The Body Monologues Helen Pavlin
1
Me? I was always the inactive type.
I’d be reading while others gardened,
I’d drive where others walked,
I’d stay home when others hiked and camped.
"Never stand if you can sit, never sit if you can lie down."
I appropriated this advice for my own.
And I didn’t worry about my health,
confident I came from good sturdy stock.
Imagine the invasion of my mental space when my grown up children,
visiting, told me they’d cased the place and chosen the best gym for me!
Me? Gym? Silky leotards, young people, loud music, pointless movement.
They persisted.
I agreed to a visit.
Weird how I decided to keep going even after they went home.
How I worked to move from the small yellow dumbbells (I never used the tiny pink ones)
to the next size up.
How I worked at balance on the big ball and took pride in holding myself plank-stiff
even though push-ups continued to defeat me.
Then: I could carry my groceries in a single trip up three flights of stairs.
Novel! Real life outside the gym.
2
After a while I discovered the heated pool aqua-aerobics class
– so much gentler on my joints.
You can see the pain leave the faces of those with arthritis
as they walk down the ramp.
“It’s your body: you decide.” says the instructor.
But she sets a cracking pace.
The water respects my troubled back.
I am surprised how many old songs I recognise.
In the change-room, showers, and benches to sit on,
we half-dry our varied bodies, and struggle to pull up our knickers.
I stay for coffee. Some-one jokes: “You didn’t recognise me in the shopping centre.”
“I know you better without your clothes on,” I reply.
One morning Lucy, a twice widowed Filipina in her seventies,
shows us a photo on the real estate page: the house of the man she intends to move in with after they have both sold their properties.
A devout Catholic, she giggles: “I don’t know when we will get married!”
“You’re too old to worry about that – just do it!” says my friend,
who is glad that she just did it,
not knowing that her time would be so short.
3
“You need back exercises. You need to develop your core strength.”
I listened sceptically to the physiotherapist.
"More squatting, less bending."
I resume the physio’s exercises whenever my back lets me know it has detected that there’s insufficient maintenance going on,
after the holidays I give myself,
thinking I am fit again.
4
The ancient Chinese practice of Chi Gung is not about strength, of course.
It’s about breathing with movement.
“Make it beautiful,” says the Master, correlating movement with breath.
We learn to push our bellies forward, making room within for extra air, extra oxygen.
Beauty comes from smoothness of movement,
and gentle regular breathing, preparing body and mind for meditation.
Easier said than done, of course,
but I do get better at letting stray thoughts float away again without putting up a fight.
5
I sign up for a yoga retreat.
One instructor I am familiar with.
I recall once bursting out laughing in his class.
The movement he calmly requested was, to my mind, preposterous.
But then I watched as others did it!
What it is to have lost one’s spring!
The other instructor was new to me.
She planned each movement to arise out of the previous one – a beautiful sequence.
Her svelte form flowed from one pose to another.
I missed the pauses given by the first teacher,
when my body could come to terms with what it had just achieved.
I came to see her asa relentless machine.
My mantra became: “I can do anything... as long as it’s not forever.”
Like a member of AA,
I would exhort myself to hang on just for this hour,
just for this exercise,
just for this position.
6
What about circus?
I’d seen some older women do things – strong things,
sharing their strength and balance.
Support for each one's different abilities.
I love to watch them but could I do it?
It seems I could. . .
