inhumane horrors of factory farming coming more to light each day?

You can see why ignorance can be bliss. Every hour of every day these conversations go on in my head, weighing pros and cons and moral dilemmas. Maybe my anti-gym sentiment is a kind of sit-in, a protest of the conditions of our culture that have evolved us away from physical labor and true community with our neighbors, toward hollow substitutes for these life-giving qualities.

But if I want to keep my health – another thing to worry about – the common wisdom (which isn’t always so wise, by the way) is to get regular exercise. And so I need to find a way to “flip” my feelings about the gym, to remodel my approach to what is now an essential strategy for disease control as opposed to one for keeping my figure, which is pretty much gone these days anyway.

It will likely remain a struggle, at least until winter ends, when walking and biking during the lengthening days comes not only more naturally, but delights the soul as well. I can't wait.

The Wisdom of Being Itchy

One of the bazillion symptoms of menopause is itchiness. A minor one, usually, compared to major league problems like hot flashes, terrible mood swings, and dried up mucous membranes, it’s a bit like Chinese water torture – a scratch here, a fidget there, furious scraping with the fingernails at 3 a.m. It starts small and then spreads, until you are clawing at your body as if being invaded by a nest of fire ants. Even just typing this paragraph, I have scritched and scratched in about twenty places.

Symbolist that I am, I like to think of this menopausal itch as a snake-like shedding of the skin. Remember what our mothers used to call growing pains? It seemed dismissive, but when you think about it, kids grow like corn stalks. And, farmers say, if you’re quiet enough, corn grows so fast you can hear it. If a time-lapse camera were focused on a person standing perfectly still throughout his or her lifetime, I have no doubt we’d witness the same kind of twists, turns, and re-shapings as a seedling breaking ground and reaching for the sun. Growing up – and then growing back down with age – endlessly stretches and reforms us, inside and out.

It’s no secret that menopause is a time of great “homecoming” for many women; maybe itchiness is also a restlessness for change and authenticity. Today, on the last day of this month’s period, everything is getting under my skin. My desk space, where I spend ten hours or more a day, is cramped and doesn’t work; some of my relationships are bothering me; our apartment feels smaller and less appropriate every day; and I have no reliable or suitable place to do my artwork. You could chalk up this irritability to shifting hormones, but as Dr. Christiane Northrup points out, symptoms that arise during PMS and menopause are also truth tellers in women’s lives, if only we’d learn to listen. It’s during these times brain chemistry shifts us to be more inwardly focused, more intuitive, and less interested in meeting the needs of others.

Life is beginning to feel too small again. I say again, remembering that the last manifestation of this urge resulted in a purging of belongings, jobs and residence, and a nomadic trip around California with my bewildered but loyal husband in tow. I don’t think we’re in for anything quite so drastic this time, but I do sense changes are in the wind. (Aren’t they always?) The key is to make them consciously, to be discerning about the pros, cons and reasons for each choice.

I don’t know exactly what is being called for other than making room for what I want, which is emerging with rather slow but exciting clarity. There is no way to hurry this process; it’s been a lifetime in the making and now is not the time to be impatient. (Impatience is what the last 49 years were about.) What's essential is that I watch carefully and, like this passage from Zorba the Greek, let nature do her thing.

"I remember one morning when I discovered a cocoon in the back of a tree just as a butterfly was making a hole in its case and preparing to come out. I waited awhile, but it was too long appearing and I was impatient. I bent over it and breathed on it to warm it. I warmed it as quickly as I could and the miracle began to happen before my eyes, faster than life. The case opened; the butterfly started slowly crawling out, and I shall never forget my horror when I saw how its wings were folded back and crumpled; the wretched butterfly tried with its whole trembling body to unfold them. Bending over it, I tried to help it with my breath, in vain. It needed to be hatched out patiently and the unfolding of the wings should be a gradual process in the sun. Now it was too late. My breath had forced the butterfly to appear all crumpled, before its time. It struggled desperately and, a few seconds later, died in the palm of my hand.

That little body is, I do believe, the greatest weight I have on my conscience. For I realize today that it is a mortal sin to violate the great laws of nature. We should not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should confidently obey the external rhythm."

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Most children don’t have to think twice about fun. For them it comes as naturally as breathing, and is almost as spontaneous. But fun often caused more trouble than it was worth for me. Gaiety and the ways of children seemed to irritate my father, and I could never be sure what would set him off. One minute I’d be in the back yard on the swings having a blast, the next I was getting several firm swats for disturbing his nap with my laughter. An ice cream cone was a wonderful treat - until it started to drip, which brought a scolding for making a mess. Even sand on my clothes after a frolic at the beach was met with a sour face and swearing. It was almost enough to make me wish I hadn’t bothered.

My father was also a stern environmentalist who tried to instill green values in us early on. I remember a seashore outing on which I let my candy wrapper float off the boardwalk onto the sand below. Before I knew what was happening, he picked me up, roughly tossed me over the railing, and forced me to retrieve it. The hard landing and his impulsive violence left me mentally numb.

So you can see why I have never been able to understand the appeal of leisure-time devices like snowmobiles and jet skis. They are an environmental menace with their pollution, noise, and potential to harass wildlife. They turn once-peaceful parks into places to be avoided. They are for thoughtless, fun-loving, beer-drinking partiers who think of nothing but themselves. They are, in the words of my father, for boobs. I felt this way for most of my life.

Enter Robin Williams. A symbol of unchecked hilarity and spontaneity, he is to the straight-laced adult what Id is to Ego - in dreams, anyway. That’s where we met one night about seven years ago. He was swimming on the far side of a small lagoon. Near him floated a jet ski, waiting to be ridden. “Come on in,” Robin said with a big grin, motioning me toward him. “The water is fine!” I awoke before a decision could be made.

Not long after that dream, I vacationed on Florida’s Sanibel and Captiva islands, whose warm waters and shell-strewn beaches have long been favorites of mine (until several years ago, when escalating prices made them unreachable). On this particular visit I heard about an opportunity to take a guided tour of some outlying islands. Always first in line to see anything new, I was eager to sign up, but there was one caveat: we’d explore the islands by jet ski.

By this time I was aware of the straight jacket I'd worn most of my life. Determined to try something new, I called in my reservation and gave them a hefty, non-refundable deposit.

The night before the excursion I could barely sleep. Not only was it expensive, but I had no idea how to ride a Wave Runner, and no idea if I would have a good time. The anxiety was excruciating, but my love of the water and sun and islands won out. In the morning I joined a family of four and our guide for a quick beach-side introduction to safety and vehicle operation. Fifteen minutes later, we saddled up and slowly headed out of the marina toward the open water. In a few minutes we were flying, bumping and splashing over wavelets and wakes from other boats. I could not believe how fast these things went! Nearby, dolphin fins sliced the water, and the shadows of groupers and sting rays drifted by under the surface. For nearly two hours we followed the guide around the perimeters of deserted islands, gliding quietly past inlets hiding private getaways, or simply sitting and soaking up our good fortune to be there. Opening up again when we were too far away to be heard, I twisted the throttle as far as I could, and almost fell off from the acceleration. It took a while to get used to slamming down on incoming waves; but it was unavoidable if you wanted to see what you were made of.

I zipped over the water with an unflagging grin, the Florida sun warming my body and the temperate sea washing away my fear. I was outside of time and myself, happy beyond belief from intimate contact with waters I had been longing to lose myself in for years. I was closer to the sea than a sailor. By the end of the day my neck and shoulder muscles ached mightily from the force of forward motion. But it was worth it, just to learn that delicate balance between holding on and letting go.