You know how it is!
this body in decay...
months without the needed stretching, exercising, “the workout”
merely a walk here and there
lip service to the obvious need for exercise
but now a chance
here in this gym
I book a trainer.
Yet here, in this gym
I report
be-sneekered and T-shirted up
looking a bit floppy
with my pot belly
eager for her advice.
All this makes the French trainer smile in condescension.
Around are the enthusiastic toned, buffed
gym designer-wearing treadmillers and bikers
weight lifters and ugh! crunchers.
All busy and looking so earnest
as they work so hard to burn burn burn calories
and tone tone tone muscles.
I come to her for advice and more for inspiration
as to how to overcome my absolute inertia
my abhorrence of this physical business
this boring mind-killing workout
hoping she might just work with me just this once
and that should do it for ever.
Maybe she holds the magic key to my insulin resistance
maybe she can manufacture daily time for a workout
for stretches weights and cardiac exercise
without any effort!
Or help me mourn the loss of this most precious morning time
reserved for reading and study
before the first patient.
I know I know...
it is necessary...
lord knows I preach it...
I preach to to my diabetics and heart patients
my obese and neuropathic patients.
But isnʼt that so much easier than practicing
the very lessons and results of statistics I state by rote
as to the benefits.
It is necessary, I admit, for it pushes off my fatigue
that sets in earlier and earlier in the day
as I age,
and it eases the nocturnal cramps and joint freezes
that awaken me at 2 am
both combining to indict me for my laziness
to which I readily admit.
I even admit to it lowering the daily morning sugars
to which my glucometer is the best prosecuting attorney.
Yet here I am at the gym
among the men with those swollen muscles and abs
pumping their iron and sweating beads of effort
And me, and my pot belly!
Mother used to gauge a man by his pot belly.
It seemed to tell her everything about his character
his addictions to fat,
his “lack of control” over his “baser desires”
for food -therefore for everything else as well!
inspiring in us children an automatic contempt for
other portly folk that crossed our path
with a Pavlovian instinctual response that lasts until even now.
In the mirror- I have become that man!
for comfort foods do indeed push away the need for a moral tune up
or the feeling of depression and anxiety,
they push away the need for the necessary blood work
that will inevitably reveal the moral decay of my metabolism.
So using this rare opportunity for an objective opinion
I stand before her as upright as I
can and pull in my pot belly in shame.
A slightly ridiculous posture which can only last a few minutes
as she outlines our program
and I lose my breath in disbelief.
She canʼt be serious!
Then off we go... machine after machine
(which sadist invented these torture devices)
each designed to test and tone a particular muscle
isolated, with no friends to help out
each joint localized and lonely
as I pant and attempt to reach her goal of 10 or 15 curls etc.
This French trainer, thick in accent
telegraphic speech, continuous commentary
like a medieval Rabbi writing on the bible,
clipboard in hand,
watching, watching,
what is she thinking!
Pushing pushing me to do another one or two
as my muscle burns with lactic acid.
As we proceed the greek god, this adonis ahead of me
has notched up each machine
to weights I cannot even imagine!
and each time French instructor pulls out the key
and plunges it into the notch in some low low weight
that she thinks I can manage,
(they do not make lower weights than that!)
I laugh at myself inside following this weight lifter ahead
on the next machine, then cry.
As the hour progresses I begin to hear my body responding
with noises I have not heard before,
crackles of joints and cracks in other places,
each complaining in its own way,
a muscle burning here,
a cramp there,
muscles I thought I had forgotten existed
from my human anatomy days!
All this slowly adds up to an aching body as the French torturer
(now I realize why she was French) pushes me in her horrid accent
and I get dizzier.
This body, this frame,
the muscles and fat,
the pendulent abdomen
the lack of upper body muscle
all betray
a life of sedentary work
the lack of tone
a life on the run
on coffee
running on nerves
too harried
too hurried
to give the body the sacred respect it deserves.
Yet today,
it has responded to me in ways I never thought possible.
It is telling me “there is still time”
“I have the wisdom you seek”
“if only you could invest time in me!”
But can I reorient my priorities to give it this precious time?
The pot belly looks smaller after her working me out this morning-
I look again in the mirror and see the possibilityit
indicts me nonetheless,
Could it represent once more my motherʼs ideal- flat bellied-
“self-controlled” man?
a man in control of his passions and his life?
and then I let out this hysterical laugh,
a guffaw, that gets me dirty looks for the other
serious men showering and pruning themselves before the same mirror
these greek gods do not take kindly to my laughter,
but I just cannot control myself
in this locker room of the gods
I just cannot take myself so seriously!
This body, in pain and in pleasure,
neglected mostly for the pursuits of the mind
pursuits of career
and plain need to work remains
my vehicle,
even in decline,
with its pot belly,
like a beloved old 1950 Austin Healey
that I just cannot ditch, despite the insane Lucas wiring.
And it alone carries the genetic secrets of my lineage and culture,
ethnicity and race.
So.... I will attempt in this season of resolutions,
to make a little more time,
suffer the boring passage of time,
time for the body without mind,
and look a little kinder ,
on my pot belly.
