the devil's agent

" . . . preailing Victorian fashion . . . required women to wear full-length dresses or skirts that hid any 'immodest' display of an ankle. These heavy petticoated garments, however, sometimes using over twelve yards of fabric, significantly confined the physical activities of women. When the bicycle craze emerged in the 1890s, the long skirts and slips hampered safe, comfortable cycling.

Fashion designers solved this with the 'reform dress,' but convincing American women that shorter skirts or bloomers were respectable presented a formidable challenge. Both the thought of women riding bicycles and daring such a radical change in dress met stiff resistance in some circles. The Rescue League of Washington formed to fight against women riding 'the devil's agent' and wearing bicycle apparel. The organization launched a national crusade to ask clergymen and women to supress the bicycle craze because of its vulgarity." Linda Lawrence Hunt, Bold Spirit: Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk across Victorian America, Moscow, ID: University of Idaho Press, 2003, p. 85.

we have come a long way, baby.

I'm just about ready to put on my cycling tights, bare a little ankle, and go flirt with my favorite devil's agent.

a step back

we have to do this every once in a while.

step back, distance ourselves from whatever is going on internally, and make a naked assessment of where we are. (not an assessment of where we are, naked, that's an entirely different posting.)

without this ability to step away from where we currently sit, it's much too easy to get caught up in the seeming minuteness of our progress, and the disappointment in our speed of travel toward our destinations.

we can call this witnessing.

without witnessing, things don't always seem to have happened. whether our witness is internal or external, the very act of witnessing brings movement into awareness, validating its existence.

it's a skill to be able to step back from ourselves; it takes commitment and awareness and the ability to detach, something most of us find difficult. but it's crucial if we are to move forward healthily.

I have to pause and step outside myself in many arenas, and the causal factor is usually a feeling of disgruntledness. why aren't I better, why aren't I faster, why aren't I further along this path, why aren't I making more money, why am I still here, where I was a year ago . . . then I shake myself, take a deep breath, and step back.

and look where I used to be.

then give myself credit for forward movement.

as much as I think I'm more thoughtful and aware than this, there are still times where I expect instant gratification. okay, perhaps not instant, but say, within a short span of time. even if I only work on something occasionally or sporadically, I still expect visible changes. what I'm trying to teach myself is that baby steps are not only the best way to move forward with depth and certainty, but they just might be the only way. and what's best about them is that they work.

so when I take that step back and away, looking at susan from outside, I can see her strengths, her challenges, her very human-ness, and just how very far she's come. she may not be "there" yet, but as "there" seems to be a moving target for her, it's all good. she's moving. she's changing, growing, adding new skills to her repertoire, continuing to subtly reinvent herself.

and I bet that if you were willing to step away and assess, becoming a witness to your own self, you would find much of the same.

credit and a half

I am worthless in here today.
that's what I said to bob and andy in the weight room this morning at 6:35.
bob's response was,
if we compared your worthless and my worthless, I'm sure you'd come out ahead.
that made me feel better, to know that it wasn't just me.

I want to feel energetic and powerful and capable all of the time, and my reality is this: I don't.
and since I can only live inside my own head, and not those that belong to other people, I struggle when doing self assessments.
this is what I wonder: do other people in power camp climb on those bikes in the morning and think, oh God, another day of spinning my legs around and wishing it were over and feeling like I just can't keep going?
do other people in the weight room think to themselves, gosh, why is it that this doesn't seem to get any easier, and how do weights get heavier from one week to the next, and, gosh, why does everyone else make it look easy?

nick was in the weight room this morning, nick my swiss friend who in 2009 lost his wife of half a century or so and also broke his back in a water skiing accident.
prior to this morning, I last saw nick right before Christmas, when he was still having difficulty navigating stairs. he wasn't quite ready to return to working out at the JCC, and he didn't look as though he was quite ready to return fully and vibrantly to the community.
this morning he looked good.
this is what he had to say about it:
I see myself every day, and I can't see any change from day to day. but this week I'm better than I was three weeks ago, so something must be happening.

this is when faith keeps us going. a belief in something that isn't readily visible or measurable each day. a belief in the process, a belief that we are growing, changing, healing, progressing.

this is when I need to go do a headstand. because my headstands are markedly better than they were a year ago. they are not perfect. they are still slightly wobbly and I'm not yet ready to do one away from the wall. but the day will come when they will be even more stable than today's, and I will be able to do one in the middle of the room.

and perhaps the reason that I don't feel stronger and more capable in power camp is that I keep raising the bar. I take for granted the progress I've made and how very, very far I've come. it's no longer enough to survive the experience: I want to excel, to thrive, to conquer. so each day that I perform adequately I give myself credit for surviving, when in reality I should give myself credit and a half because I did it better than I allow myself to acknowledge. I am better than I was two weeks ago, a month ago.
I need to give myself a pat on the back for my iotas of forward movement, whether they appear to be measurable or not.
because they are there.
scooting along, moving me toward . . . the next best version of myself.