(working out as the sun comes up)

In the past month, I have likened myself to Jim Carrey’s character, Carl Allen, in the movie, “Yes Man”.  As soon as I made a conscious decision to open myself more to my spirituality and physicality, opportunities have been knocking on my door and I have been saying yes to everything that comes my way. In just two weeks I have attended a four hour seminar on The Anatomy Of A Yogi, I have observed the opening ceremony of visiting Tibetan Buddhist Monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery and watched as they meticulously began their mandala sand painting and I have experienced almost two weeks of Boot Camp.

In my first week of boot camp, my trainer Eric, did my body composition report. It was slightly unnerving to get my rolls measured but I walked out of his office impressed by his passion for strength and conditioning and excited to begin his training sessions. He also enlightened me on the dangers of dieting and how diets negatively affect our metabolism helping me to understand the dangers of not eating right.

When I joined boot camp I had no idea where it would take me. I only knew that I was ready for a change in my body and in my life. In a short period of time I already feel more vibrant and fit. It was not so easy to adjust to a 5:30am work out and I am still struggling with it. I do feel more energetic during the day but by the time the afternoon kicks in I am exhausted.  Taking cat naps at red traffic lights is not the safest way to rest but it does the trick.

The most noticeable change, since I started the camp, is my mood elevation. The kids are very happy that I am more tolerant and fun with them. As for my physical change, my body seems to be adjusting to the training as I no longer scream when Wade touches my aching muscles. My new strength appears in the strangest places like when I threw Tucker while we were playing in the pool. We were both shocked at how far he flung into the air. I had to apologize to him and explain that I didn’t know my own strength anymore. Brevitt and Axel, eyes wide open, were on me like white on rice. Mommy was a super hero and they were all over it.

I actually have grown to enjoy working out under the stars with Eric calling out the exercises. I figure I can handle any pain for thirty to forty five seconds. As I burn my muscles into exhaustion I repeat the names of the thousands of squats that we have to painfully endure and make comments to myself:

PRISON SQUATS: Maybe we should put Eric behind bars so we don’t have to do these anymore

BULGARIAN SQUATS: Those Bulgarians must have nice glutes

WHITE OUTS AND GATE SWINGS:  Squat and sink, squat and sink, squat and sink.

When he calls out the names of my least favorite exercises, such as the Jump and Stick and the Scissors Kick, I mentally retreat thinking negative thoughts filled with explicit obscenities directed toward Eric. I eventually come to my senses and remind myself that I am not getting up early in the morning for nothing and that I had bloody well better stick to the program and change my attitude.

The addition of calisthenics and strength conditioning into my daily life is changing me in more ways then I ever could have imagined. I feel good that I am being proactive about my health and I am determined to make it through the month.

Eric, I promise that I will try not to get there later and later every day. It is difficult to get up in the morning for a normal person and especially difficult for a chronically late dolt like myself.

Perhaps tomorrow I will bring my boon box and play the cadence songs that my father use to sing to keep his daughters moving as we hiked in the mountains.

JODY CHANT (SOUND OFF 2):

Am I right or wrong?

You right!

Am I right or wrong?

You right!

Am I right?

You know I’m right

So tell me!

You right!

Health Benefits of Exercise and Physical Activity: Brought to you by the Department of Kinesiology and Health at Georgia State University:

• Reduce the risk of premature death

• Reduce the risk of developing and/or dying from heart disease

• Reduce high blood pressure or the risk of developing high blood pressure

• Reduce high cholesterol or the risk of developing high cholesterol

• Reduce the risk of developing colon cancer and breast cancer

• Reduce the risk of developing diabetes • Reduce or maintain body weight or body fat

• Build and maintain healthy muscles, bones, and joints

• Reduce depression and anxiety

• Improve psychological well-being

• Enhanced work, recreation, and sport performance

(sun hitting Mt. Sopris)

My friend called me with the name of a man who prescribed estrogen patches and I called him immediately to set up an appointment and investigate. Could it be that there was a cure for my Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde monthly syndrome? I had been searching long and hard for something…anything, that I could take to keep me sane and normal through that one week of hell every month.

His office was located directly next to my yoga studio and so I stopped by after my class. I walked in soaked with sweat but ready to hear more about what he had to offer. “So, tell me why you are here”, he asked as he rocked back in his chair. “I know that you specialize mostly in injecting Botox, but I heard from a reliable source that you are doling out estrogen patches and I want in on it”, I said.

I listened in disbelief as he carelessly regurgitated his asinine philosophy: “Most women hit thirty five years of age and their hormones go downhill and eventually they dry up and fade away.” “Essentially, most mammals die after menopause”. Images flashed through my head of female elephants, baboons and lions dying mid leap.

I asked him if the estrogen patch would increase my chances of getting breast cancer and he smugly told me that as women get older, if they are not going to get breast cancer, or Osteoperosis than they are sure to get inflicted with some other disease to help their demise. “You see, your prime was at twenty five” “As you get older something has got to give”, he said. Was he telling me that I should just cash it in and take the risks?

Repressing the urge to load up and fire out my opinion, I endured his speech. One, of many, benefits of being my age is that I am able to keep my mouth shut when I know it is pointless to open it.

A half hour later I walked out of his office stunned. In my forties, I have found an inner peace and an entirely new view on life and love. My senses are deepened and my openness to the world much greater. I am learning Spanish, writing, reading novels, juggling three boys, relishing in the affections of my husband and deepening my bonds with my girlfriends. Who was this man who could not appreciate the beauty of women in their forties?

Admittedly, getting older has been a huge challenge physically. My friends and I all complain about the new tire around our waists. I have to eat less to stay trim but the food I am eating now is far healthier than ever before and makes me feel like a champion. Mentally, I never have had a good memory so I cannot blame age on my inability to remember things. I can blame my father though, who let me lay unconscious on the couch when I was about eight years old. After I fell down the stairs he presumably felt it would be okay to finish the paper before taking me to the hospital.

This is not to say that I don’t miss the attention I got when I was younger. I’ll never forget one summer day, when I was in my twenties, when I was crossing the street and a young man poked his head out of his car window and thanked me for looking so pretty in my summer dress on such a glorious day. But I was silly, self-conscious and shy and completely unable to handle the compliment.

A few months ago, a man approached me and said that he had spotted my smile from afar and he felt compelled to come over and tell me that it had lit up his day. This time I was much better equipped to absorb and process his compliment and left him marveling at how wonderful it was that my smile could brighten up a stranger’s day.

It is not easy watching the lines deepen around my eyes but if I had a chance to do it all over again, I would smile all the more. It is difficult to go out dancing with my friends without acknowledging that I am a good ten or even twenty years older than the sexy girl dancing next to me but I still bust a move on the dance floor and feel as if I’m in my twenties.

At the end of the session the man told me that he would give me a break and not charge me for his time. Walking out of his office I actually smiled thinking that this is what I love about being in my forties. I could listen to a man’s horrifying opinion on woman and not be taken down by it. I will not allow myself to get caught up in the emotions of an unwise, narrow minded, egotistical, pompous man who thinks he has all the answers to life.

Women are faced with enormous hormonal changes as we get older but this does not mean that we are fading away. Au contraire, our minds and wit are strengthening as well as our inner and outer beauty. I am in my prime right here right now, not when I was twenty five and my hormones were raging, in a different way. I was lost and confused.

I was so grateful to come home to my Wade and my children who see me for who I really am. An energetic, nurturing mother and loving wife who will always be there for them because they need me and I will, as long as I can help it, never fade away.

Enjoy these famous quotes on age:

Agatha Christie:

I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming that comes when you finish the life of the emotions and of personal relations; and suddenly find – at the age of fifty, say – that a whole new life has opened before you, filled with things you can think about, study, or read about…It is as if a fresh sap of ideas and thoughts was rising in you.

Anais Nin:

We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.

Ashley Montagu:

I want to die young at a ripe old age.

Jeanne Moreau:

Age does not protect you from love, but love to some extent protects you from age.

Sir Arthur Pinero:

Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but they die young.

Colleen McCullough:

The lovely thing about being forty is that you can appreciate twenty-five- year old men more.

I was singing like a bird yesterday morning with everything moving like clockwork. It was going to be my first day spent without the children. Coffee was brewing and pancakes were steaming. Axel and Brevitt woke up early so that they could get to Mountain Boarding camp on time and Tucker had gone to sleep talking about the Bouncy House that he was going to jump on all the next day. I looked outside and it was sunny for the first time in months and my bike was sitting outside waiting for me to take off on it. It was going to be a perfect day.

I went to wake up sleepy Tucker and my singsong day came to a screeching halt. His eyes were glued shut with gook. My mood plunged into deep despair as I told him that it looked like he was going to have to miss his day at camp. The day took a complete 180. The chanting began and my head started spinning, “I want to go to the bouncy house and I’m going to repeat myself all day until I get to go”. I desperately looked at Wade to fly in, as he usually does, and save the day. “Tucker looks fine to me? Doesn’t he to you”, I pleaded. He looked at me with his beautiful, sleepy eyes and apologetically rejected this request for him to save me. I am a freak about health and was the last person to expose other children to my infected boys, but couldn’t I today be evil and ignore the problem? Poor Tucker, so disappointed, and poor mommy.

By the end of the day my agitation had grown to a dangerous level. As adorable as Tucker was I was in no mood to answer his unwavering banter of questions. Nothing could pull me out of my self-pitying mode even when he said, “Why is that horse all alone in the field? He should giddyonup to the other horses so that he is not lonely”.

I cringed as his demands for me to listen to him increased on our long hour drive to the doctor. My intolerance level was at zero. Why couldn’t I just have one day off? WHY???? Finally I blurted out, “Please Tucker, pleasssse stop talking. Sometimes mommy needs to go into her own world and not have to answer questions all day long”. After a few moments of blessed silence his little voice inquired, “Mommy, are you going to ever come back from that world?” I had to think about it for a second.

I am ashamed that I was so annoyed by such a sweet, funny little boy. As a mother you have to learn how to easily switch tracks and accept changing circumstances. Yesterday, I was resentful that I had lost my anticipated day of freedom and little Tucker paid for it.

Wade came home from work and found me in the closest getting ready for yoga. I was met with his mating call, which I returned with, “I’m hormonal, my hair is trying to leave my body because it thinks it belongs in somebody’s nest, my head is about to blow off my body and I’m fat.” He backed off laughing and told me that I was the most beautiful when I felt the most unattractive. How could I run off to yoga after that comment? Easily!

I burst into yoga from the pouring rain, only to see that I had gotten the schedule all mixed up. They were already an hour into class. I was not going home.

I SOS’d my friends Karl and Melissa and they met me at Cafe Bernard, the most delicious french restaurant in Basalt, for an engaging evening of conversation and red wine. We sat with Bernard, the head chef and owner, and listened to his stories as we dined on his mouth watering sautéed Calamari and perfectly cooked Pomme Frites. It was a divine evening. An end to a magnificently horrible day and I felt fortunate that I was able to reap the benefits of small town living.

As I slipped into bed I reached out for my Wade and my hand rested on a very soft, silky head of hair…. Tucker! I exhaled a deep sigh and fell asleep knowing that tomorrow, hell or high water, I was going to get the day that I so desperately needed.