Shape

I am in shape!

Well.

A shape.

I am in a shape that is mine.

But I have sadly learned that just because one was once really, really active and thus in pretty darn good physical condition it does not mean one is frozen there at the peak and can then sort of... stop...

Yes.

See, Kirk and I used to run every night. We would head down our little street, down two blocks, loop around, back over and up the street, loop again, head UUUUUUUUUUP the hill to the dead-end and back to the house. I have no idea how far the run was but Kirk always claimed it was about three or four miles depending on how many dead end circles we went around. Could be. Then on the weekends we biked 20 miles or so each day (with the Children, and the shouted reminder as we rode along the crumbling Nor-Cal cliffs to FALL LEFT!!).

Of course then it happened, and he was gone, and we moved to this place of NO OXYGEN AT ALL and I kind of sort of stopped. Everything. All the active stuff. I mean, the bike has a flat tire, and running up here gives me activity induced asthma and it's too hot and it's too icky and... and... and...

But I still think of myself as active and healthy and all of that which is why it was so terribly annoying to have found myself out of breath when hiking with the Children a while back. Not that I did anything about it. I just reminded myself that I walked at LEAST 3/4 of a mile to work EVERY DAY which was totally valid exercise. Besides it got too hot to hike after that so problem solved!

Except those darn Children kept joining in things that involved stretching and leaping and doing muscley thing with their arms. And that even more darned Child 2 said it wanted to tone itself up and be healthier and as a Good Mother I had to support it which meant facing up to the hypocrisy of nagging a Child to do push ups while sitting on the couch watching Top Gear.

So for several weeks now Child 2 and I have been walking together - down the bike path, over the bridge and twice around the park (which, according to the entirely reliable Child 3 is about 3/4 of a mile around). I have rather longer legs than the Child which means that there is a slight inequity of stride. Child claims that it shouldn't have to keep up with me because of the leg issue. I claim that as I'm OLD and it is YOUNG there are to be no excuses. Finally we have compromised by staying together on the way to the park and then parting ways. Child 3 has even begun tagging along and showing us both up by loping around the track and then wheezing dramatically all the way home.

It's good though. It's good to remember how nice it feels to be in a body that likes to work. It's good to spend quality time talking with the Children about absolutely nothing.

It's good to be moving again.