10 Reasons......

SWIM SUITS

In a recent conversation with a friend, an occasional beach goer but not a swimmer, he asked if I stripped down to a beach bikini.  HAHAHAHA!  For several reasons, no.  Mostly, though, because swimming is working out, emphasis on "working".  For that I need the proper gear, and in swim suits that means it must stay on, stay up and stay down throughout the movement and duration of the swim.  If I like them and they are flattering, so much the better. I've mentioned before that I like to collect new suits during my spring vacations in Tucson.  I'm down to these five.  Yep, there's a shopping trip planned this year.

Look at these beauties! 

TOYS

It took me some time to add accoutrements.  I started with the basics: suit, cap and goggles.  Next came ear plugs.  Not for the noise, but because it was taking too long for my ears to clear the water that inevitably gets in.  This amount of toys kept me happy for a couple years. Then I had to shorten two swim seasons drastically because of injury.  This season I'm recovered enough to enjoy my full one-hour in the pool, with the aid of these additional two toys:  fins and snorkel.  It's a shoulder injury that's nearly healed.  It's time for it to go back to work, supported with fins which give a really nice push to the stroke.  It gets to rest when I use fins only on my back, or fins and snorkel on my front; either way no arms. Fins and snorkel have both been a lot of fun.  As my snorkeling technique isn't perfect, I was taking too much water in to my nose.  This caused the addition of the most recent toy: nose plugs.

Coincidentally, there have been two other people at the pool using snorkels and fins this season-when before there were none!

LAP ROUTINES

 Don't we know I love a list?  Lap routines are a list.  In an hour of swimming, there can be enough variation to satisfy the most inveterate list maker.  Sometimes I keep a routine for a few swims; sometimes it changes every swim.  Here's the routine I started in January:

8 laps front crawl.  Shoulder has to work, supported with fins.
2 laps on my back, kicking only, shoulder rests.
8 laps breast stroke, shoulder works.  The fins don't really help this stroke, but I don't want to keep taking them off & putting them on.
2 more laps on my back, kicking only, shoulder rests.
2 laps side stroke, shoulder works.
4 laps on my front, kicking only, with snorkel, shoulder rests.

This takes a little over 15 minutes, and I do 3+ sets in an hour.   I've altered this routine twice already. First I added a few laps of arms to the back kicking to test the shoulder for the back stroke.  Ouch.  Too many laps.  So I cut it back to 1 lap, replacing one lap of breast stroke in each set.  Then the last time I swam the other woman who uses snorkel and fins was swimming too.  She uses the snorkel for her front crawl, not having to breathe to the side.  I decided to try it because turning your head to breathe changes your alignment, and I can tell it's causing the recovering shoulder to fatigue.  Yowza!  A completely different experience!  I think I'm going to like it!  I'll keep it up for a few swims and see if it allows the recovering shoulder to experience less fatigue.  See?  There's no end to it!!!

IT'S MEDITATIVE

I know it's cliche, but lap swimming is meditative. Especially over an hour, the back and forth of the laps is rhythmic, and being supported while moving through the water is lulling.

IT'S CHALLENGING

But don't let that meditative thing fool you.  According to WebMD, it's considered a medium intensity workout.  It targets all areas of the body-arms, legs, core, glutes, back.  It's aerobic, and increases flexibility and strength.  One of my measures is how hungry I get.  Look out!  I have to feed a swim like no other workout!

I DO IT IN THE WINTER

Yes, swimming is a winter activity for me.  In the 4-season climate where I live, winter puts the kibosh on the hiking and biking I do in the summer.  It's the perfect indoor activity to keep me interested and fit, and I like the seasonal change in activities. And there's something about swimming and watching the snow fall out these big viewing windows at the pool where I swim.

No snow this day, but the windows are the greatest!

CHATTING WITH STRANGERS

Sometimes just a little bit of human interaction is so satisfactory.  I've initiated (mostly) short conversations with other swimmers, usually related to gear or how-to.  Most recently I responded to a conversation.  The third of us using fins and snorkel is a man, and as I was turning for my laps, I could see he was DYING for a conversation.  I was almost at the end of my time; I finished and engaged most enjoyably about fins and snorkels.

ENJOYING OTHER SWIMMERS

This doesn't involve interacting.  I go at a time that's restricted to adult swimmers and parents with tots.  I love seeing people with all body types and abilities, including disabilities, using the pool to enhance their quality of life.  There are regulars who come in for water walking and water aerobics as well as lap swimming.  And it's really nice to see parents-both moms and dads-with their little ones, playing with them, allowing them to play, and giving them their first water experiences.

SUITCASE CARRY

My personal trainer has given me an exercise called the suitcase carry.  According to menshealth.com, it improves core, lats, grip strength and shoulder stability.  It's done with all the weight in one hand while striving to keep yourself from tipping to that side.  As my gear bag gets heavier and heavier with all the toys, I have an opportunity to improve my suitcase carry. 

Wrong                                         Right

THAT WHIFF OF CHLORINE

Am I weird?  Okay, you don't need to answer that, because here's proof:  after a swim, I shower AND use a (nicely) smelly lotion.  Even so, throughout the remainder of the day, I'll randomly get little whiffs of chlorine.  It puffs up from under my clothing, it's on my skin when I don't expect it.  And even though I thoroughly dislike the smell of bleach used for household cleaning, that whiff from swimming is very pleasant.  Perhaps because I like swimming so much, it's the association.  Fun Fact:  I looked up the difference between household bleach and swimming pool chlorine:  it's only the concentration.  Household bleach is ~6%, swimming pool ~12%.

I Think I'll Try My Hand at....a Book Review!

Like most of us, I can easily dredge up memories of doing book reports in school.  Most especially of the dreaded Oral Book Report. That particular paralysis of standing in front of a classroom of your peers, cold sweat, dry mouth, light-headed from anxiety.  I could never do a good read justice.    

There must be a difference between a book report and a book review.  Perhaps the book report is what students have to do, and book reviews are what grown-ups get to do.  Hmmm.  Let's see:   

According to yourdictionary.com:

A book report is "an objective retelling of the story".  It's purpose is to summarize and inform.

A book review is a subjective analysis of the story.   It's purpose is to evaluate the book and offer an opinion about it.

That's it!  In my reticent book reporting days, I wouldn't have been able to dredge up an opinion about a book and say it out loud under any circumstances.  Yeah, those days are long past.  I can dredge up an opinion about anything now, and say it out loud whether or not anyone is even listening!  Here's to being a grown-up!  

I've decided to try a combination.  A short summary, so you will have some idea of what the book is about.  Then my opinion and analysis.

A little back story about how I choose books to read.  HAHAHAHAHAH!  There IS no criteria!  It could be a book review from Time or People magazine. It could be a personal reference.  It could be a topic I'm exploring or an author I've tried and grown to like.  But if I'm scanning a shelf of books to find something I might like-e.g. at the library, or a thrift store- there actually can be a very minimal test or two.  1) Do I like the book cover?  Woe to books without a cover.  If it's an author I don't know, my eye flies right over it. 2)  Do I like the book title?  I'll choose a book by title alone, without reading any of the cover information even if it's available.  I can never be described as discriminating.     

On to it.  The book I'm choosing to review is titled "Hillbilly Elegy:  A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,"  by J.D. Vance. I chose it both because some time ago I (briefly) read reviews about it and most overwhelmingly, I could not possibly resist the title.  By the time I got around to reading it, I had no recollection of what it was about and didn't care.  The title was still enough. 

Published in 2016, Hillbilly Elegy made the top of the New York Times best seller list in both 2016 and 2017, achieving the greatest prestige for its author.  It swept assigned reading lists and book club choices.  It was the rage.  Naturally, lots of summaries, opinions and analyses were floated. Here's mine, starting with the Book Report.


Let's look at that title:  

Hillbilly:  (derogatory, informal) An unsophisticated country person, as associated originally with the remote regions of the Appalachians.  (oxforddictionaries.com)

Elegy:  (in modern literature) a poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead. (oxforddictionaries.com)


As indicated, Hillbilly Elegy is first and foremost a memoir.   The author describes his childhood and young adult life as he remembers it.  It is necessarily limited by his perceptions.  While he did research and interviews for the book, as with all memoirs, his experience stands alone.   

Author J.D. Vance was born in Middletown, Ohio, and grew up there and with extended family in Jackson, Kentucky.  His grandparents were part of a post-WWII migration of workers from the south, and particularly the Appalachian areas, to the industrializing northern US.  The need for workers was acute, and residents of Appalachia were recruited as individuals, families, and even whole towns.  As a result, their "hillbilly" culture often stayed intact.  Vance's experience included the worst of that culture: rotating father figures, domestic violence, drug abuse, honor and loyalty ethics requiring a violent response that precluded larger cultural norms.   As he reached his teenage years, the US steel industry took the hit from which it has never recovered as part of the 2008 Great Recession.  Armco Steel, the major employer of Middletown, closed.  Middletown followed the normal course of imploding towns:  rampant unemployment, declining expectations, hopelessness, and a perception of victimization.  

Against this background, Vance has a paradoxical tale to tell.  Despite an upbringing that seemed to have an inevitable result, he not only survived, but through a series of unforeseeable events, many coincidental, he was able to graduate from high school, join the Marine Corps, attend and graduate from Ohio State University on the GI bill.  He decided to apply for law school, and after some informal research applied to both Yale and Harvard, based on their reputations.  He was accepted to Yale without realizing he was the recipient of Yale's need-based aid; for him, a nearly full scholarship.  As a student of Yale, he was automatically afforded the many opportunities and contacts that are part and parcel of an Ivy League education and a Yale Law School education in particular.  He graduated and has a successful career in California.  In his own words, Vance says, "...I didn't write this book because I've accomplished something extraordinary.  I wrote this book because I've achieved something quite ordinary, which doesn't happen to most kids who grow up like me."  



Book Review:  

My  opinion:  Loved it!   My analysis:  I love a redemption story, and that's what this book is.  Vance's success is not his personal redemption, but the redemption of his upbringing.  Vance himself was no villain turned hero.  He was a kid caught in a situation.  He could have gone either way at any time, and says so.  Inadvertently, he is the recipient of a series of those coincidences that make or break a life, and of which we're not often aware at the time. Here's the redemption arc:

His mother was an addict, provided the rotating father figures and a wildly unpredictable daily life to her children, Vance and his sister Lindsay.  Her parents, the first generation out of Appalachia and hillbilly to the core, were the first make-or-break.  Their own marriage failed due to domestic violence on both their parts.  However, they stayed separately in the neighborhood, and as they grew older, saw and responded to the need in Vance and his sister for safety, stability and consistency.  They offered themselves in quasi-parental roles, including the insistence of the value of getting an education.  Though Vance was an indifferent student, he managed to graduate from high school.

At a loss of what to do afterwards, he sent for application material for Ohio State University.  Neither he nor his grandmother had an inkling of how to fill out the application paperwork, nor did they know who to ask.  Another make-or-break occurred when he had a conversation with a female cousin who was a Marine Corp veteran.   She told him to talk to a recruiter, and her confidence gave him confidence.  He enlisted and was immersed in a wholly different culture of discipline, highest expectations, team vs individual.  He was taught and learned the skills he needed not only survive but succeed during deployment.  Many (though not all!) of the skills and principles he learned transferred to his civilian life. 

His Marine Corp experience gave him the maturity and confidence to apply to Ohio State University where through a blitz of focused effort, he graduated in just under 2 years with a double major.  Then his next make-or-break, his application and acceptance to Yale Law School.  

This, other reading, and some personal anecdotes indicate that attending Yale is akin to being a Marine.  Like the Marines, there's a very deep and particular culture, and it's a lifetime membership.  In another make-or-break, he attracted the attention of one of his professors, who helped him navigate and take advantage of what he didn't realize he was being offered.  He succeeded, and is a practicing attorney in California.   

Throughout the book, Vance acknowledges the people who helped him.  Looking back as an adult, (only 31 when he wrote this book in 2016)  he sees very clearly both their assistance and the randomness of his success.  He recognizes the truth and complexity of his phoenix-like rise from the ashes of his culture.  This is the poetry and the lament of his Hillbilly Elegy.  






 

2019 Is Already 10 Days Old!

I'm not ashamed to admit that the New Year is my favorite time of year.  Even though it's only the turning of a day, the new number is fresh and full of potential.

I'm not ashamed to admit, either, that I really enjoy the Extravaganza of Planning that happens at the New Year.  As promised, I spent the whole of January 1 doing just that.  I no longer call it Resolutions, because even though there are things I want to improve upon, try & add (until I'm dead!) mostly it's a guide or framework for the coming year.  And even that is flexible, as Life Happens and can have its way with even flexible plans.

Here are a few of the things that came up during the Extravaganza of Planning:

Fitness is always at the top.  This year is a revisit of Tai Chi.

 

 
My hiking friends Sue and Donna and I originally met while participating as members of the local Taoist Tai Chi Society.  For various reasons we stopped attending classes and practicing.  Sue has been interested in getting together to do just the Tai Chi set for some time.  Performing the set takes a certain amount of space.  It can be done outdoors, but hey!  It's winter here!  Turns out Donna's house has the space, with only minimal moving around of furniture.  So last Friday we had our first 3-person Tai Chi session.  HAHAHAHAH!  I haven't done a bit of Tai Chi since I stopped.....maybe 3 years ago.  And believe me, my brain has been plenty busy since then.  Thank goodness both Sue and Donna remember quite a bit.  We also have resources:  Donna has the official instruction book; I have the list of 108 moves; the set is on YouTube in various forms; from the founder Master Moy doing a demonstrating to various clubs & individuals.  We'll be able to come up with enough to refresh ourselves.  Even though I bumbled, I loved it!  I was reminded that I stopped Tai Chi because of time constraints, not because I didn't like it.  It's gonna be fun!!!!

Music retains its place high on the list.

On-going violin and piano lessons and practice will continue.  I have on-going anxiety about playing violin publicly for the usual reason:  I'm not very good!   The Frozen Shoulder episode got me out of a couple of years of performances, since I was only working with bowing.  However, I'm back to full capacity on that front.  My teacher Emily schedules String Caroling each Christmas at various venues-Assisted Living, the local hospital, the local used bookstore, Bookman's.  Whoever is available shows up and plays; private students, high school students she teaches at Basis, members of the local community orchestra.  Though I initially didn't plan to play, she asked very nicely if I could play at JUST ONE event, so I agreed.  Yeah, still don't like it.  Still not very good.  I can't change the not good part-I am where I am.  However, I have an idea to work with the anxiety part.  It's a direct steal from NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts:  Tiny Deck Concerts.

This is a winter view of my Tiny Deck

  
Come summer, at some time of day when not many people will be listening, I'll go out on the little deck outside the loft and play a few tunes.  Just to get the sound out there in the larger world.  Good, not so good, it will be good enough!


Cooking  I've been thinking & talking about adding to my cooking repertoire for awhile, and this is the year.  As it turns out, I do a lot of cooking & food preparation since I retired.  Ron and I both prefer to eat at home.  We live far enough out of Flagstaff that spontaneous eating out doesn't happen.  Cost is somewhat of a factor, as is health relative to food additives and portion size.  So, home cookin'.  I'm a good enough home cook, but it's been trial and error and following recipes.  Since I'm going to be cooking anyway, I've decided to give myself a little boost and learn or improve my skills.  Here are some I don't have:  Choosing the right pan! Knife skills!  Steam, boil, saute, braise, roast!  Flavors and seasoning!   There doesn't appear to be much locally as far as classes; the only one I'd want to do in person is Knife Skills.  Need I say there is no end of free on-line information & classes?  That'll be my starting place.  First up doesn't require a class, though.   Ron and I recently ate dinner with friends Bob and Mary, and Mary served some delicious roasted green beans.  I've had them at a restaurant and loved them, but didn't have the gumption to try them at home.  I asked her about them:  easy peasy she said, and told me how to do it.  Coming up this week!   

Yoga and Meditation Challenge 

You know the 21/90 rule:  it takes 21 days to create a habit/90 days to create a lifestyle.  I tried the 21 day challenge twice in December.  Fail x 2!   This month I'm going to try it again.  Starting tomorrow (really!).  I've given myself 10 days to settle in to the New Year; 21 days will take me to the end of the month.   A question I've asked myself is:  if I'm resisting it, why bother?  I don't HAVE to do either one. Well, it's because I have found that even minimal amounts of either of these practices are of immediate benefit in ways I can easily identify.  That makes me certain they'll also be of benefit in ways I don't know.

So, that's my Intro to 2019.  Whatever you're up to for the New Year, have fun!

 The Year

What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That’s not been said a thousand times?
The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.
We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night.
We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.
We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.
We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that’s the burden of the year.

                                                                                 ---Ella Wheeler Wilcox