About Change

I was born and raised in former Czechoslovakia to a Hungarian family. At home we spoke Hungarian, in school and elsewhere outside the house I spoke Slovak. My father was Moravian from Brno, so with him I spoke Czech. Russian was mandatory from 3rd grade forward, as well a mandatory elective language, and mine was German. Here lies one of my life’s first ironies: some of my classmates elected to study English and I thought they were the super smart kids because to me, English sounded as if someone rolled around a hot potato in their mouth. And what was this thing called “spelling” anyway? Didn’t they simply write the way they pronounced their words, as we did in Slovakia? What an incomprehensible language this English language was to me. . .

Little did I know that in a few short years I would be expert at rolling around that hot potato in MY mouth, and that English would become the language in which I was most proficient. Had someone told me in 1968 that within the span of one decade I will have almost forgotten to converse in Slovak, and that I would become a tourist in my own country, (that I would be writing something called a “blog” – whaaaa???), I would have shrugged and thought they were strange. However. . .  sometimes life turns out to be the stuff of fiction.

The journey from “then” to “now” will be the subject of my future blogs – which I want to write, if not for anything else then for my children and for their children’s children. When I think about how to sum up into one word the hours that turned into decades, one word always jumps out – “Change”, and the phrase, “Adopt, Evolve, or Perish”.

The Last Generation

The not too distant future

It is now December 2021! It feels like I am living in a foreign land. The country I came to as a teen is beginning to resemble the country I came from. They don’t teach European history in school any more, let alone Eastern European history, so I can’t really blame those who push for the same type of regime that existed in the Eastern Block for 70 years and failed miserably. I just wonder why don’t they ask those who came from those regimes and find out what worked and what didn’t work, so that they could build on our experiences and avoid the mistakes. It is easy to talk about change from a velvet couch, a well stocked fridge, a well heated house, a car that can go anywhere they wish. There is nothing like experiencing things on one’s own skin, and I’m afraid that the “aha” moment will come sooner than we think. For me, well, it will be like old times, navigating the system, doing a balancing act, looking over my shoulder, knowing it would be foolish to trust even a close friend or spouse. The day is nearing when we won’t be able to travel from north of south, or from west to east without permits; when self-driving cars on pre-determined courses will replace our free whim driving; a little longer down the road the years one is allowed to live on this planet will be pre-determined; and the list goes on. The baby boomers of the free world are the last generation on Earth to have experienced true freedom, the amazing advances in technology within one lifespan, and then the “big destruction”. I am so grateful that I am as old as I am and will not have to witness what is to come.

Lessons Learned

In my soon to be 70 years of existence on this pale blue dot I learned and still learning many life lessons. One of the biggest ones is that I have my own history, and lessons learned from my history are lost on my kids because they can’t possibly walk through my history in my shoes. I used to be fond of warning my loved ones in the form of, “I’ve seen around the corner so I know what’s coming, you should…… should not…. “. But since that statement is rarely, if ever, taken seriously, I stopped trying to convince, and trained myself to trust that they will find their own way, and that if I raised them with the correct values, they will be fine. Maybe more than fine, maybe better than had they listened to my calls for caution, my warnings that are a direct result of my own history, and very possibly the wrong model for living their own history.

Back to where I started . . . sigh

It’s January 2019.
The temperature today with wind chill:  -20F. Tomorrow: even colder and windier.
It is dark at 5:30am.
It is dark at 5:30pm.

I haven’t been to gym since June 2018. Some background: my mother suffered a stroke at the beginning of 2017 and had gotten progressively worse from there on. Her situation intensified in June 2018 and she passed away in August 2018. But this blog is about exercise, or rather the lack of it, so in order not to elaborate on a story that I could write a book about, suffice it to say that my exercise routine went away, again.  

Did I use my mother’s condition as an excuse not to go to gym? I don’t know.

Now it’s January 2019. I find myself in the same spot, exercise wise, as exactly one year ago. It seems that I had stopped going to gym in the summer of 2017 and resumed in January 2018. Is this a pattern?

It could be a pattern. Gym starts at 5:30am. When I say “gym”, I mean an intensive, Bootcamp style class. As fall progresses into winter, it gets darker and darker in the morning, until it’s pitch dark. I live in a townhouse development and I feel uneasy walking to my car in the dark through my courtyard while everyone sleeps. All windows are dark, not one light is on. The dark and cold seems to interrupt my exercise routine – it seems to be a regular cycle.

What is the alternative? I could do Bootcamp after work at my private gym, and could swim at the YMCA or just do mild exercise at the Y. I did that a few times, but by the time I get out of work it’s dark again. The dark definitely has a discouraging effect on me – all I want to do is be home. I don’t really mind the cold. I mind the dark. So… in as much as I hate to admit it to myself, I am probably going to wait for the days to get lighter before I resume my regular Bootcamp routine. In the meantime, I know that I am wasting my membership, which is paid by my super-generous daughter. That is a regret. She refuses to cancel my membership hoping that I will show up at gym. I feel so guilty but still, I can’t bring myself to get out into the cold dark morning.

But… I really need to get to the YMCA after work until I resume Bootcamp. I am now getting out of breath just walking, or climbing stairs. I know that I need to move. I guess this blog post is to talk myself into moving.

YOU CAN, END OF STORY

I am the yo-yo gym member type – I go for a year or two all out with exercise and healthy diet, vitamins, read fitness websites, scrutinize ingredients, lecture people on the merits of exercise and diet, etc….. then, for some mysterious reason I start slacking off until I stop all-together, and I don’t move for another few months, or sometimes even a year or two. Luckily, I do have a switch that tells me enough is enough, so I don’t let myself go ridiculously out of shape, although it’s ridiculous that I do this yo-yo thing.

I did boot camp up until the summer of 2017, then fell off the wagon. This is in spite of my expensive membership being paid up for the year by my insanely generous daughter, because she insists that I exercise. Terrible way to repay her generosity and love, I know. Well, the switch went off just a few days ago. Actually I saw it turn on but ignored it for a while until a few days ago.

Out of shape. Low endurance, overweight by at least 20 lbs (and that’s being kind to myself). Joints in my feet, ankles, hands and fingers have been getting progressively worse since this summer during my inactivity. In addition to not moving, (I sit at the desk at work 8 hours straight) I have been drinking lattes with sugar and eating pastry for breakfast, often loads of pasta for dinner, even visited the fast food joints for something greasy and salty several times. Christmas was a gastronomical disaster with all the cookies and cakes and what not. So here I am once again.

I don’t know if this will redeem me, probably not, but my reason for not doing boot camp this time around is my mother. She had a stroke in February 2017 which left her incapacitated (a whole other story), and I put it into my head that if I exert myself I might suffer a similar fate. People thought it was laughable but to me it wasn’t… so I just stopped exerting myself and ate. Makes perfect sense, right? 🙂

The New Year arrived, and there was no way out of it. Someone in the fitness industry told me that if I don’t exert myself, THEN(!) I could follow my mother’s fate – something I needed to hear. Also, my daughter who works out in the same gym has been pushing me for months to come back. So with all this nudging I ran out of procrastination. On January 7th, 2018 I had a healthy dinner of salmon, quinoa, broccoli and blueberries and went to bed early, pretty scared about the next morning. On January 8th, 2018 my alarm woke me at 4:45am and I stayed in bed till almost 5am, trying to psych myself up for my re-entry into the boot camp world.

Well, once again, I was amazed that I lasted through 4 circuits of 3 rounds each, and didn’t gasp for air, nor did I turn purple. I got several welcome back hugs, and all was back to normal again. One saving grace about being an on and off gym member all my life is muscle memory. I have to remind myself next time (hoping there won’t be a next time) that restarting is not so bad because the muscles remember. I thought it would be easy breezy from there on since I survived the first day, but then the following happened.

The challenge:
The gym was starting a 6 week health challenge and I immediately joined the group. To join the challenge costs $100 but they give it back if I reach my 3 week goal. (Actually my daughter gets it back, because once again, she insited on paying to make sure I do this). I got weighed and set my 3 week goal to loose 10 lbs. I was given a low carb diet for the first week based on a list of foods in each food group. Today is Day 4 on this diet and this is so far the worst day. I feel drained, but was told that it is to be expected. This diet is to change the way my body gets its energy, which I won’t go into here. I found it necessary to cheat just a little bit by eating 1/2 slice of gluten free bread, and two teaspoons of peanut butter, otherwise I felt like I was going to pass out at work. I have to plan my meals better. So it’s a rough start, but I am doing, and the huge sign on the gym’s chalkboard, “YOU CAN, END OF STORY” – keeps me motivated. I lost 2 lbs in 2 days, 1.3 lbs to go this week if I am to get the 100 bucks back for my daughter.

By the way, ever since I started back again, and the diet, my joints dont’ hurt. I feel them, but they don’t hurt hurt. I can even do pushups which I thought I wouldn’t be able to due to the bad wrist pain. Hoping for the best going forward.

 

Boot Camp at 5:30am

Some of those born in the early ’50s will understand when I say that getting out of bed at 5am (or at any time but especially at 5am) to inflict pain on oneself at the gym is sometimes a monumental exercise of will power.

I developed RA (I think it’s RA because my mother has it, and I have identical symptoms, even though the tests come back negative, so far) in my hands, wrists, toes and ankles. The swelling and the intensity of pain go up and down but never vanish completely. It doesn’t help that I am at the keyboard all day at work. Yes, I still work because I believe that one should postpone retirement as long as possible, but that is a topic of another post. So back to boot camp. For instance, this morning. When the alarm rang at 4:55am and then again at 5:00am, I did an inspection – I closed and opened my fist…. ouch! I rotated my trouble maker right wrist, it felt like it was broken, no way to make a full rotation. I wiggled my toes… another “ouch” foreshadowed what was about to come! Every inch of my body screamed, ‘stay in bed, you can’t do this today!’ But as most days (not all), I swung my feet over the side of the bed, while the voice in my head protested vehemently, and I braced for pain in my toes as I was about to stand up. A quick hobble to the bathroom to throw some water on my face, brush my teeth, then put on my gym gear, in slow motion because it’s hard to get the tight leggings and sports bra on when every move of the wrist and fingers hurts.

I have 15 minutes from the time I slide down from my bed till I sit in the car. In spite of wondering if I can do it, there is no time to give that thought more consideration, because boot camp starts promptly at 5:30am. Since I am out of bed, obviously I decided to go, so no use in engaging in negative thoughts. I’m going anyway, so there.

It’s a boot camp style group exercise class. Two of the instructors are former military drill sergeants and though they are kind (ish) they push hard. No, it is not a class for seniors. I am there with people spanning all age decades starting with the 20 somethings. We do push ups, burpees, spider man stretches, weighted lunges, sumo squats, lift weights, ankle jacks, we do calisthenics on stability balls, we do the ropes, you name it we do it. Today, just when we thought we we done, sweat dripping, we were told to do a 3 minute plank.

But, what about the pain you might be asking. Yeah, well, I wear weight lifter gloves, and sometimes a wrist brace, both of which help cushion the hands and wrist, or at least psychologically they create the illusion that they are helping. I don’t know how it works physiologically, but a few minutes into the class, and I am so busy focusing on what I am asked to do that I forget the pain. The music is loud, nasty, rhythmic, the instructors keep barking, ‘keep it up!’, ‘don’t stop’, ‘7 seconds to go!’, people around me grunting but pushing hard, and somehow I get through. Sometimes, when I see a person half my age struggle with sit-ups, I feel a secret satisfaction when I do them faster. I modify some of the exercises, like jump squats, because I can’t do impact due to a former knee injury.

By the time I get home, I feel energized, accomplished, and so so glad that I ignored the voice that urged me to stay in bed, and that I didn’t give in to the dread of  ‘what if I can’t do it today’.  And I am always amazed at how my body can change in an hour. So the reply to the voice in my head at 5:00am should always be, ‘maybe you won’t be able to do all you want to do today, but GO, find your limits!’

Testing the little engine IF it could

This is the story of my first steps toward my physical and mental transformation, which turned my life long beliefs about what I could and could not do upside down.

While growing up I could never run without having a pain in my side, never had much of a stamina for endurance sports, and even though I was on a swim team in elementary school, I wasn’t able to swim more than a few laps without having to stop to catch my breath, and  eventually I was told by the coach that I was not strong enough for the swim team. I was examined by pediatric cardiologists who couldn’t detect anything more than a heart murmur, but I carried that as a badge of honor against any demands for physical exertion: ‘I have a heart murmor, so that’s why I can’t do it, and I’m proud of it!’ My teenage  years were devoted to school and to practicing piano for my audition to the music conservatory, therefore most of my teenage years were sedentary.

In my 20s, after being  married a few years and having 2 kids, I joined a gym with a friend and we began to walk 3  miles every morning, rain or shine. To be honest, we more strolled and talked than walked.  We once walked 8 miles to a nearby town where we rewarded ourselved by buying a couple of  Italian breads fresh out of the oven, and eating them on the bus which we took back. Going to the gym did make me feel stronger, but still, we didn’t truly push ourselves, as there was not a lot of sweat involved.

Then came a phase in my late 30s when I stopped the morning walks  with my friend, after which I alternated between periods of exercise and no exercise at all.  I was a cyclic gym rat who knew the equpement but never really pushed too hard.

My 40s were not good to me. I was not in a good space either physically nor mentally. I gained a lot of weight. In my mid 40s, at  5ft 6in I was upward of 200lbs and gaining. I will never forget the shocked look on my daughter’s face one morning when she looked at me sideways. I was now size 16.

My transformation began to take shape shortly after I turned 50. By then I lost a lot of that weight (which is a whole other topic for another time), but things did not change in earnest until I was 56 years old. While sitting at the lake’s  edge one beautiful spring day, I watched the crews practice. In fact I watched their  practices for years while eating my lunch, as my work was within walking distance of the  lake’s edge, but it never crossed my mind that rowing would ever have anything to do with me.  After all, I still couldn’t run a short distance, or climb a flight of stairs without getting  out of breath, and I never did aerobics in the gym for the fear of getting a heart attack  because during the few times I tried it, my face turned purple and I gasped for air at which point the instructors looked at me in alarm and told me to sit down. And I still had the heart murmor, though none of my doctors thought it was anything to be overly concerned about. That was the physical condition I believed I was in, and identified myself with, on that  beautiful spring day. I still remember a quiet little question mark that fluttered by and startled me as I watched the crews: “Why are you just watching?”

Pondering that question, I looked at the lake for a while, then slowly walked back to my office feeling perplexed. As if obeying some direct order, I looked up the crew club’s website and there I found an announcement about their “Learn to Row” program which was to start in early fall. And I instinctively knew that I arrived at a new chapter. There were no questions in my mind any more. I was going to stop watching the crews practice.  I was going to become one of them! Me, little Ms. Out-of-breath, I was going to row, and I was going to kick my butt till I found my limits! But at least I would find those limits on the water, and not by sitting at the shore wondering IF my little engine could. I bailed out many times, but not this time.

To be continued…

Perspectives over time

There was a time when everything seemed to be very important. I used to feel my insides twist and my stomach tighten like a rock over things which today I view with acceptance. I used to be intolerant and opinionated, judgmental. I used to argue in order to win, no matter what. Today? I listen. I try to truly understand the other person’s point of view and I try not to judge.

On my 60th birthday I became very ill after taking a massive dose of antibiotics prescribed for sinusitis. Suffice it to say that there were many moments when I felt that I was going to die. Obviously, I didn’t die, but during the course of my one year recovery period I changed.

In 2007 I took a course at the Juilliard with David Dubal. It was a fascinating class on music appreciation where he analyzed various pieces of music, and talked about composers. One of his stories involved his conversations with Vladimir Horowitz. What stuck with me to this day was what Horowitz revealed to Dubal as his firm belief. He told him that everyone should find their “life and death”. That one passion, without which life is not complete. Doesn’t matter what it is. Making music, being a plumber, a sport, whatever. Find your “life and death”. Hmm… I thought… what fruit for thought…

In hind sight, all those things that used to tie me up in knots were my then “life and death” situations, worth putting up a fight for, or so I thought. And I had a myriad of those situations. Of course at that time I didn’t know that most things we get upset about are not really all THAT important. That they are not at all “life and death” situations.

Now, when the little ones get yelled at by their parents for not turning in their homework in time, or for a C on their report card, I mean it when I say to them that, “nothing is ‘life and death’, unless it’s life and death”.

How perspectives change over time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thunder and Lightning

One of my most awesome experiences while rowing with the Princeton crew was the King’s Head Regatta on the Schuylkill River in Bridgeport, PA in 2008. It was a very hot and humid day, the sky was dark and hung low, we heard some distant rumble, but the officials decided that the race will go on. So, we rowed 3 miles down to the start line and sat ready, while sheepishly peeking up at the menacing clouds. At last, we heard, “Go!”… and, within the first 10 furious strokes, the sky suddenly opened up and we found ourselves rowing in torrential downpour. Then, deafening thunder and lightning… There we were, 8 of us in the boat, wondering if we were to continue, but our coxwain remained calm and shouted that we had to row anyway to get out of the water so might as well row like mad to avoid getting fried and win the race while we’re at it, because the other boats were rowing like mad too. As the rain came down on us in buckets, the 8 of us must have experienced a collective euphoria of the senses because we all shouted for joy at the same time. Being part of the raw elements and interacting with them, was almost primal. No, not almost, it was primal. We suddenly felt invincible and the fear disappeared. What remained was the pure joy of sensing the cooling rain washing over our skin, of not only hearing but feeling the roaring thunder in our boat and sucking up its power, and the lightning gave it an edge that was almost sensual. We rowed with all our might but didn’t feel the exertion, we were part of nature, totally in the zone… somewhere in the middle of that river it stopped being a race against the clock… When we lifted the boat out of the water up over our heads, the water poured down on us and the crowed roared as the 8 of us walked up the boat from the river, with our soaked uniforms as if part of our skin. Yeah, the crowd remained there through the entire race, getting soaked and exposed to the elements, just like us in the boats. And when it was all over, the sky cleared up and we cried from joy of what we had experienced.

Crew Practice

It is early April. The alarm clock rings. 4:30am. I know I have another 15 minutes to snooze before it rings again so I hit the snooze button and drift off. 4:45, the alarm rings again. No time to contemplate how good it would feel to roll over. All I need to know is that if I don’t get out of bed RIGHT NOW!!!, there will be 7 other people at the boathouse who will not row this morning because of me.

The regiment is simple, and there is no discussion. We have to be sitting in the boat, hands on oars, ready to push off the dock at 5:30am sharp. Anyone who is not there by 5:25am, doesn’t row. If you are unlucky to be assigned to a boat with a rower who shows up late or missing in action, you get to go home without practice. Regardless of how far you live, even if you had to get up at 3am to get there in time. You can’t row with one team member missing from you boat. No discussion.

Therefore, when the alarm clock rings at 4:45, there is no doubt in my mind about what has to happen next. Bolt out of my warm bed with eyes still closed and run into the ice cold bathroom, brush teeth and put my hair in the pony tail. Ignore the fact that I’m freezing. By rote, put on the clothes which I layed out the night before. No thinking possible at this hour. I have 15 minutes between the time I get out of bed and pull out of my driveway. I’ve done it in 8. The wrath of 7 people the next day for missing practice because of me is a great motivator. It happened….. once. Believe me, no one wants a repeat of THAT…..

I arrive at the parking lot at 5:15 and walk toward the bridge which leads to the boathouse. It is bone chillingly cold, just above freezing, so I must walk briskly. There are no lights between the parking lot and the bridge. If I forget my flash light I walk in pitch dark. I know that there are bushes next to me and feel very vulnerable to whatever may lurk in the dark, but I push that thought out of my head. The ground is uneven and I can’t see my steps. The blackness which envelopes me is palpable. As I walk, I see circles of light bouncing in front of me. They belong to my fellow rowers who are walking ahead of me. At least I don’t feel I am completely alone, at least not this time. As soon as I get on the bridge I feel more protected and on even ground. I can see the light from the boathouse and the rowers who arrived before me as they are putting out the oars from the boathouse. I need to hurry so I could contribute to the effort of getting the equipment out, otherwise I might be considered a slacker who shows up only to row but not to help with the preliminaries.