Reading etc.

You will recall (I am sure) that in early May, someone sent round an invitation to keep fit classes in the neighbourhood group chat. The venue is five minutes away. I had no excuse. I felt it was time. Despite my age, gender and the fact that everyone I know does yoga or Pilates, I have never done either so it was…a learning opportunity.

My first Pilates class was grand. I mean, I was stiff for a week but it was an exercise class and it reminded me of PE in school a bit. This feeling was possibly in part due to the fact that the class was held in a sweaty hall.

Then after two lessons, the Pilates teacher went on a week’s holidays and she was replaced by a yoga teacher. Dear God in heaven. She told you to put your limbs in weird places, and when you were knotted up a bit like Twister, she would say, “Now, gently raise yourself in the air.” I mean, I wouldn’t have believed it possible if I hadn’t seen a whole room of people (including pensioners) doing just that. I had unwisely settled my mat between two expert practitioners who were like bendy rubber people so that didn’t help either.

Also on offer was pickleball which is basically tennis for pensioners. At least, it is the way it’s played locally. The scoring is truly peculiar and the ball bounces delightfully slowly. I was entirely unsurprised to learn that it was invented to entertain small children. If you play tennis at all, you will star at pickleball. I may have been a dud at yoga and only alright at Pilates but by gum, I was the star of pensioners’ pickle ball from day one. It helps that I don’t limp.

Of course I was riding for a fall here. All was well and despite the fact that on week two I was hit on the thigh by a smashing pickle ball which drew blood, I remained keen for three weeks. Unfortunately at an unrelated incident – a very mild cycling accident* – I appear to have wrenched my elbow somehow and although it is not a problem in general, it is quite sore when pickling. I have retired temporarily, felled by pickling elbow.

On Fridays there is what I am now casually calling S&C – like I have ever actually been in a gym – and I was a bit unnerved at first, but I have been three times and I kind of like it. The first time the trainer was a bit worried about me when my face turned into a tomato – a constant when I exercise – and I said, “I’m not doing as badly as you think, it’s just that my face always goes red when I exercise.” “Do you have low blood pressure?” he asked. I do, and apparently that’s a thing because your heart is so anxiously pumping blood to your head to deal with concerns that your brain may be deprived of oxygen, it turns your face bright red. I am glad to have this explained after all these years. I am surprised how much stronger I seem to be getting after only a shortish time. I am no longer bottom of the class but proudly second from bottom. I fear it might be like skiing where you become alright very quickly and then never manage to progress from there.

So you are reading the words of someone who has been engaged in consistent weekly intensive exercise for the first time since she gave up hockey in her late 20s. I am really surprised how much I am enjoying it. I feel way more energetic and I am becoming surprisingly stretchy. Perhaps if I do yoga again, I may even be able to rise gracefully into the air. Perhaps not. We will be stopping for the summer and by the time we recommence I may be back at work but perhaps I will look into evening classes. Perhaps not.

*I was cycling into town to meet a friend for lunch and I was a bit late. It was raining and I turned too fast (although my maximum speed is VERY slow) into a street which is now pedestrian and bicycle only expecting it to be pretty empty which it was, except for the cyclist I bumped into. We both pulled our brakes pretty hard and the actual collision was very slow and I didn’t even fall over. He did in extremely slow motion. I was mortified and apologised profusely. The odd pedestrian scurrying by in the rain paused hoping to be amused by the bike on bike violence but the man was really nice, very gentle and quietly spoken. As he got up, saying he was ok, he added “Please try to cycle more carefully in the future” which was pretty mild, all things considered. However, in braking hard and turning my front wheel, I do seem to have done some mild damage to my elbow. Let us hope that my temporary retirement from pickleball will give it time to recover.

I love a printed newspaper. I hate reading my news online. I don’t mind that my news is, by definition, at least 12 hours out of date by the time I read it. I like being alerted to the news I don’t read, even if I just flick through the many pages dedicated to sport. I like reading things in hard copy. I like being able to see at a glance just how long I will be spending on an article.

I was kind of appalled by how hard it was to get any kind of paper in New York.

Recently, I went into a convenience shop in Temple Bar where I have frequently bought the paper in the past only to be told that they do not sell newspapers. The, presumably new, employee said that they never had. I mean, I suppose they didn’t sell a lot of newspapers there but still and all.

When I go abroad, I like to pick up a local newspaper and see what’s going on in my chosen holiday destination. Is all this to end?

Well, according to this article in the Irish Times (note how I have photographed it from the paper, rather than putting in a link, a nice touch, I think you will agree), yes. Oh alas.

I’ve found the missing jigsaw piece:

Too late, alas:

I’ve put the missing piece back in the box, but I’m honestly not sure that I’ll ever have the strength to make it again.

When I started blogging in 2003, it was because I was far from home, I was lonely and I had a new baby. My family in Ireland were interested in my doings. And it felt social to a new mother at home alone with her baby. I started reading other blogs. Here is a list of some favourites I made in 2009. Neither today nor yesterday. It was a good while before that, that I started reading Heather Armstrong on Dooce.com which is one of the blogs on that 2009 list. I was definitely reading it as early as 2004 when the writer’s own daughter was born.

I followed Heather faithfully over the years, I listened to her podcast, I followed her on Instagram and twitter. When she got divorced, I sent her a present (weird man, but she had a PO Box and I was so sad for her). She was one of the funniest writers on the internet. She often made me laugh out loud. Although her life was very different from mine, we had children of similar enough ages and her ability to articulate the universal experience of child rearing was extraordinary. She was a very gifted writer.

She was also pretty sick. She struggled with chronic depression (which she wrote a lot about) and alcoholism (which she wrote about more recently) all through the time I read her blog. Of late years, she basically disappeared from the internet aside from the occasional appearance on Instagram. I always kept an eye out for those updates. Her last couple of posts sounded manic and were confusing and hard to read. I was glad for her when she more or less stopped posting. It seemed like a good sign.

On May 9, she committed suicide and I am so sad for her two beautiful children (her elder child had just started college last year, the younger is only 13), her mother who had such a starring role in her blog and all of her family and friends. I’ve been thinking about her all day. It’s so strange to feel this way about a total stranger but there you go. Fluid Pudding (the strange names were a thing when blogging started) another of my favourite bloggers – also a great writer – put it this way:

Because she held nothing back, we felt like we knew her, and we loved her honesty. We laughed with her and we cried with her and we celebrated her victories. Then we watched her struggle. We followed along as she went down paths that felt destructive, and we suddenly felt uncomfortable with the honesty we once loved.