Dress Sizes

I dislike making lists.  I pride myself on my memory, and ability to unfold the recent events that might make up the numbered items on the twice-folded piece of paper shoved into the right pocket of a pair of blue jeans and referred to as needed.   It goes against my grain, and if I was to peel back the layers, I’m sure I’d find that the act of scribing notes to myself is associated  with mental weakness.  It’s not, of course, it’s a pride thing. I have amazing short-term recall, but it’s the older memories that blur between fact and fiction.
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I read the poem….

“You Bring Out The Mexican In Me”
by Sandra Cisneros

 I fell on it.  I think that is the best way to find things, when it’s the last thing on your to-do list.

• Go to cleaners
• Stop at pharmacy and pick up Birth Control Pills
• Drop off the clothes from weekend closet clean out at the Goodwill
• Other mindless tasks that you hate doing but that need to be done

Nowhere on the list is

• Discovery of the unexpected

Without a warning, the unexpected finds its way into your life.  Such was this poem for me today. I read it through once without breathing or blinking.  I finished, and then released my muscles, my eyes leaked, and the air trapped in my lung bust through my mouth blowing me, and the chair on wheels that I sit on a few inches back.  WOW, that was big and mighty, so big that the sentiment settled into my skin for a long winter’s night.

I put it aside hoping to forget about it, but the voices clamoring in my head had other plans for me.  “It’s like the book, like the book,” they said.  Not exactly, but close enough to for me to pause and consider the possibility of an epiphany.  I had finished Hungry Woman in Paris by Josefina López recently, and the sparks flying in my head were connecting the dots between the two readings.
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Before I deemed myself an artist, I was a Stepford Wife.  I put everything and everyone before me.  In my pre-artist world, I didn’t grant myself privileges of indulgence or excess.  It’s odd to admit that to myself because I have always been employed and capable of supporting myself without any help.  Referring to myself as a Stepford Wife is my metaphor for assimilating into a catatonic mental state and denying my own self a full existence.   (For the record, I have never been tall, blonde, anorexic  looking, and although once coveted, physical perfection isn’t me, and is not what my past lovers would say about me if interviewed by Barbara Walters.  They’d say, almost dazed and in a whispered voice, ’she slips into your skin’, and then they’d look down at their hands maybe touch a forearm, and then finish by saying, ’she never really leaves’.  But they wouldn’t say I was Stepford type material-physically anyway, I’m not a beauty.)
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I am always on the lookout for quick weight-loss-programs that don’t involve me having to change anything in my lifestyle.  I like to eat good food, drink hearty wine, and I although I despise exercise with every ounce of my being, I am at the gym five days a week.  Still, I keep watch for miracle cures because I devoured Cosmo, Glamour, and Teen Beat magazines back in the day, and realize the only way for me to be truly happy, is for my body to be rail thin.  So, if there is a pill that promises to give me a size 9 body—gimmee, gimmee. 
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I smiled when I pushed open the doors to my local gym this morning.  It was the first time since joining that each one of the treadmills had a passenger. Having no choice I climbed up on the elliptical for my daily pain, popped the ear buds in and turned on my MP3 player.  It’s a new year, a new decade, and the perfect opportunity to start afresh. 

I don’t put much stock in annual resolutions, although I am guilty of having made one or two over the years. Having learned from my failures I know that if I am to be successful, these ‘resolutions’ can’t be annual events.  My psyche requires regular reevaluation and constant reminding, especially when I am committing to something as difficult as regular exercise routine.   I hate exercise as a rule, but since I like how it makes me feel—strong and agile—I recommitment regularly (really, I bribe myself daily).

The beat to a Black Eyed Peas song that had circled around on the MP3 player ignited me as the match does to the wick of a Roman candle.  In seconds, the sweat was running down my brow moving too swiftly for me to dab it off with my sweat rag and dripped onto my chest before settling into my t-shirt.  I wasn’t going to win a Hooter’s contest but when I caught my reflection in the mirror, I couldn’t help but smile.  I was red faced and dripping sweat—I liked what I saw staring back.  I greedily gulped down the heavy air that wasn’t quite making the trip to the bottom of my lungs leaving me gasping.  I would feel fantastic later even though I was miserable about that moment when I remembered how much life is like exercise.        

It’s difficult and complex, it’s fun and exciting, it’s challenging and painful, and more often than not, there is no visible gain despite the effort put forth.  I’ve been working regularly for a year, and I’ve only managed to shrink one dress size.  I don’t have much to show for all that dripping sweat and weekly renewal to myself.        

 The annual reflection that comes at the end of the year begs the same question—what have I accomplished in the last three hundred-sixty-five days, or for that matter, the last ten years?  It is a daunting question to reflect upon, let alone try to answer, and for me, it’s a nagging life question that slaps me cold with violent frequency.  I say violent because I find myself standing guard on my own conscience to prevent an entry and subsequent hostile takeover.        

I battle my memories occasionally and end up condemning myself as well as the choices that I’ve made.  I am guilty of over-evaluation.  I catch myself revaluating major decisions and choices in my life under the guise of if I understand the past that understanding will balance the present, and eventually I’ll lay a plan for the future.    Of course, I know this is a crock of BS, which is why I stand guard.  There aren’t many points to beating myself up over all that I didn’t or might have done, scream to the gods in despair.  I am here now doing more than I have ever done.  That’s got to be a good thing, even if I only dropped one dress size last year.