Saddle Old Bag

If you fall off a horse, it's important to get right back on. Luckily, I did not fall off the horse, so I never have to get back on again.

Not that it wasn't fun. And when I say that, I am not even referring to the steady back and forth rocking motion that had me daydreaming about putting a big leather saddle on my road bike to maybe make those long summer spins a bit more palatable. Nope, I have not even given that saddle heel a second thought.

Truth be told, almost everything about the horseback riding adventure was fun. It was a gorgeous spring day -- a bit crisp, but sunny, the skeletal, still leafless trees offering spectacular unobstructed views of the cloudless blue sky. The heavy blanket of winter snow had been kicked away, leaving in its wake endless stretches of robust green grass. It was a Wisconsin I had not even known to exist, with miles of glacial dips and rises overshadowing whatever fast food joints and tacky cheese shops were no doubt peppering the surrounding landscape.

When I had made the mistake of telling my mother that morning I would be horseback riding, she felt compelled to send me a screaming text reminder that I am fifty-five years old and should not be doing such things. As I did when I went scuba diving six months ago, I promised her I would just go along and watch. Back then I really believed that's what I would do, so technically it wasn't a lie. But horseback riding? How hard could it be.

Like the goody two shoes teacher's pet I always had been as a child, I listened intently to every instruction offered by my guide, who drew the short straw and had to spend most of the half day ride right behind me and pretending to be entertained by my life story. He kept marveling at how comfortable and completely at ease I looked up there. Yes, I felt comfortable and at ease -- except for the first time my horse started to trot without warning me -- but it took me a while to share with my new mentor my deep feelings for the saddle.

My comfort level was so great, in fact, that I stuck around with the more daring members of our group so I could take things to the next level and experiment with a fast trot. At fifty-five, I am a veteran jiggler, but all those years of gravity and increasing inelasticity couldn't possibly have prepared me for the exhilarating but jarring grand finale. My helmet (no, mom, I did not decline the helmet) began to pop up and down as if it had been propped upon my head with a Slinky. Internally, I could tell things were shifting, although a touch of fear helped keep the pain at bay. My guide assured me I would feel it in two days. Obviously he didn't know what good shape I'm in.

Well, not so much. It's been two days, and I feel as if my floating ribs have somehow floated to a different location, along with the rest of my bones and muscles and organs. I am walking like a drunken sailor and, even though I left the helmet behind in Wisconsin, the Slinky stayed with me. Now it seems to be all that is left to hold my head in place on my neck.

I did not fall off the horse, and so I do not have to get back on. But I hope I will soon. As soon as all the bones and muscles and organs float back to where they began.

...And Carry a Big Selfie Stick

You know you're getting old when your daughter assumes you're dead (or, worse still, wandering around the neighborhood aimlessly in your granny pants) when you don't return her call within an hour. You know you're getting really old when someone guesses you are five years older than you are and thinks he is being complimentary.

When nobody notices the filmy bit of lettuce on your front tooth, or that you're only wearing one earring, or that your sweater is on inside out, because you've somehow become invisible. When the check out lady in Target asks you if you need a gift receipt for the cute (and, you thought, modest) romper you found for twenty bucks. There are no more leading lady roles in my future, and certainly no white knights. Not that there were any in my past. I suppose I'll never be a concert pianist either.

It's liberating, in a way, to fly under the radar. To myself I am not so much invisible as inaccurate. The image I see in my bathroom mirror is of the ageless me. I am young and smooth skinned and the hair close to my scalp does not match my bluish gray eyes. It's all about the tilt and the lighting, and safe distance. The world doesn't see me as I do, through the blurred lens of an extra long selfie stick. Sometimes, it doesn't see me at all, which means I can pretty much do as I please. Which includes, for example, marveling at the commercial for a narcotic cure for painful post-menopausal sex, wondering why women wouldn't opt for a far more obvious, far more natural cure. Like my dad used to tell me when I'd say things like "it hurts when I move my hand this way" -- don't move your hand that way. 

How does one go about describing oneself when the external signs melt away. My daughter, when she finally reached me earlier today, told me she had done something the other day that made her feel like she was becoming me. Oh no. This could not be good. As it turns out, it was good, as good as it gets. She told somebody what a great job she had done, how much of an impact she had had on her. The person had been both shocked and thrilled. She admitted she had doubted her abilities, doubted her worth. My daughter remembers watching me do such things, walking up to strangers to tell them they had done something of value, that they had meant something to me. She remembers being mortified. But she remembers.

Frankly, I don't remember doing enough of that kind of thing, and when she told me her story today, I made a mental note to do more, to do better. To pay it forward, as my daughter did, today. As it turns out, I am not invisible to her -- at least no more invisible than I ever was, sartorially speaking. She has always seen me from the inside out. It's not always pretty, but it's unchanging. And there's no flying under the radar, but recognizing what doesn't necessarily show up in the rose colored selfie stick lens sure can be liberating.

Walking my puppy this evening with a friend, musing about our less than glamorous Saturday night, we came upon a sign at the local "Moose Lodge" for ballroom dancing lessons. She went in to get the schedule, and she almost has me convinced we should sign up. Will it be less painful than unmedicated post-menopausal sex? Maybe, but probably just as awkward. At least we are invisible, so nobody will notice.

Mother Time

I remember almost everything about the day. Waking early to oddly rhythmic pains, wondering, in spite of all I knew, what they could be. I sat on the edge of the bed, a legal pad on my lap and a pen in my hand, thinking about nothing but timing. Watching the pot boil -- never a good idea.

My husband went to work. He returned about two hours later. I was still sitting on the edge of the bed, a legal pad still on my lap, a pen still in my hand. The intervals between contractions had not changed, unless you count minor fluctuations. Four minutes fifty-two seconds, give or take a few. It was a beautiful day, so we took a walk. I vaguely remember them telling us in Lamaze class that walking would speed things up. Walking, and Chinese food. Chinese food had been my pickles and ice cream for at least seven months. Still, I was well past my due date. I expected very little from the walk, other than sunshine and a little distraction.

As it turns out the distraction was good. It was a beautiful day, and we walked the five or six blocks to the book store on Wells Street. My husband loves book stores -- at least he did, back then, when they existed -- but even he couldn't seem to settle down among the shelves. We walked back, enjoying the sunshine, doing anything we could to avoid comprehending how our lives were about to change.

The walk was as unproductive as the months of Chinese food. Contractionally speaking, anyway. Four minutes, fifty-two seconds, give or take a few. I was growing impatient; we had things to do. Like return some overdue movies to Blockbuster.

That race to the hospital in a taxi cab, the barely remembered suitcase that had been packed for weeks, the puddle of water on the floor at the most inopportune time -- well, that's all the stuff of television and movies and I suppose all the other women coming in to the hospital that day and popping out babies while I lay hooked up to a fetal monitor for an eternity, making inane conversation with a radiologist. Three shifts of nurses. Three different doctors on call, none of whom appeared to be mine.

It was Passover, and my extended family in New York was enjoying a Seder, as if the world were not about to be turned on its head. They called, mouths full of matzoh balls, while I was in the midst of a particularly inane conversation with the radiologist.

"My baby's heartbeat looks awfully low," I told him. Another thing I had learned in Lamaze, other than the Chinese food and walking thing: how to read a fetal monitor. I ignored the part about breathing -- that's why they make narcotics.

"It's fine."

Pause. An uncomfortably pregnant pause.

"I really think it's a little low. And Happy Passover to you too Aunt Sylvia."

"It's not low. It fluctuates."

"@#%$&!" I pushed the nurse call button.

"What?" That was my mom. The radiologist was doing his best to ignore me.

Well, thank goodness these were the days before Skype and FaceTime because the last thing your entire family needs to see while they're enjoying a ritual holiday meal is a grotesquely pregnant me flipped over onto all fours while a team of medical personnel scream calmly at each other and fiddle with all sorts of instruments on a crash cart. One of the nurses grabbed the phone from me. "She'll call you back. Have a fifth glass of wine." She shot the anesthesiologist a withering look.

Anyway, while this was all going on my husband, returning from his seventeenth coffee run, walked in to the horrifying rear view of me on all fours (no, this was not a good thing at that particular moment) with my huge hanging belly being slapped silly by a bunch of nurses. Enough to put you off your feed, as he would have said. Amazingly, we still managed to have two more children after that and didn't even break up until many years later.

As surprised as I had been about the contractions in the morning, five full days after my due date, I was even more surprised when my first child was born. "She's beautiful," the doctor said, holding her up.

"It's a girl?" I asked. I had already told him it was a girl. I had already told him her name. Motherhood makes you lose a few brain cells, and I think a lot of mine seeped out with the placenta.

I don't miss the brain cells. I get nostalgic sometimes -- about that beautiful day in April, before I knew much of anything, certainly nowhere near what I know now, in spite of my diminished capacity.  I sat on the edge of my bed this morning, thinking not about timing but about time.  I wonder how it has all passed this quickly, and I still marvel at the miracle who changed my world forever on that beautiful day in April.

By the Grace of Dog

I was always in touch with my Jewishness -- it's difficult not to be when you are raised in Brooklyn -- but I became markedly more devout with the birth of my first child. My transition into religious observance was as seamless and natural as the birth itself, even more so if you factor in the absence of epidurals or narcotics. By the grace of God, I started with a daughter, and I was still fifteen months away from the barbarism of the ritual circumcision. My introduction to observant Judaism was far less challenging: enter, the baby nurse.

Her name was Birdell. She was an outsized lady with arms so large you could barely see my newborn daughter when she was nestled within the folds of mahogany flesh. Nurse was a bit of a misnomer. Birdell did not wear scrubs, and, as far as I know, she had no medical training, probably no schooling at all beyond some obligatory high school grade. What she lacked in advanced degrees, though, she possessed in life experience. She seemed to function as a village matriarch, nurturing and raising all the babies born to a broad network of her extended family members on the west side of Chicago. Each day, she played the lottery and checked for possible winnings with a single minded determination I have never been able to muster up for anything; other than that, she seemed fairly unambitious. She rarely moved from her rocking chair, except to take care of essential hygiene and to bring my baby to me in the middle of the night for a feeding. And, once, she cooked me up some fried green tomatoes.

No amount of pricey advanced education prepares you for the tyranny of a newborn child. I relied on Birdell for everything. She was my 1980's version of Google, the possessor of answers to all my naive questions on the mysteries of miniature humans. I cried on the morning she left me alone with my baby. Before she left, she packed my new diaper bag for me so I would be well prepared for my visit to the pediatrician later that day. I know it never would have occurred to me to include extra diapers and wipes. It took me over an hour to get out of the house, and I was sweating profusely by the time I arrived at the doctor's office.

Except for the bris fifteen months later, motherhood -- and Jewishness -- came fairly easily to me. All it took, really, was a heart load of love and a healthy bank account (or at least the illusion of one). You're a great mom, that first-born baby told me the other day when I confessed to her my panic about raising a new puppy. I suppose she's a reliable source for such high praise, on the brink of her twenty-sixth birthday. I have somehow managed to see three human children through to adulthood, and I have raised two puppies without the help of a baby nurse. (The Old Testament is silent on the issue of baby nurses for dogs.) I've stumbled along the way, but I've done my best, I think.

Still, despite endorsements and encouragements from my children, I am a wreck. Tonight, I will be heading to the airport to pick up my nine-week old boxer puppy. I have no baby nurse to pack my bag for me, but I do have a list from the breeder telling me exactly what to bring. I will check it twice, at least. And at least one friend, possible two, will be coming with me, because no amount of experience or fancy education can prepare me for the arrival of my latest bundle.

It might be too late for me to reconnect with my Judaism, but I'm certainly going to try. And, by the grace of God, and the grace of dog, this one will raise itself, just like all the others did. 

Sticky Mat Situations

I am in Wisconsin, uncomfortably close to an indoor water park and the obligatory Walmart. My daughter and I are here for a couple of days to relax and escape the petty vanities that plague us back in the real world. We are here to lose ourselves among people who eat too much cheese, drink too much beer, and don't seem to get their oversized panties in a knot about exercise and lactose and gluten and the latest in overpriced designer miracle jeans that make breathing impossible. Granted, large behinds in pink spandex are not so easy on the eye, but there is something zen-like about Wisconsin. Destination yoga.

As centered as I was feeling the moment we crossed the border, my false sense of well-being was shaken when we turned on the news in the hotel room. Purveyors of information have taken a break from their nonstop conjecture and quizzing of self-proclaimed experts about the tragic murder suicide by airplane in the French Alps, and have returned to the kind of lurid stories we all love to hate. This time, the world of yoga has been shattered. Apparently, for about two years now, women have been peeling themselves off their sweaty yoga mats to accuse Bikram Choudhury of sexual assault. So much for downward facing dog as a resting pose.

More than a few times, I have tried Bikram Yoga© (yes, it is copyrighted, which in and of itself sends my admittedly limited understanding of yin and yang into a tailspin). Generally, it takes me about ten minutes to adjust to the 104 degree heat and realize I might not pass out. For the remainder of the class, I suppose I feel a little better as the anxiety about losing consciousness simply gives way to an irrepressible urge to vomit. But Bikram junkies swear by it, and they return in droves to drink the boiling Kool-Aid.

As with any "he said, she said," it's tough to know what or whom to believe. To date, six women have tossed their headbands in the ring. They all seem to have waited a bit too long, and I, for one, always regard late line calls with a healthy bit of skepticism. More often than not, it's sour grapes or wishful thinking, mind tricks that actually lead otherwise honest people to believe something that just is not true. A violent yogi? Preposterous. I could swear I heard the CNN correspondent who had interviewed both a tearful accuser and the tearful accused say they both seemed like really nice and credible people. Why can't we all just get along?

Well, the accusers may be coming forward with too little too late, but Bikram -- clad, at almost seventy years old, on international television no less, in the yoga equivalent of a Speedo -- was just wearing too little, period. As an attorney and a patriot I try my darnedest not to prejudge, but some truths are self-evident, and Speedos are just un-American. With a few exceptions, I suppose.

My heart chakra is breaking. The accuser interviewed by CNN alleges sexual harassment in the context of a threat that she would never win a yoga competition. Huh? In my universe -- where Speedos should be outlawed and serves are called out before you miss the return -- yoga is non-competitive and non-comparative. And, above all else, it is non-violent (it's called ahimsa, Bikhead). Bikram© is different, though. In a Bikram class, there are twenty-six poses, no more, no fewer, and no modifications. The poses are done in the very same sequence each time, and the instructors all follow the same script. There are strict rules about when you can drink water (certainly never soon enough to stave off dehydration) and when you can leave the room (never).

Let's face it, all of the women who have accused Bikram Choudhury of sexual assault or rape paid big bucks to subject themselves to his brand of yoga training, which sounds worse than your average army boot camp. But that certainly doesn't mean they asked for "it" (with "it" being anything beyond that twenty-sixth pose). I am certainly no stranger to questionable choices, but there is no excuse for sexual assault or rape.

The guru of sweat and allegedly unwanted advanced poses has a pretty airtight defense, though. In law, we might call it res ipsa loquitor -- the thing speaks for itself. Look at me, says the practically naked old guy with the odd comb over. Why would I have to use force? There be line of millions of women wanting to have sex with me. Women loves me. I don't do that. I don't have to. Seriously?  I try to avert my eyes and ears, but he goes on. When asked whether he had sex with other students -- women who were not accusing him -- his response was "yes and no." Huh? His explanation did not help at all, but it was chilling. Those countless others, with whom he "yes" did and "no" did not have sex, committed suicide because he rejected them. My position: guilty as a result of extreme ick factor.

From what I can tell, the scantily clad self anointed modern day Jesus will probably hold onto his millions and flow back into his voluntary confinement to a stinky studio heated to 104 degrees, although I am betting the boiling Kool-Aid will be a bit of a harder sell. There will be more accusations and more denials, and there will always be the draw of extreme physical discomfort and unhealthy competition. Thank goodness for Wisconsin, where folks just go about their business without too much fuss. Where the ugly American reigns supreme, and would never, ever wear a Speedo.