The Writing Mamas Daily Blog
Each day on the Writing Mamas Daily Blog, a different member will write about mothering.If you're a mom then you've said these words, you've made these observations and you've lived these situations - 24/7.
And for that, you are a goddess.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Dance at the Gym
I hadn’t been in a dance studio since I left New York almost twenty years ago, when I was about to turn thirty years old and finally admitted to myself I would never make it as a professional.
This was after a nearly a decade of legal proofreading on the night shift to support myself -- sometimes full-time and sometimes as a temp when it became too depressing to admit I was a full-time proofreader on the night shift. Not that anything’s wrong with that, but it wasn’t what I moved to Manhattan to do.
But lately my left shoulder has been bothering me, due, I’m sure, to the fast exit my two children and I made at Target last Friday night. We often land at Target when my husband is away on business and I’m losing my mind: We wander the aisles like disoriented space travelers, Olivia and Mateo studying Michael Graves ice-cream scoops as if they’re tools from an exotic people, then the three of us shuffling into the gardening section to study that tribe’s artifacts.
On Friday, Olivia wanted a salsa CD, Mateo wanted new fire engine sneakers, and they each insisted on a bag of popcorn. But for the first time, perhaps in history, the popcorn machine at Target was down. And no hot pretzel was going to substitute.
It was the scooping up of both of them, a combined seventy pounds, which ruined my left shoulder: that, and the kicking and writhing that ensued.
Driving home down 101, the two of them screaming in the back seat of the minivan, my shoulder throbbing, I noticed a hand-lettered sign posted outside a gym: $39 per month, no sign-up fee. I had never belonged to a gym; I never felt the need. But when I was young, I danced five days a week, and when I got older, my husband and I swam a mile twice a week before work and rode our bikes six hours a day on Saturday and Sunday. The only exercise I get now is folding laundry, paying bills, picking up sippy cups, and wrangling two preschoolers. As I gripped the steering wheel with one hand and massaged my torn shoulder ligament with the other, I made a decision. By Saturday afternoon, the plastic gym membership card was hooked to my key ring; the class schedule paper-clipped to the master calendar in our kitchen.
On Tuesday, I walked into the Dance Fitness class, and when I saw myself in the mirror, I almost turned around and walked out. But the hardwood floor felt the same under my feet as I remembered, and the students were all dressed in black jazz pants and tank tops, with their hair tied back, just the way they used to be.
And although my movements felt like only a suggestion of what I knew they were supposed to be, what I knew they once were, for that one hour I was dancing, and it was one hour of pure, ecstatic joy.
By Jessica O’Dwyer
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This was after a nearly a decade of legal proofreading on the night shift to support myself -- sometimes full-time and sometimes as a temp when it became too depressing to admit I was a full-time proofreader on the night shift. Not that anything’s wrong with that, but it wasn’t what I moved to Manhattan to do.
But lately my left shoulder has been bothering me, due, I’m sure, to the fast exit my two children and I made at Target last Friday night. We often land at Target when my husband is away on business and I’m losing my mind: We wander the aisles like disoriented space travelers, Olivia and Mateo studying Michael Graves ice-cream scoops as if they’re tools from an exotic people, then the three of us shuffling into the gardening section to study that tribe’s artifacts.
On Friday, Olivia wanted a salsa CD, Mateo wanted new fire engine sneakers, and they each insisted on a bag of popcorn. But for the first time, perhaps in history, the popcorn machine at Target was down. And no hot pretzel was going to substitute.
It was the scooping up of both of them, a combined seventy pounds, which ruined my left shoulder: that, and the kicking and writhing that ensued.
Driving home down 101, the two of them screaming in the back seat of the minivan, my shoulder throbbing, I noticed a hand-lettered sign posted outside a gym: $39 per month, no sign-up fee. I had never belonged to a gym; I never felt the need. But when I was young, I danced five days a week, and when I got older, my husband and I swam a mile twice a week before work and rode our bikes six hours a day on Saturday and Sunday. The only exercise I get now is folding laundry, paying bills, picking up sippy cups, and wrangling two preschoolers. As I gripped the steering wheel with one hand and massaged my torn shoulder ligament with the other, I made a decision. By Saturday afternoon, the plastic gym membership card was hooked to my key ring; the class schedule paper-clipped to the master calendar in our kitchen.
On Tuesday, I walked into the Dance Fitness class, and when I saw myself in the mirror, I almost turned around and walked out. But the hardwood floor felt the same under my feet as I remembered, and the students were all dressed in black jazz pants and tank tops, with their hair tied back, just the way they used to be.
And although my movements felt like only a suggestion of what I knew they were supposed to be, what I knew they once were, for that one hour I was dancing, and it was one hour of pure, ecstatic joy.
By Jessica O’Dwyer
Labels: By Jessica O'Dwyer
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