Most days I wake up happy, just excited to be alive. But at times when my internal sun just seems to refuse to shine, it is exercise that is my secret weapon.
Yes, I am addicted to weight-training. Then there is tennis, golf, bike-riding, and walking. But on the mornings when even these feel like too much effort, I have rediscovered a long-neglected pleasure: aerobics.
It is hard to be sad when a perpetually joyous instructor mimes movements for all to follow, to a playlist we didn’t even have to choose! The biggest effort is retrieving whatever props will be used that day, and maybe a towel – and the rest just unfolds as we cooperatively gyrate toward fitter selves.
Admittedly, spring can be a slog in the Midwest. There are ants on the counters, and muck in the yard. Add the recent exhortations that even bird feeding should be suspended through May? That is yet another cruel cut in a season that is never short on insults, fits and starts.
The daffodils stand in defiance of my precarious moods, however, urging me toward hope.
I should get out into my garden, whether it is raining or not.
Pushing the spring clean-up earlier this year, I called my landscaper to do the heavier chores, and my handyman to address some small jobs he couldn’t get to last fall.
Two ducks decided our fishpond looked well-stocked, and yes – I was that neighbor, out in my bathrobe, yelling at mated pairs before coffee.
The need to net the pond right away had not been on that day’s list, but responding to change is what this season is all about.
A parade of stuffed bunnies and other Easter decor clutters the kitchen, and awaits storing away. Thunder rolls and lightning cracks the darkened afternoon sky.
Snowbird friends will arrive home soon, and before long, we will all enjoy fun in the sun.
At last. (c)
