we can do hard things

 ...but jeez, we will generally go to huge lengths not to.

Well, I do at least. When I have a choice, I'm all about that path of least resistance, min effort for max gain, keeping it simple, keeping it fun, taking the shortest way round.  

But already in these first few weeks of 2022 I've done some hard things - and it's felt really good.

I've gone on two group motorbike rides with total strangers. 

The first just me with a bunch of cool kids, but on my small bike on a route that I know well. The second with Charl, but on my big bike, a totally unknown route and at least 25 other proficient riders. Shooweee, my nerves!

Motorbike riders are cool right? And ballsy, and mostly all they want to talk about are bikes. This crowd is quite a bit younger than me, with hipper gear and better stories and way more experience. But I kept my nerve and un-wedgied my big girl panties and tried earnestly to remember my bike's specs for the coffee chat and not fall too far behind on the ride and to not forget to put on my gloves before my helmet like a newbie.

So rad.

How cute is my bike though?

I've gone back to CrossFit.

Six weeks short of two years later, I walked back in to a CrossFit box. With my atrophied muscles and my pandemic weight gain and my complete lack of fitness I've signed up to a box where I know no one. That first class I was a bundle of nerves, but I walked (staggered) out of there feeling like a champ and have been back and have signed up for more. What. A. Vibe.

How cute are my shoes though?

And then just today, another hard thing.

How cute is this though?

From motor-biking to CrossFit to puzzles which require reading glasses - 2022 has had some challenges already. But I'll take these over drought, death and disease - some of the challenges of the last few years - any day.

My wish for this year is to have agency. To not just be reactive to the shit life throws at us, but proactive in doing things which make me feel stronger and better and more in control. 

We can do hard things, and not all hard things have to suck.

first rule of CrossFit*

 

I thought this was funny before I started CrossFit. Now it's hilarious.

I have two friends who've been at it for about a year. About the same amount of time my ankle was either incapacitating me in pain, or recovering from the surgery intended to heal it.

When I was laid up in my recovery room (or 'on my nice holiday' as the same two friends like to call it), they would come and hang out and 'entertain me' by flexing their muscles and talking about the WOD and so-and-so at the gym and how much they could snatch and a bunch of other incomprehensible things. 

I was so not interested.

Part of it was my disbelief at how useless I was, had been for a long time, when it came to exercise and getting in shape.

My ankle had been a factor, a large one, but to be honest I stopped exercising a long time before that. I was just really not into breaking a sweat, or feeling uncomfortable.

Part of my boredom was envy - they were looking great and their passion for it was palatable.

Shame and envy, not a good combo for the existential dread.

Some months after I was walking again, the end of July to be exact, I felt a shift. I was feeling so out of shape and suddenly filled with the need to MOVE, to flex and stretch and test my new foot and DO SOMETHING already. 

But I was still in a lot of pain, and really apprehensive about what I could do and how radically unfit I felt.

One afternoon on the side of the hockey field I spoke to a school mum friend, we were talking about swimming, yoga - low impact ways I could get back into exercise. Then I came home to cook supper for one of my now lean and ripped friends ... two bottles of wine later and I'd committed to going to a CrossFit class with her the next morning.

The existentials were nothing on the dread I felt waking up that morning, hungover and scared.

I dressed with major anxiety and drove myself there deciding to just not think about it, and ready to HATE everybody and everything.

I did hate everybody, and I really nearly cried, but it turns out I wasn't as unfit as I thought I was, and my ankle handled fine.

I woke that night, and tried to get up for some reason. I couldn't move.

I carefully lowered myself back into bed, flinching in pain, and then I smiled. This felt good.

Boy, I drank the Kool Aid fast after that.

Obvs I had to start with new sneakers ... and then I was away.

It's been 3 months. My ankle pain has reduced by about 85%. I feel great. I need to workout. I'm firming, I'm losing some weight. I like to sweat. I'm getting fit.

So yeah, now I am a CrossFitter. Good lord this is a weird old life.

*always talk about CrossFit

on top of the world

For my birthday I wanted to go up Table Mountain.

Up with the Cable Car, and then down on foot - via Platteklip Gorge.

The walking descent was unplanned. We'd bought return tickets, but after spending a couple of hours sight-seeing and picnicking we noticed a not-insignificant queue forming to get back down.
Turns out the cable car had a 'technical' issue and was delayed, only up and running again after an hour and then very slowly.
The queue got longer and the temperature dropped as the mist rolled in, and we started to tease the girls about sleeping out and subsisting on the one apple and a pink milk that we had left in our pack.

To allay growing apprehension (theirs), chilly feet (ours) and the risk of boredom we set off  at a brisk pace around the plateau to kill time, passing close to the top of this walk down.
Deep in the kloof we heard a marimba playing, and laughter, and looking down we could see the colourful specks of hikers strung all along the (long) path down.
A brief family referendum and we were off ... down the high stone steps and the slippery drops, past church ladies singing deep chorals as they came up, and young guys listening to some of our favourite music as they scrambled down.
A musical descent, a long one. Ankles crunching and knees locking.
Our girls did so, so well.

As night fell we emerged on the road, and with wobbly legs walked back to our waiting car.
Exhilarated, united and adventured-up.
It was a good day.

what the what actually was that??

I was convinced I'd written a post about this, but I can't find it anywhere on the blog or in drafts so I guess that is just another sign of how stupidly out of it I've been these last ... shew, 6 weeks!

I find the phrase 'burnout' faintly embarrassing. The last time I really truly burnt out I was 25 (or thereabouts) working flat-out in the film industry, dealing with a really demanding boss and a super crazy job.
Burnout at 25 was vaguely impressive, I thought.
And as a result of it I did a lot of introspection and changed the whole direction of my career.

Burnout at nearly-40 just sounds old.

Things have been a little crazy around here right? A short (full!) break for Christmas and then on with the madness , two more shorter jobs straight after that one and then an epic birthday party and then guess what?
I got sick.
Obviously.

Pharyngitis.

I soldiered on for the wedding, sensibly getting myself on to proper drugs and feeling like a grown-up. But I was back at the doctor for more drugs 10 days later, still with glands like golf balls.
This time she gave me a Vitamin B shot too, to absolutely no affect.

3 days later, limp as a twice-dunked biscuit, I drove myself back one more time. I sat in the waiting room with my head resting against the wall, twice the receptionist asked if I'd like to lie down.

Blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, anemia, glandular fever, thyroid, pregnancy etc etc etc - all results came back negative, fine, healthy.
I felt like shit.

And so the last few weeks have been. No energy, no brains, overwhelming thirst, short term memory loss, rubber limbs and sore head.
No real diagnosis except just ... fucked. And did I mention old?

I'm horrified that I haven't been able to keep the pace, somewhat ashamed that all that hard work - which I found so invigorating and energising - left me shattered and inert.

There has been some introspection (I've decided to blame the children) and some resolutions (I do need to get serious about my general health and fitness), but I refuse to contemplate a career change just yet.
I love what I do and I'm looking forward to doing a lot more of it soon.

And some more of this too!

Stronger every day - hurrah!

turns out there doesn't always need to be smoke

I revealed the spoiler to this story on facebook and twitter, but I kind of couldn't help myself.

I'd been smelling smoke for at least an hour. First, from the water where I was fooling about with the girls and a borrowed windsurfer board.

'I'm sure I smell burning.' I called to husband, standing on the lawn. We both scanned the mountains and he climbed the external staircase to get a better vantage.

Later I smelt it again, and again looked around for that telltale yellowish stain in the sky. The Cape is full of fire this time of year.

After a bit I overheard Frieda talking to someone coming past on the water, she does this quite often and I felt momentarily annoyed to hear her say 'What?' - we've been working hard on the preferable 'Excuse me?', or her inexplicable favourite, 'Could you repeat that?'.

But then she was calling me in alarm, her tone much more serious and her words much more worrying: 'Mum, that lady says our jetty's on fire. And it is!'

And it was. Our semi-collapsing jetty, just a simple thing constructed from some ex-railway timbers, was ON FIRE.

I called to husband in the garage and briefly enjoyed his look of utter incomprehension before grabbing a big cooking pot and bolting down to the water. A few good soakings, quite a few I might add, and it was out. The day saved and the integrity of the poor deck even more compromised than before.

'Where there's smoke there's fire' is a phrase often used to explain a situation, to lend credibility to a suspicion or prove it not to be unfounded. In this case there was a fire, for a long time with no smoke, and any suspicions we may have as to its source are pure speculation.

Wind-borne cigarette butt? Careless passing smoking canoeist? And the more likely, but still weird, theory that a bit of glass, embedded in the wood, baked in the sun and sparked a flame?

Weird. Weird. Weird. And thank goodness we were home.

4/10 things I lovetohate that you do

Many years ago I blogged the process of rehabilitating the fireplace in our house from it's gold-gilded, knick-knack besmirched existence to what I like to think is a much more stylish picture altogether.

It's a pretty fireplace but alas not a functioning one, when we bought the place we were told it was boarded up. I recalled something about the chimney cladding being damaged, I remember being horrified at the cost of chimney-sweeps, I even remember some ha-ha conversations about acquiring a monkey with a webcam to go in and assess the damage.

So imagine my gobsmacked surprise when last night, right in front of my eyes, eight winters later, the dude calmly removes the board blocking the flue and lights a fire.
Wha ... ?

I nearly lit a fire of my own.

Apparently every time he's suggested trying to light it in the past I've vetoed the suggestion for fear of filling the house with smoke and ash ... this I don't recall as clearly.
What I do know is that sitting in front of our own fire last night was heart-warming.

Thanks babe.

the one about gym

Yes, I cracked. Well I had to do something after making promises here and here. And while Yoga Fit is a-m-a-z-i-n-g and I'm feeling and seeing the benefits thereof, it's still only once a week, and once a week ain't gonna shift no significant bulk ok?

So I cracked. And joined a gym. Loathe and despise the word, the concept, the industry, oh and sweat in general but hey, as the mother of a childhood friend of mine used to say as she plucked out her leg hairs one by one with a pair of tweezers: 'you have to suffer to be beautiful'. Do you? Do you really?

Turns out you do. But it seems in this case, the suffering did not take the form I thought it would.

Let me explain.

You see, still deeply un-enamoured with the concept of 'gym' (odd that this didn't make it onto my list of 100 things I dislike intensely, though I think sweating did...), I was lured into the promise of 30 minute workout, a 'total body workout' and the fact that my 'curves would (apparently) amaze me', I signed up for a month at Curves - the women's only gym. (see emoticon of spitting in disgust).

Omg, this place is deeply flawed.

Firstly, the whole work-out is questionable. 30 seconds a time on 12 or so machines with 'rest stations' in between. Hmmm.

Secondly (and please believe me when I say I'm no sizest), but the instructors are fat. Not just 'big-boned' but fat. Is this supposed to make me feel comfortable there? More comfortable than having a size 0 gym instructor in lycra? Maybe so, but the reality is it just ain't right. You wouldn't buy Jimmy Choo's from someone wearing Crocs. You wouldn't buy a Beemer from someone driving a Beetle (or arguably, vice versa). You wouldn't be happy with a doctor with a hacking cough. You wouldn't go to a dentist with no front teeth. You get my point.

Thirdly, it's so twee. It's like a mix between church camp and girl scouts with a little bit of high-school 1st hockey team thrown into the mix. The franchise is international and each branch must look the same the world over, the same purple decor, the same horrific music, the same twee motivational posters on the wall ('A fit mum is a happy mum!') and the same (and I kid you not here) diaphanous purple curtain which gets whipped across the entrance to the work-out space should (gasp of shock and horror) a MAN enter the office. Urgh!

But yet, I signed up for a month, totally suckered by the 30 minute lure, and in total acceptance of the fact that if I didn't sign up, and pay for the torture, I'd never get round to cardio at all.

So now I go twice a week around midday, and hit the circuit, and try and get into the music, and try to avoid reading the posters over and over again, and try not to follow the waddle of monster purple-clad thighs across the room, and try to get into a zone and work that flab.

And I've discovered that all the above are the true monstrosities of gym. The workout itself is not too bad, the endorphins kick in quite soon to give one a lift, and I've discovered a little trick to get through it quickly and enjoyably: I imagine myself in the montaged training sequence from a movie, the Rocky 'Eye of the Tiger' scene; the slow cut, sweaty sequence which works our hero into his (or her) pinnacle of raw cut muscle and fitness. The fighter. The lover. The challenge. 

And I've lost 2 kg. Go gym!