blissin' in the wind

I like my gym. I really do. It’s clean, well-appointed, relatively free of meat market muscle heads and hardly ever out of toilet paper in the ladies’ room. Most importantly, it’s right around the corner from my house, which means I have to pass it as I travel to and fro from whatever self-indulgence I am to-ing and fro-ing from, and I am easily guilted into dropping in for an hour or so. Eventually. It keeps me honest and helps me maintain the illusion of moderate good health even as I maintain a steady diet of egg nog and fruit cake; at least until I look too closely in a mirror. I tend to favor equipment located far from the reflecting walls.

Not that I love all forms of exercise. I hate lifting weights, which is tedious and painful. No pain, no pain, is my motto. If the weight is too light, I lose count as my mind wanders off in search of weightier subjects (What ever happened to that trial of Kenny Boy Lay?...Does that woman think anyone believes those things are real?…) If the weights are too heavy, I find I can only count to 3.

But I love yoga and I love to run. I love the way my body feels as I push it to bend deeper, reach further and move faster. It’s probably just a chemical thing; a combination of increasing adrenaline, endorphins and serotonin levels that makes it feel so good ~ which just goes to prove that there’s nothing I won’t do to achieve an unnatural high.

Still, I had an odd free hour yesterday after a busy day of doing whatever it is that I do but didn’t feel like hitting the gym. So I did something I haven’t done in ages. I took a walk.

The air was clear and a brisk 50 degrees. The low autumn sun gleamed hard and diamond-bright, and the sky was soon ablaze in spectacular shades of red, pinks, orange and fuscia. My Mp3 Player was tuned to 93.1 Jack FM (motto: “we don’t take requests ~ we don’t encourage bad behavior”) and the ‘Boys of Summer’ was pulsing through my head. I tried to run, but could feel the cellulite jiggling and stopped at once; it was spoiling the mood. Overhead the maple leaves, ignited by the sun, flamed red, pink and saffron. Striding swiftly uphill, I paused at the top to take in the last splash of magenta as the sun exploded over the reservoir.

I tried to stop mentally describing the scene in glaringly awful purple prose and realized, not for the first time, that I am a very bad writer, even when only talking to myself. I decided I didn’t really care and, grooving to Steely Dan’s “Do it Again,” fully understood that I was just one happy little idiot. Let finer minds struggle to be good ~ I would be content to be colorful.

Trotting downhill to the strains of “Stray Cat Strut,” I tried not to grin too broadly as motorists sped past, lest they recognize me as simple. By the time Queen hit their stride with “Somebody to Love”, Christmas lights were twinkling on against the now dusky mauve sky and I didn’t bother trying not to smile, or even let slip a skip and a stray strut or two. I grinned and nodded at neighbors staring back at me from garages and behind the leashes of dogs. When I finally hit my own front porch, John Fogerty was wailin’ “Born on the Bayou,” and I was blissin’ ~ winded, happy and at one with the universe.

You know, I hardly ever get that from the treadmill. I really need to get out more.