The Middle

Thought about it -- but this is all I think about, so here it is. I trimmed the photos to reduce TMI and here's the evidence of the shrinking and much stronger middle. I attend 2 or 3 classes a week at a studio called Barre3. Began in the first week of October 2018 because strenuous exercise helps me beat the winter short-daylight cold-outside people-are-dying blues, and the "senior" classes I took were too easy and held at hours that affected my workday. One-hour barre classes are given from 6 a.m. to 6:15 p.m., and I attend when work and energy and drive time allow. Gosh, the endorphin rush and pink face after the hour is over! Guaranteed unretouched homemade photos. Bother you? Imagine it like a January thaw.

After 2 classes

after 6 classes

After 11 classes

After 16 classes

That last photo was taken in mid-December. I'm even stronger through the core today while eating, holiday-style, twice or thrice the normal allotment of cookies and pastries.

Recovering from my very first session took a week. Now it's only two days. I'm the worst participant and must clutch the barre for dear life or fall over, but am game. This sport is less social than the senior scene; most attendees are young wives or mothers, and an occasional youngun wears a tee saying "Sweating for the Wedding." In all the classes so far I have seen exactly four men, one the instructor's husband. I'm among the few over-60s.

My Peeps

Easter weekend had a theme. My sister Rose, brother-in-law, niece, and her boyfriend (they're 17) visited on Easter weekend and the niece had to see the baby chicks available for purchase at Dickey Bub's, so we went, and to our surprise some of the chicks had been dyed for Easter. A young employee held a chick so I could get a closeup. And my relatives love fossil-hunting and while out digging around my sister found a piece of Peep-shaped sandstone.

Not only this but today at Wal-Mart, chief among the leftover, 50-percent-off candy was rows and rows of multicolored marshmallow Peeps. One year I microwaved a Peep to see what would happen. It swells and grows bigger and bigger, about quadrupling in size, and then begins to burn.

A Humble Needful Thing

This two-wheeled folding grocery cart is one of the oldest items I own. In the 1970s when I left home and started working, before I owned  a car, carrying home groceries or schlepping laundry to and from the laundromat was troublesome. A backpack was not spacious enough. A duffel bag I could only drag along the sidewalks until it tore. I lived in a mean city far from anyone I knew, and it wasn't very smart for a tiny woman to carry in her arms through the night streets 30 pounds of stuff stacked so she couldn't see ahead of her. One terrible evening -- youth is full of such moments -- I was carrying three paper grocery bags and on the two-mile walk home a sudden thunderstorm soaked and shredded the bags. Items spilled and rolled all over the sidewalk into the gutters. It was awful; I couldn't afford to lose any of the items. There was no one to call. I have never felt so alone in life as at that moment. I knocked at some doors thinking to ask for some bags, or maybe for someone to call a cab. Don't remember what happened next except....

I told my mom about this and next time she visited she brought this folding grocery cart, which cost $20. It had a bright orange plastic liner. I thought it was for old ladies but it saved me much misery. It has been dragged behind me on city streets, on gravel road shoulders, through snowy shortcuts, and during moves (I lived in 10 different places in 10 years). Somewhere the liner tore and was discarded.

I got my first car when I was 34 and my own washer and dryer, finally, when I was 44. The grocery cart has been neglected in the Divine garage for 11 years, getting a bit rusty and bent, used only to contain broken-down cardboard boxes for recycling. Tonight I took it out, cleaned it, unbent the rods and oiled the wheels for tomorrow's outdoor market. I'm bringing a friend who's just had her hip replaced. Because she can't carry heavy things and I'm no good at it either, I am glad I kept this because now, as an old lady, I can appreciate it fully. Thanks, Mom. And you can still buy one for $20.