ten thousand steps

out walking, Crystal Springs, © 2016, Amber Schley Iragui

I don't write about exercise. It seems like an inconsequential and even impolite subject, something that should stay just between you and your running shoes. That is to say, the miles you ran yesterday? It seems embarrassing to publish those on Facebook. But since I don't exercise much, I'm rarely tempted to overshare. I error in another direction: I don't think about exercise much at all. And when I do, it is in an avoidant, fear-centered way—like I ought to be doing it, and perhaps liking it, and I'll start tomorrow.

But indulge me in this subject for a moment. I have been thinking about it lately, and the trajectory seems to be veering away from my old worn habits of hate.

First off, whether or not I admit it, I primarily view exercise as a means to losing weight. And, then, since I also think that the whole pursuit of losing weight is silly and overemphasized, I never truly commit to any exercise regime. I am not saying that good health is not a proper goal; it is an excellent goal. But it is no longer compelling enough to induce any suffering in the department of get-up-in-the-dark, put-on-exercise-gear, go-out-in-the-cold category.

Nor am I athletic. I cannot think of one sport I enjoy watching, much less actually playing. All the sports I was forced to endure as a child—volleyball for instance—were entirely comprised of dread and longing: dreading the ball would come anywhere near me and longing for the game to be over. Compared to team sports, jogging is fun. At least there is nobody counting on your participation.

The only physical activity I've ever looked forward to, and continued despite the feeling that I might just collapse, was dancing. And then I'm talking dancing to eurotrash at the Bulgarian Bar on the Lower East Side—drunks in suits, international students, Parisian tourists, an entourage of Indians who liked to dance with a chair. And it required no special gear, just something cute with flats.

And I cannot go any further down this road without a word about gear. Pretty much everyday of my adult life I have worn a cotton dress (or tunic or skirt), with a cardigan, and boots. In the summer with sandals. That is pretty much all I want to wear. It's comfortable, flattering, and goes well with my scarves and earrings. If I have to put on other kinds of things, like logoed tees in blocked colors, or ubiquitous black yoga pants, I feel done. Like my life is pretty much over. I might as well pierce my eyebrow and streak my hair green and buy some ugly Louis Vuitton purses.

So, well, exercise is not very me.

So when I saw online link to a New Yorker article with the byline "an essay on becoming a writer and a runner at the same time" I would have hardly paid it attention.  Except that it was written by Haruki Murakami, a writer I discovered last year and have a crush on. And surprisingly (or not, considering my crush) Murakami's perspective on running struck a chord. This bit particularly:

"...I don’t think there’s much correlation between my running every day and whether or not I have will power. I think that I’ve been able to run for more than twenty-five years for one reason: it suits me. Or, at least, I don’t find it all that painful. Human beings naturally continue doing things they like, and they don’t continue doing what they don’t like."

Of course every good article about exercise will tell you somewhat the same thing, find some activity you like to do and then do that. Except I tried and never found anything I liked to do (besides dancing at the Bulgarian Bar, inconveniently located 3,000 miles away). So I'd go back to my typical pattern of joining a gym, working out primarily on the elliptical machine, hating the florescent lights and tv screens, deciding instead to run outside, realizing it's too cold to go running outside, recalling my hatred of workout gear, giving up.

But after reading Murakami's article it did strike me that there is one thing I do like doing that is some kind of exercise. And that's walking. Particularly walking with a camera, or walking to do an errand, or walking to get a coffee or see a view. However, if I attempt to walk for exercise—if I go out in sporty gear and try to keep up a brisk pace—the activity will go the way of all my attempts to exercise: I'll get bored and realize I'm wearing spandexy clothing in public. But if I go out walking in what I'm already wearing, and if I carry a camera, and if I don't indulge in silly self-talk like no stopping! or keep up the pace!, suddenly things change. I keep walking, I go farther, I forget this is a chore and I enjoy myself.

Around the time I read the Murakami article, I also read somewhere that 10,000 steps a day is a healthy daily amount. I opened the little health app on my iphone (I'd been avoiding it because I suspected it was designed to induce exercise-guilt), and found that I was walking far less than 10,000 steps a day. But at the same time I noticed that during our weeks in Italy—where we walked often but hardly enough to feel I'd exerted myself—I walked far more than 10,000 steps a day. And, trust me, I was not dressed in any special walking gear in Italy.

A month ago I began my non-serious, camera-in-hand, dress-and-boot clad walking. While it takes a little planning to get 10,000 steps into my day, it is not by any means difficult. Walking suits me, and I live in a neighborhood suited to walking (for example, the grocery store is a little over a half mile away).

It is silly that it has taken me so long to realize this. But I am happy. Happy walking around my neighborhood, keeping an eye on the birds and bums in the park, photographing plastic fairies stuck in tree trunks.

P.S. This article was supposed to be about uniqueness. I tried at first to play up the uniqueness of how long it's taken to realize that I wasn't going to start Exercising, but then realized that my situation is probably not that unique. However, to find what suits you and to run with it, to accept yourself as you are and do the best with that, is to take hold of one's true uniqueness—in the sense of one's true humanity. Uniqueness plus humility. I like that.

{ and for a more on-topic post,  here's Julia's blog }

hospital corners solve nearly everything

In what may be a futile attempt to curb my so-called "baby fat," I recently joined the New York Sports Club, after having been sold on the $5/hour babysitting service on the premises.

I put off joining a gym for quite awhile because there were none within a reasonable walking distance. But this gym is only 2 stops away on the subway and I can get to there in less than 10 minutes, that is, if I don't take Ike. If I take Ike, well, it's a 30 minute one-way commute, what with stopping to investigate doggy-poo, ubiquitous chicken-bone litter, and all siren-blaring vehicles. (Not to mention the awkward maneuver through the subway turnstile; Ike often exclaims "oh wow!" when we get to the other side, as if surprised we succeeded.) Nonetheless, I was quite keen on returning to a exercise routine.

Our first trip to the gym was invigorating. I congratulated myself on being such an active mother, envisioning my pre-baby clothes fitting again. But my son had a different response. Isaiah decided that being stuck in a room with 5 other toddlers watching Dora the Explorer while his mother disappeared into a loud gym pulsating to P. Diddy was absolutely unacceptable. So on our next visit he did what he does when things are unacceptable--he threw a tantrum.

I was summoned back to the nursery only to find Ike plastered to the glass door, screaming at the top of his lungs. He calmed down when he saw me, and we sat together for 20 minutes or so. I managed to continue my work-out in 10-minute spurts, punctuated by leisurely rest-and-reassurance sessions in the nursery. Of course, this ensured our stay at the gym lasted three times as long as necessary. I tried the nursery again a few days later, in the hope that the last visit was an anomaly. But Ike's second screaming spell was more intense than the first, and I was obliged to call my babysitter to come up and get him so I could work-out.

Not one to give up hope, I tried again this morning. But Ike started shrieking before we even got into the nursery, and with no babysitter back-up, I turned around and made the laborious trek back home. Promptly upon arriving home I finished off a chocolate bar in frustration--just the thing to console myself over an unsuccessful trip to the gym.

But I came out of my funk, made the bed--replete with taut hospital corners--, fed my son lunch and put him down for a nap. Then I did some leg-lifts and crunches on the living room floor.

life, not unlike kickball at recess

I didn't like kickball, I didn't even particularly like recess. And so I sulked, lost in thought, in outfield--praying no one kicked a ball my direction.

The damp playground of Oliver P. Lent Elementary School comes to mind when I feel myself drifting away from the things I need to do. The problem with kickball was outfield. I'd stand awkwardly on the soggy grass, far from home base and other players, and think. Think about kickball and how much I hated it, how maybe if the clouds lifted a bit I'd see Mt Hood, how my fellow students were mostly a crowd of heathen imbeciles, and how when the sun came out the wet concrete would radiate cloudy scraps of evaporated water. If--God forbid--a ball came galloping my direction, I'd have to run, feign interest in the game's trajectory, and try to remember who was on my team and who wasn't.

Other recess games did not afford me such pondering. Wall-ball or four-square, for instance, required I pay attention; I had no time to think, "I hate this game." And even if I did not play particularly well, I enjoyed myself and finished each game flushed and animated. Right then and there I should have sworn off kickball permanently.

The problem is that people who think too much also tend to think that they should be like other people. What's wrong with me that I don't like kickball? That's what the cool kids are playing. I don't like kickball and never will, there is nothing to be done but accept this fact. It doesn't matter if I think I should like kickball, or wished I could gleefully race around after a blue air-inflated rubber toy with sixteen kids towards whom I mostly feel suspicious. Kickball is boring, and there are too many people involved, and it affords me too much time to think in outfield.

My life as an adult offers the same story: standing in outfield, doing something I have little interest in, gives me time too much time to ponder. There are things to be done--bills to pay, resumes to send, toenails to paint. And merely that act, merely not worrying that there is something wrong with me because I don't like kickball, gives me what I wanted all those years ago: abandon. It's time to ditch cool kickball and go play four-square.