A Portal To My Soul

I am insanely fortunate to have been able to spend hours and hours partaking of beautiful walks, taking photos, getting fit (or at least attempting to...) and I hope I shall always be this fortunate.

I am equally fortunate in that I appear to have the temperament that allows me to enjoy spending hours and hours editing photos from the hours and hours of beautiful walks, into creations that make my soul sparkle with happiness.

Walking begets photos, photos beget editing, editing begets blog, blog begets writing. And that makes me happy too, as I'm also fortunate in that I love playing with words!

It is, however, another world entirely to try and set up, for example, a website to showcase the end results of hours and hours of editing photos from hours and hours of partaking of beautiful walks!

Nevertheless, walking, photography, writing: a trifecta of happiness that come all wrapped up in this blog, has now been spread a little further across the interwebs in the form of my new PHOTOGRAPHY WEBSITE! WHEEEEE!!!!

Yes, it's called PORTAL! I was, at first, trying to find a name that suited both me, and the photos I like to take, and kept coming up with such pretentiousness that it was impossible to take myself seriously! (Well, as seriously as I can possibly take myself, at any rate!)

In the end I came back to the name I originally came up with when I first added my door photos to a facebook album back in August 2013: Portals. But just singular this time, to add a teeny bit of ambiguity. For portal does not only mean door, but it can also mean (amongst many meanings and now the word ‘meaning' has lost all meaning)... wait, I'll let Dr Google take over:

portal

ˈpɔːt(ə)l/

noun

noun: portal; plural noun: portals

1. a doorway, gate, or other entrance, especially a large and imposing one.

   synonyms:

   doorway, gateway, entrance, way in, way out, exit, egress, opening; More

   • an Internet site providing access or links to other sites.

I'm still tweaking the look here and there, adding pages there and here, and valiantly battling against fiddling too much!

And there is so much to fiddle with, given half the chance! From the layout, to the font, to the choice of... everything really. I'm rather impressed with Zenfolio for this. It's not all straightforward, although on the whole it's simpler than Blogger. (I won't begin to tell you how long I enjoyed playing with colours and fonts and layouts and backgrounds to arrive at what I have just now on here, though!)

Fonts, for example. Give me a facsimile of Henry Purcell's Orpheus Britannicus (a collection of songs posthumously published in 1698 and 1702) and I'll be just as enamoured of the beautiful type as I am with the beautiful music... 

Some of the (many) reasons I adore ancient books is the feeling of the raised ink against a less-than-smooth page; the slight irregularity to every printed word, the unevenness of each letter. The font I chose for this blog is called ‘IM Fell DW Pica'. It's a Google font by the designer Igino Marini, based on the typesetting work of printer John Fell (1625 - 86) and his personal typesetter, Peter de Walbergen, and to me feels like the internet text equivalent of an exquisite late 17th Century air.

But I couldn't have everything I put online look the same. Well, I could, of course, branding and whatever other business ideal it would be to have everything I did look the same... but not everything I do is the same. 

And so we come to ‘Century Gothic', the font I decided to use for the new website. I am split, and always have been, between the typographic ideals of the baroque and the 1920's, and ‘Century Gothic' (released in 1991 by Monotype Imaging), based upon a font called ‘Twentieth Century' (1937 by Sol Hess for Lanston Monotype), itself designed as a competitor to ‘Futura' (designed in 1927 by Paul Renner of the Bauer Type Foundry), has always been a favourite of mine. Although supposedly influenced by the Bauhaus School (I'm more of an Art Deco person myself), I'm still drawn to this font style as something synonymous with the glamour and modernity of the inter-war years. And it looks pretty!

So yes, I'm sure you can imagine the massive amount of enjoyment I get in playing about with page-designing tools, considering the amount of space I've just taken up on here discussing font choices! 

The hardest thing about creating the new site, however, has been choosing the photographs that I think, to get down to brass tacks, may bring in some revenue. I could very easily add every photo I've taken that has received, for want of less tragic example, a ‘love' on facebook, but 1) I'd quickly fill up my allotted (and paid-for) space on Zenfolio with photos already taken (oh yes, a little blowing of my own trumpet there!) leaving little space for future ‘loves', and 2) as much as I delight in knowing my facebook friend list is filled with dears who share, at least in part, my artistic temperament, this is sadly not an accurate representation of the money-spending world at large. Because we all know artists, musicians, and anyone associated with the arts, whether literature, performing, or visual, are pretty much as poor as church mice!

So yes, choosing photographs to has been a bit of a challenge, and I suspect I'll change my mind many times about what belongs there and what doesn't, but that's half the fun, no? Why not keep everyone on their photo-procuring toes!

But enough talk, and more walk! The temperature has risen from the minus four of this morning to a robust zero degrees C, and the sun is shining its little heart out. I'm off to find my walking boots...!

Falling

One of the things about being large is that you fear falling over. It's a forty-fifty-ten mix of panicking that you'll not be able to get back up again without extraneous help; being afraid that there are witnesses laughing at your no doubt attention-grabbing pavement-plant; the dread that you might have seriously hurt something other than your pride.

So... 90% fear of dying from embarrassment, 10% fear of actually, yannow, dying.

I've had a few serious falls in my adult life so far. (The childhood falls through glass doors, off bikes, and from the top of bale forts totally don't count...)

The first was when I was at music college in Birmingham, outside our local pub; although I must point out it was on the way TO, and not coming home from said pub. It was a simple mis-judgement of a pothole that led to me being ambulanced away, my ankle being strapped-up rather firmly, and having to ‘walk' around with crutches for a week.

The second (already richly documented on this blog) version was a tumble down some Portuguese church steps in 2005 in which I broke both the zip of my dress, and my foot.

The third, in 2011, was really just a trip over a kerb-stone and an inelegant land on my right knee on the edge of the self-same kerb-stone. The kicker was that I was at my heaviest, and that innocuous fall gave me unspeakable amounts of pain, and an unresolved haematoma that is still slightly swollen to this day. To say that my right leg from mid-thigh to mid-calf was one massive purple-yellow mess is no exaggeration. I shared the photographic evidence with friends on Ravelry, and one dear friend was so impressed with the incredible colouration that she dyed a skein of yarn in the colours she saw, called it ‘Bruise' and sent it to me!

(I have yet to find the perfect project to show this off in the fashion it truly deserves, so if anyone finds a lovely pattern for a crocheted sling, or perhaps a pretty knitted neck-brace, please do let me know!)

I suspect fear of falling off anything is something that we come across in all walks of life, but I'm slowly learning that if you're so afraid of falling, whether it be off a bike; down some steps; in love; whatever, you'll end up cocooning yourself away from any hint of a trip, sitting in a safe place, by yourself, wondering how life got so boringly, achingly lonely.

Yes, yes, I'm totally speaking for myself.

Lately I've been testing the give on several safety nets of my own, though. Well okay, that sounds like it has been a decision made by myself rather than The Fates giving me a strong nudge in more dangerous directions, but, for example, venturing out onto pathways of a less flat and concrete state and more of a rocky, muddy, hilly state has given more than a tug or two on the threads of my particular tapestry of life.

What have I discovered? Well, for one thing my knees don't seem to mind bending so much these days. Okay, so yes, that discovery was made after slipping in the mud a couple of times and landing on a completely folded knee. You know - like when you kneel completely, sitting back with your heels on your behind. Now, just to let you know, the last time my knees did this without pain (well, apart from the initial ‘ow, I've just fallen' jolt) is before I hit my teenage years. Remember that knee disease? The one that stopped everything athletic and balletic in my life? Yup. No knee-bend with weight on since then. Actually, no real knee-bends of any sort since then.

But how long has it been since that full kneeling-sit pose has been possible? THAT is the question... How long have I been missing out on doing more because I had never even entertained the thought that it might be achievable? Possibly a couple of years if I take into consideration that that's when I started doing knee-strengthening exercises again.

So how long has it been since I didn't feel the fear (quite so much) of trying to do something that might or might not end up with me making a fool of myself? Um... perhaps a month. Why? Because being the clumsy person I am I was too scared to risk it before. I remembered the pain and let that remembered pain weave a web of doubt and dread that held me back from trying anything new. But having slipped and fallen several times in the last month doing things I haven't attempted to do in years and living to tell the tale has given me a new sense of possibility.

Fear of falling isn't enough to stop me any more. Well, it might slow me up a bit, as it is probably a good idea to remember just how much of a clumsy clown I can be, but I'm not going to let it stop me completely any more!

Just remind me I said that when you come to sign the cast on my broken ankle...

The Golden Rule

I know I'll never have what goes for an ideal, Vogue-ready body, and my eye has been too schooled by the media, my mind too clouded by others' opinions of me over time to be content with my reflection, but today I saw a little bit of me that I liked that I never used to like.

It was quite the revelation. I was looking at myself in the mirror, properly, as I do only very occasionally, not usually liking (actually more disliking) what I see, but somehow today I was in the right frame of mind to see something other than the stuff of my bullied-person nightmares.

Let me explain... When you lose weight after being very, very large for most of your life to being merely large, things change. Your body gets a bit confused, and your skin doesn't quite know what to do with itself. Before shedding the weight, your largest organ (yes, that's your skin, I'm not just making this shit up as I go along, you know. Well, not entirely) had been getting on perfectly well, perhaps feeling a put-upon at times, somewhat taut maybe, but apart from the inevitable stretch-marks, it was beautifully wrinkle- and blemish-free.

And then you lose the equivalent of a teenager in weight and everything goes to hell in a handbasket. An ‘average' teenager, I have to say. Not me as a teenager...

...

[As an aside, my Mum was clearing out her airing cupboard the other day, and found an old skirt she made for me when I was maybe fourteen or fifteen. Had it not been too short for my current taste I'd be wearing it now! That was me as a young teenager. Size-wise, pretty much me now. A short, but large, albeit voluptuous, adult. Definitely not your archetypal teenager!!]

...

Some of the put-upon epidermis does eventually tighten itself a little, but mostly it just can't be bothered so just sits there, wondering why things had to change. It's not the loveliest of things, the by-products of losing weight. The romance of weight loss that we are spoon-fed by media, lifestyle hucksters, and diet quacks stops short of revealing the ending. Or the never-ending...

And I've not finished yet. I still have a way to go. But I decided a while back that I'd only go as far as I could cope with the side effects.

And what was the little bit of me that I liked? One of those side-effects... A little concertina of tummy skin. I know, sounds gross, right? Instead of being disappointed at the me I saw in the mirror, I looked at it, and I accepted it as being part of me. And then I realised it represented an achievement I was proud of, and not the left-overs of something I hated. Because I didn't really hate me, not really, I just hated being treated like I should have hated me, amongst other anti-large sentiments, but had gotten into the habit of pre-empting comments, jokes, and sentiments before having them spewed to my face by others first.

By trying to lose weight, though, I did (and still do) feel like I was letting the Size Acceptance movement down by wanting to change myself - the one group of people who are actively fighting to give those of us endowed with larger bodies a fair hearing in the auditorium of life. How could I support something by trying to change the very essence of myself that was needing support? I then realised that it's not fat acceptance that is the key, but the more simple and general ‘Acceptance'.

Acceptance of the belief that everyone is different. Acceptance that it's also okay to change something about yourself by any means you prefer if it has been making you sad, mad, or ill. And accepting that's it's okay *not* to change anything, either, because you're perfectly fine just the way you are. And the reality that wherever you are in your own acceptance the number one thought should be that you must be kind to yourself.

That being said, I am still harder on myself than I should be. I do want to lose more weight, and I can be quite the self-meanie. I want to make good changes for myself and am constantly aware of the struggle to do so. But in saying this, it is in no way a comment on other people, their weight, their methods of being who they want to be, their lifestyles, their anything. How on earth can I hope to be accepted for who I am if I refuse to accept others they way they are? Without trying to come across as all sanctimonious or moralistic, I'm a great believer in treating others how I'd like to be treated myself, and acceptance and kindness must surely take priority?

Conversely, I think it's okay to have things about yourself that you don't like. I reckon that striving for perfection is folly most of the time, but striving to be a better person isn't. Once you realise that perfection is unattainable it can also mean that you might find something about yourself, about others, about life, that you find annoying, or reprehensible, or stupid, or embarrassing, or any number of negative adjectives that spring to mind. Because we are human, after all. There will always be things we don't like, especially about ourselves. But we can stop the self-dislike becoming more pronounced by accepting that this something-we-don't-like exists, instead of trying to fight it into oblivion. For that, at least for me, just emphasises what I don't like even more, and makes it an even bigger mental foe.

So I'm trying to think in different directions. This thing I didn't like about myself turned into something else once I accepted it as part of me, and I realised that disliking it was okay as long as I didn't beat myself up about it too much.

I guess sometimes it doesn't take much to flick the switch from dislike to like as long as we are kind to ourselves, and by extension, accepting of others.

And because some of this post reminded me of this video below, I felt I had to include it!

Sometimes The Ace, Sometimes The Deuces

So, yes, I have put on a little weight since coming back here. It was inevitable. Not having room to exercise, and not really being able to take as many walks as before, it has all made a dent. As has access to Food. With a capital ‘F'. My gods, but the UK is full of food. Good and bad food. But so much of it! (Or it feels as if there is, to my mind at least!!)

But my excuses, well, not that any are actually forthcoming on this particular post apart from the pseudo ones above, are not needed. 

The annoying thing is that I'm heading precariously back in the direction of the mindset of O MY GODS BUT I AM HUGE AND HORRIBLE AND NO-ONE WILL APPRECIATE ME AND OH OH OH I'M A USELESS HUMAN BEING and it is a silly mindset. Silly.

Therefore this post is to affirm how fabulous I am. At least in a couple of things! 

See this? This was in 2005. Portugal, a few days before I broke my foot. Hilarious person, seemingly full of life, always making folk crack up with laughter, trying to ‘make up' for the fact that I am large.

This was in 2015. Still enjoying making people laugh, but not using it so much as a diverting tactic. It seems that clown part of me is a good part, after all!

This was in 2009. I made that dress. I was very proud of it. I have it still, and one day I'll learn the skills to take it in from, I guess, a size 30 down to a size 18/20.

This was in 2015. In the ‘Twenty-Seven, uh wait, Five Dresses' post, I did succeed once in making an excellent alteration to one dress! The dress in the picture below, in fact!!

This was in 2010. My Little Brain Weasel™ (like My Little Pony but less cute toy, and more evil destroyer of self-confidence) is telling me “Let's not open our mouth too wide, or that quadruple chin will be caught on video for ever".

This was in 2016. I believe the term is called ‘Ah, Feck It, Let's Just Gie It Laldie!'

This was in 2011. My Little Brain Weasel™ says “Hide! Hide those chins! HIDE, I SAY!"

This was in 2017. Ach, still chins, but still dimples, too, so deal with it, My Little Brain Weasel™!

I do admit to myself now that I was at least a little fabulous before, too. I just wasn't in the right place, mind-wise, to appreciate it. I do wish I had known I wasn't truly horrendous when I was younger, but hind-sight is 20/20, as they say. But being fabulous and fit(ish) is better all round for me now, and just because I'm in a little slump losing-weight-wise at the moment, it doesn't mean to say that I'll end up back where I started. I've learned too much about myself for that to happen.

(One thing I've learned is that I appear to be made up of cookies and nature walks... But in the end, Gloria Gaynor said it best: I am what I am, and what I am needs no excuses!!)

Variations On A Theme, Opus 97 By B. Ully (1980 - 2016)

Bullying comes in all shapes and sizes, much like the people to whom it's directed. It comes in many different forms ranging from emotional to physical, and no matter which type you come across in your life (because I suspect that most people have experienced bullying in one form or another) it leaves a mark.

The belief that fat is a shameful and uglyfying contagious disease is prevalent in our society. We see it in the tabloids and on the streets every day. People continue to behave like they can pick up a stigma-tastic fat virus by breathing the same air as someone who is larger than they are, and that somehow it's possible to be considered as undesirable, as unpopular, or be as bullied as a bigger person if you hang out with, like, or even (gods forbid) find them attractive. And I'm not talking about the reasons why a person is fat here (for there will be as many different reasons as there are people who are large), but simply about the social dishonour of being ‘different'.

I find that in itself to be very telling: that the modern human psyche is somehow letting it be known that bigger people get treated like crap, and no-one wants to be treated like crap if they can help it. No-one wants people to think that they are deficient on some mental scale for liking a bigger person, so instead of an empathetic response of kindness, inclusion, acceptance, the knee-jerk reaction is one of avoidance, exclusion, and, in more extreme cases, physical bullying. Bullying perhaps just to prove that you're really, really having nothing positive to do with a fat person in any shape or form, just in case the fat cooties attack you, too.

I was reminded the other day* of an incident earlier in my life where I was advised to seriously contemplate having a relationship with someone because he was the only person they knew of who liked fat girls, regardless of my own feelings (or lack thereof) for the guy. The implication being that they** thought a) he was a rare thing, in a strange fetish fashion, and b) I wouldn't find anyone else, so settling for him was the only thing to do if I didn't want to remain single for the rest of my fat, unlovable life. I'm paraphrasing, thankfully, but behind the ‘you seem so nice, you deserve to be loved even if we consider the potential him to be weird to do so' was a theme that has been a recurrent one since the time I discovered boys. And in varying degrees of platonic friendship from even earlier days.

My own experience of being bullied isn't unusual. It began when I was around eight years old. Before that I don't remember being made to feel I was different or not worthy of inclusion, but it was a tiny primary school, so once the kids reached an age to notice differences amongst ourselves, there was no place to hide.

Why was I bullied? I'm presuming it was because I was plump and looked different from everyone else. It's certainly the only things I was ever teased about. (Well, I was called ‘Duracell' a couple of times ‟with the copper-coloured top" but being a red-head was never anything I was teased with more than once or twice.) I was big little thing from day one; slightly premature and underweight (oh the irony) but broad-shouldered and compact none-the-less. I turned into a shy, chubby, emotionally-tangled hermit, (I'd go into ‘huff's, as they were called, when I didn't understand what was happening around me) and looking back I suspect that because I didn't understand why I was being picked on quite so much, it probably didn't help matters much once I became known for being a loner further up the school system.

My best friend back then was the polar opposite to me, skinny, a bit spoilt (partly because she was an only child, partly because she was from a troubled home and her parents were probably trying to cover things up with material things) but a kind friend to me until she started to be bullied because she was my friend when we were maybe ten or eleven. I never condemned her for her decision to choose not being bullied over being my friend even at the time, although I remember the sense of abandonment.

I wrote an essay in my first year English class at secondary school about being bullied, being careful not to name names as I was still being targeted by the same people, who were, incidentally, in the same classes as me at the ‘big school'. As a piece of prose it got a good mark (write about what you know...), and because of that the teacher read it out to the class, after which the bullying instigator from primary school came up to me in tears to apologise, not realising how much being bullied had affected me, yet somehow realising that she was the bully ringleader about whom I had written. I don't remember my reaction (probably embarrassment), but I do remember she was never so bold in her taunts afterwards, and instead I seemed to disappear from her radar, and therefore most of my primary school acquaintances' radar. Mostly a good thing, I think.

I spent much of my secondary school career by myself. From the tenor of the teasing and insults tossed at me on a daily basis I have to presume again it was because I was by this time quite overweight, partly in thanks to a heady cocktail of big genes and a knee condition which stopped all sports and movement almost in their tracks when I was thirteen. (I've written about this elsewhere on the blog - Osgood-Schlatter disease. Then: a debilitating knee condition that could turn a sporty, ballet-mad youngster into a decrepit old person almost overnight; now: something that can be handled with drugs and physiotherapy.) And again, a loner known to be a loner is left alone to be that loner. A meta loner, if you will.

The guys I crushed on were the objects of pity and potential tease-target themselves because of it, and I learned that my affections were to be abhorred and shunned, that I was not worthy, and that anyone who did actually like me would probably be emotionally deficient. The people I had to sit next to in class were sometimes subject to ridicule because, ugh, who wants to sit with the fat girl. So I learned to find seats by myself at the back of the class where no-one could see me and where I couldn't bother anyone. I stopped eating lunch in the canteen because I was so ashamed and embarrassed to be sitting by myself every day, and being subject to sniggers and jibes, (I started putting on extra weight because the dinner ladies felt sorry for me sitting on my own and piled my plate up every day to ‘make up for it', and I'd comfort myself in the food***) so instead took packed lunches to school, eating them in the locker room by myself, then eventually taking my sandwiches down to the beach, far away from school environment, and I learned that it was better to be lonely than be surrounded by people who made me feel like I was less than human.

Ironically the only other overweight girl in my year was my biggest tormentor. Pun not intended. She was sporty, strong, large, and tall; a giant who would physically push me around if we met up in the corridors or in the locker room. Hindsight suggests that the choice (in this context) for the fat girl at school was either to be the bully or be the bullied, and she obviously chose the former before the latter could put a choke-hold on her life. Compassionate retrospect aside, she is one of the few people on earth who I would not deign to spit on if she was on fire, even now, thirty years later, for it was her behaviour that was the catalyst in making my secondary school life a thousand times more painful, heart-breaking, and awful than primary school ever was. Where she led, others followed, either by example, or by avoiding me, and a lot of the emotional scars continue to lurk just under the surface.

Although yes, since school, instances of bullying haven't been as physical, but comments continue to fly from uncaring, uneducated lips, ranging between sneers and sniggers from passers-by in the street, a memorable account of a stranger, an especially rude bitch, poking me in the stomach in M&S telling me I didn't need to buy sausages, to being told more than once that I didn't get an operatic part because although I was vocally a shoo-in, I wouldn't fit in to either the director's visualisation of the opera, or the already-designed costume. And everything in between, whether from strangers with ill-intent, or from friends who ‘only have my best interests at heart'.

Current psychotherapy appears to be going along the lines of ‘what happened before has no bearing on the now', concentrating more on current feelings and thought processes, but you can't tell me that decades of rejection, being laughed at, and being made to feel less than human doesn't contribute something to how one feels about one's self, how we expect to be treated by others, and what we expect to be given in terms of affection throughout the rest of our lives.

But let me get this straight - I've not written this for sympathy; I neither need nor want any. Nor do I seek personal attention. I just want to add my voice to the myriad others who are trying to bring attention to the subject at hand, whether it be bulling by fat-shaming, disability-shaming, gender-shaming, race-shaming... In this context I don't care about the reasons why a bully bullies; in the end such perpetrator-coddling begins to sound like nothing more than victim-shaming. The ‘they beat you up, physically, emotionally, but that's because really they're sad, going through some ‘stuff', or is angry at themselves right now and therefore shouldn't be condemned, told off, or made to be responsible for their actions, but instead they should be cosseted, cared-for, and understood' argument holds no water when faced with the realities of being on the receiving end of their ‘bad day', and told we ‘probably deserved it, anyway, fatso'.

Is there a solution to the bullying question? Well, yes. Taking a moment to think before you speak or act might be a step in the right direction. Not openly sneering at someone who doesn't fit in with your own particular brand of ‘normal' might be another. Not judging someone by their appearance. Maybe trying to be less prejudiced and more embracing of human diversity. Then teaching your kids by example.

They sound so obvious, patronising even, but these tiny things can make the biggest difference to someone who's used to running the gamut of insults on their person every day. But I can't force people to change their discriminatory actions towards others; it's hard enough stopping myself from giving (or, more realistically, thinking about after the fact) retaliatory insults, or making my own snap judgements about a person, to try and change the world one twat at a time (I can change myself, though), but the first day I walk about in public and not receive any vocalisation of distaste or disdain will be an interesting one, I think.

* “You don't like being single - have you tried internet dating? There are sites especially for guys looking for bigger girls."

** It's fair to say that these weren't close friends telling me how to live my life, because my true friends, at least, don't insult me to my face, sugar-coated or not.
*** Beef olives, chips and gravy. mmm For all the possible connotations it may have to crap times at school, it remains a comfort favourite. Not all memories are bad, I guess...

Muscle Amnesia

“Nic continues to mistakenly believe that, just because she studied ballet for 10 years before a knee condition stripped her of athletic ability at 13, any cardio-ballet workout will be a doddle, somehow forgetting that thirty years have passed with nary a plié nor arabesque to be seen.

#iHurt #KneesStillDontWork #UglyDucklingPuddle"

Yes, in a way it's just like riding a bicycle - once you know how to do it, you don't really forget. Muscle memory is a powerful tool in many respects, but muscle memory is not, repeat: is NOT the same as constantly putting those muscles to use over a long period of time. Anyone who's just ridden a bike for the first time in twenty years will tell you they're a bit wobbly at first, but then their subconscious and sense of balance will kick in, and they'll be pretending they're on their old BMX/Raleigh Racer in next-to-no time. Then they'll tell you the next day that they can't walk because their thigh muscles will have decided to shorten to half their original length, and that they're being haunted by the ghoulish pressure of a too-small, too-hard saddle between their cheeks, and can't actually sit down.

Yes, remembering the mechanics of how to do something you used to do a long time ago is so very much not the same as actually having done it continually over the years...

First position? Pff, please you don't have to remind me what that is!! Wait, I can't get my heels to touch because my calves are getting in the way... Hang on, let me really push them... Um, I don't remember my Achilles tendon twanging so much before, that can't be normal.

Second position grande plié. Ah, that should be fine. It's like a sumo squat without the pain. I SAID WITHOUT THE PAIN! Ah yes, my knees still don't work, but I'm sure that using my knee-supporting muscles, whichever ones they are, it'll be fine. Knees are supposed to grind and pop nowadays, aren't they? Add a port-de-bras first to fifth (holding a cardio ball) while you're dipping, and back again? Ok, but I'm not sure my core appreciates that its day off has been cancelled. There's a lot of internal moaning going on... More than usual, anyway.

Split-squats opening out into a low arabesque... I.. Oof. I seem to be too over-encumbered with booty to raise my leg more than a foot off the ground behind me.

I cracked open an old book of Haydn sonatas the other week, not having looked at it for years. Possibly even fifteen years. It lives sandwiched between my vocal scores, with some other piano music from That Time Before Singing, but I spotted the blue ABRSM cover and was overcome by a fit of nostalgia, opened it at an old favourite and sat down to play. Needless to say my actual piano technique has been shot to hell after being neglected for so long, but even though I stumbled a bit, my fingers, on the whole, remembered where to go. After a decade and a half! Then I felt my tendons in my lower arms twitch, and after half an hour of pretending to be Maria João Pires I had to close the book, and gingerly wrap my wrists in the elastic supports I have to use after a particularly long session typing up my thoughts on to my computer.

So yes, that cerebral muscle memory can be a double-edged sword, but practise, as they say, makes perfect less pain. Then again, practise also gives you the ability to do something you couldn't do before, too...

I visited Sorghvliet park last week to pay homage to Spring and her ability to carpet the place in bluebells for a month every year, and actually managed to crouch to take a close-up photo; a basic human ability robbed from me in my teens. But not only did I manage a crouch without too much creaking and complaining, I also managed to get up without my knees demanding that I get on all fours before attempting that tricky Standing Upright manoeuvre as they've done in the past. 

Those afore-mentioned knee-supporting muscles with whom I'm only now becoming acquainted might come in useful, after all...

Jessica Smith, I hate you, but I love you, too.

More Than Just A Number

I haven't, up until now, copied and pasted anything here that I've found interesting from the ‘net about weight-loss, but having struggled with the numbers of my scale sticking around the same place for the last goodness-knows how long, an article on myfitnesspals' blog Hello Healthy made me think a bit more positively about where I am right now.

Nah, I'm not really going to copy and paste the entire article, although the link is just above, if you want to cut out the middle man. 

Struggling with being stuck on a Table Mountain of a plateau even though I'm consistently eating well and working out has led to a lot of negative feelings in regards to how I see myself; my shape, my commitment, my goals, and not only that, but it makes me worry that my friends have similar worries about my journey. I'm aware that I'm walking this path for myself, whether it goes up or downhill, but yes I do fret about how I'm seen through others' eyes, too, those that know I'm on this voyage of discovery, and have witnessed the huge difference I've made in my life so far. It's quite traumatic for this person who spends a lot of time worrying about other people, and not wanting to let them down or to think that they might be saying, aw, what a shame - she was doing so well - after not noticing any recent tangible weight-loss.

(I doubt there's really anyone out there, except for myself, who actually spends that much time thinking about me at all in this respect, because hey, I'm proud of myself, but I've not fallen in a narcissistic hole of presuming everyone actually cares *that* much about what I'm doing. That I care about what people might or might not think probably comes from having such a positive reaction from friends and relatives about my new appearance and health after a lifetime of being judged and found aesthetically wanting. But this is a subject on which I've been writing about for a few months now in another post, and I'm still working on it, so I won't mire myself too far into this emotional mindf*ck here just now!)

So indeed, what made me stop and think enough to want to discuss the article I read online was the way I was still being controlled by my scales, and how those numbers have been the be-all, end-all of how I've been measuring my losing weight. Yes, I've posted about how pleased I am to be getting into smaller jeans, and how I'm still having to alter my clothes even though I'm stuck, weight-wise, but I've not really managed to truly convince myself that it's all good, and that I'm still on track.

The title of the piece is ‘12 Amazing Exercise Benefits That Aren't About Weight Loss', which is a little bit click-baity, but as touched on a nerve I had to have a look. I'm glad I did.

Out of the 12 Benefits which are listed as:

1. Relieves stress and anxiety
2. Improves learning and memory
3. Improves self-esteem and body image
4. Strengthens the heart
5. Builds stronger bones
6. Promotes quality ZZZs
7. Provides a bonding experience with loved ones
8. Improves mood
9. Increases metabolism
10. Improves digestion
11. Reduces disease risk
12. Decreases appetite

I can certainly relate to a few. Numbers 1. and 8. seem to be linked for me, certainly when I'm taking my long power-walks through the woods and parks, a time when my thoughts are concentrating more on my surroundings than the myriad little problems we all face every day. And it's certainly true to say that when I'm sweating and swearing my way through video workouts, there's little space left in my brain to accommodate anything other than counting reps and being an internal cheerleader to push a body that would prefer to sit and eat cake into a body that works better with sit-ups and, well, still eating cake. (Cake 4 Life, y'all!) And although I've yet to reach the fabled heights of an exercise rush, I've never finished a walk or a workout feeling worse than when I started. At least mentally!

I have no idea about number 2. Are my memory and learning abilities improved? Who knows. I still occasionally forget why I come into a room, and continually misplace my tv's remote control, so the jury is out on that one, and I'm swithering about number 3. Is my self-esteem improved? Has my body image finally dragged itself out of the gutter? Here it gets more complicated, partly due to my work as a singer, and it's a career that sometimes feels like it's regulated by self-esteem and the approval or otherwise of others. It's a very personal instrument, obviously, and I can't think of one fellow singer that hasn't been affected by critiques at least one time in their lives.

Body image is something else (even though nowadays you have to look like a Hollywood starlet to get decent work, and frequently how you look is considered more important than how you sing...) and it's a little easier to analyse. Yes, I look at myself now and feel a thousand times less horrified than I did up to four years ago, when I spent as much time avoiding my reflection as possible. I'm proud that I can now sit in a theatre chair without having to edge in sideways. I'm ecstatic that I no longer need to ask the air hostess for a seat-belt extender in front of sneering and judgemental ‘fellow' passengers. That I can walk and talk at the same time, instead of merely forming gasped and monosyllable conversations continues to be a delight. But in true Twenty-First Century, media-controlled, body-not-mind-obsessed fashion, I look at myself and rarely see the stronger frame that has had its body-fat content dramatically reduced, that enjoys healthier curves and fits in smaller, cuter clothes. I mostly still see a fat girl who continues to be shunned and ridiculed by your average person on the street, whose stomach will never be flat, arms will never stop jiggling, and whose jawline will never be taut.

Yeah, 3. needs a little more time, methinks. 4. and 5. on the other hand. Well, I'm pretty sure my heart has to be a lot stronger than it used to be. My lungs, too. It's simple to tell just from recovery period if nothing else. My beats-per-minute come down from a well-sustained aerobic rate to normal again so much faster, SO MUCH faster than when I started this little health-improving sojourn. Yes, I still get puffed-out during exercise, but it's not how knackered you get that indicated fitness, because no matter how fit you are, you still want to push yourself as far as you can go (without incident or accident), it's how quickly your heart returns to its resting rate. And my bones? Well, I ache a lot more than I did before I started this exercise regime, but I'm happy to accept that my bones must be stronger, without empirical proof.

Quality sleep, number 6... Well, it's hard to tell, as I can sometimes sleep like a log after a day of doing nothing but type on a keyboard, and I can suffer insomnia after a day full of moving about, and a killer workout. Next! Ah, 7. Yeah, Exercise bonding. I workout on my own, and although I share my ups and downs quite liberally on social media, I'm loathed to let anyone near me when I'm trying to curl up in a crunch, or attempting to make sure I don't suffer a concussion from an overly-flung kettle-bell. I bond over cake.

8. is up-post, and 9. 10. and 12. are their own little hells. Metabolism increase, digestion improvement, and appetite depression. Hmm. Well, my metabolism was never slow to begin with (although that may also have been controlled by my previously un-diagnosed gluten intolerance, because that does... *things* to the speed of digestion that can be, frankly, a little surprising...) and I can safely say that the combination of curbing my calorie intake and upping my exercise time have done little to stave off the need to bury my face ear-deep in a well-frosted carrot and walnut cake more times than I'd care to admit.

I will cut and paste part of 11. though. Because... well: “11. Reduces disease risk. Exercise can actually help prevent diseases like type 2 diabetes, stroke, metabolic syndrome [the name for a group of risk factors that raises the risk of heart disease and other health problems], and even some forms of cancer."

Yeah, 11. When sh*t gets real!

So, I must learn not to lament when those scales show me no change, because even the most high-tech weighing apparatus (or at least one that I could afford) won't be able to show me how much stronger, fitter, and healthier my body is, nor by how much lighter my mind can occasionally be lifted.

Muscle Bound

“Nic never felt so stiff and sore, in constant need of a good stretch (and something to steady her cup of tea) in the days before working-out. Surely there's a lesson to be learned there? 

True, she couldn't walk and talk at the same time without gasping for breath in those days before working-out, but at least her muscles never felt the need to complain about overwork! 

#ObliquesOfDeath #TricepKickbacksKickedBack #ThereAreAbsUnderTheFlabAndTheyHateMe

#ParallelUniverseSilverLinings"

All joking aside, it's quite horrifying to realise that there really was a time when I couldn't walk and hold a conversation simultaneously. A time when I'd seriously strain a hamstring attempting to climb off a chair after changing a light-bulb. A time when a trip to IKEA was looked on with trepidation thanks to the the mountain of steps to be climbed to get from the train- to the bus-station (and thence on to the store). Seriously. I love IKEA, but those steps would put such a downer on the whole trip that not even the promise of Swedish Meatballs would be able to save the day completely.

Yes, now I'm on the exercise bandwagon, I know it's not really advised to come off, either losing weight-wise or health-wise if you want to maintain weight loss, vigour, and/or flexibility. But don't get me wrong; if I could stop exercising tomorrow and not suffer from muscles turning to fat, depletion of strength, the inevitable weight gain, and a whole host of other detrimental health issues, I'd already be scribbling out a long list of TV series to binge-watch every evening for the rest of my life while vegging-out on the couch, instead of clicking on YouTube, and beating myself up with a variety of torturous exercise implements six nights a week.

I am not one of those born-again exercisers who only live for the time when they're sweating their guts out, whilst simultaneously, and loudly, spreading The Gospel Of Burpees. No. I shall leave worshipping at the Altar of Exertion to the sweating zealots (a band name for the taking if I ever heard one). But I do have to admit to enjoying the benefits of raising my heartbeat significantly for an hour or so at a time and of taxing my muscles to the point of fatigue, and truly appreciate not having to worry any more about people accidentally sitting on my lap when I'm travelling on public transport, because they thought they were going to sit down on my coat lying bunched up next to me on the other half of the seat, and not actually land upon my spreading thigh.

I mentioned this exercise con (as I'm now calling the exercise bandwagon in my head on days I'm aching more than normal) to a friend of mine - you know; beginning a new regime with good intentions, not realising that, like pets, it's for life, not just for [after] the holiday celebration of your choice, that is if you want to maintain the good work you've achieved so far - and she agreed that it is probably just as well that those at the start of a new workout programme, health kick, or attempt to lose weight aren't made more aware that once your body begins to get used to being punished, it needs more. Well, more of the benefits the punishment and suffering bring at least, and the stinger is that if you're hurting the best way to ease the hurt is to do more of the same!

So the only answer to workout-induced aches are more workouts, which seems rather unfair in the whole positive scheme of trying to better oneself, but it's probably just as well most of us don't know The Truth when we start out. I'm not 100 percent sure that had I been given a notice saying ‘Congratulations! You're about to embark upon a life-changing regime. It's going to be hard, and you're going to hurt a lot, but the benefits will be amazing! Disclaimer: you'll never be able to stop once you start because exercise malady begets exercise remedy. Vengeful God, Old Testament style' I'd have been quite so eager to start.

I exaggerate, of course. I'm only really complaining because I ache an awful lot more now than I did when I was a couch potato; a time when the only heavy lifting I did was the dragging of my larger self from place to place, and the only ‘cardio' my heart got was the straining it had to do all day and every day just to keep me upright. Ah, good times, good times!

In essence I was punishing myself a thousand times more per day back then than I do now, in an unhealthy and unconscious way, but even though I think I've now tipped the balance in my favour, I still maintain the right to lament over the fact, yes fact, that tomorrow my rear, thighs, mid-section, and upper arms will be ruing the day four years ago when I first picked up that Wii remote and changed my life!

O Thou That Walketh Good Pathways Of Zion

I was fortunate enough to be introduced to Jerusalem while I was over in Israel. (Yes, that's where the misappropriated and somewhat mangled Handel lyrics of the post title were leading!) What an astonishing city, with an even more astonishing history, one that I started reading about properly a year or so ago when I bought a ‘biography' of the city by Simon Sebag Montefiore (long before any thoughts of visiting) and I believe I got to around the mid-18th century, bang-slap in the middle of a few hundred years of (surprisingly peaceful, all things considered) Ottoman control, and then I mislaid the book. It's here somewhere. I just can't find it at the moment to verify the place I left off...

But I digress. (In the first paragraph. I can't decide if this bodes well or not...)

We started what was to be an incredible walk around the Holy City on the balcony of the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus in north-west Jerusalem, where an unprecedented view of the old city met my gaze. I have to admit to being rather awestruck by the sight, and even more so when important landmarks were pointed out to me, and as much as I'm not a person of religion, the power of the stories, the power of history, was overwhelming! Here was the golden Dome of The Rock; over there was the tall Tower of David; the part of what was left of the ancient second century city wall swept itself in front of a swathe of dark green trees just under Temple Mount; and over there the twin grey domes in a direct line behind the huge light cream Rockefeller Museum were of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; and slightly to the left was the tall bell tower of the Church of the Redeemer; further left was the white dome of the Hurva Synagogue; and Dormition Abbey with it's impressive bell tower, sitting behind it, just beyond the city walls.

There are certainly less auspicious ways to be introduced to a new city!

Afterwards we made our way down to park the car at the other side of the old city, near Montefiore's Windmill in the very nicely renovated (read: expensive) Yemin Moshe area where there were gorgeous old houses that had been rescued from hovels and turned into dwellings worth a small fortune dotting the not-too-steep hillside.

We then walked up to the Jaffa Gate, past the Tower of David and entered the Old City for real.  

What an incredible maze of ancient alleys, lanes, and tunnels! Thankfully everything was very well signposted, but it was fascinating to walk round the miles of market stalls that lined the walkways, then stumble upon, I don't know, the alleged final earthly resting place of Jesus Christ, for example.

Indeed.

We wandered over the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim quarters, and there was something astounding, juxtaposed with something banal and touristic, around every corner. 

We tried to get near the Western (Wailing) Wall, but as it was approaching dusk, and we would have to separate to get there (men and women weren't allowed to approach the holy site together) which would end up being rather time-consuming, one of my friends suggested we visit an amazing look-out point instead. And amazing it was. The Mount of Olives in the background with the Jewish Cemetery; the dome and tower of the Al-Aqsa Mosque right in front of us; the Western Wall reaching out to the left; and Temple Mount just behind it.

We then re-entered the Jewish Quarter and passed the Hurva Synagogue just as the sun went down, on our way out of the Old City through the Jaffa Port again.

A quick visit to the YMCA to experience the opulence of the entrance hallway was to be our final tourist stop, and after a day of amazing sights and experiences (and an excellently long walk), the mix of old and new rounded it all off very well!

What an epic journey! A small (somewhat pedantic) part of me rather wishes I had worn my pedometer, because we covered a lot of ground that afternoon, but in any case, I've been introduced to so many places I would love to get to know better in Jerusalem, that I will just have to come back, with or without a step counter!

Jaffa Kijk*

There's nothing new about January sun. Well, yes, it is a rare phenomenon and can seem like something new and unusual after weeks of dreich winter cold and grey skies, but really, January sun does exist, shy and retiring animal it seems to be, or for one thing we'd be hurtling through space on a frozen lump of rock and ice in our most basic, star-dust form, not really caring very much about the concept of sun, never mind the months of the year. What I've never experienced, however, is a January sun that brings a warmth of which a Scottish day in June might only dream. 

Winter sun. I've seen the phrase many times on shiny posters with photos of bronzed families soaking up tropical rays on exotic, white-sanded beaches, while slurping on overly-fruited, fluorescent cocktails richly festooned with paper umbrellas and bendy straws.

I've never been a fan of the concept, which I suspect won't come as a shock. I have enough trouble avoiding summer sun, red-headed, fair-skinned, burn-under-the-glare-of-a-60-watt-bulb Scot that I am, that trying to avoid it when I'm supposed to be wrapped up in layers of warmth, and, presumably, huddled under a straining umbrella, is a notion that goes against the very essence of my cold-blooded being!

Colour me slightly lobster then, when the planets aligned to the extent that some dear friends from college planned on being in their home country of Israel at the same time as each other and wondered if I'd like to join them for a week or two, see the sights, dispel some myths, and maybe make a little music together if we felt like it.

Winter sun. To be honest, I wasn't sure if I was more perturbed to have to cobble together a new summer wardrobe (because there's not much left that's serviceable, fits, and looks nice after a clear-out revolving around a somewhat teary realisation that all my favourite comfy summer clothes were all now way too big and looked ridiculous on), or you know, to have to contend with our western, terror-laden, perception of Israel. 

But this as this it the place that houses my meandering thoughts on my attempts to lose weight, I leave any ponderings along other lines to those who know more than I about the subjects!

My friends had family to visit and spend time with while we were there, so I used one of my spare days alone to partake of a good, long walk down from where I was staying near the Old Port in the north of Tel Aviv to the outskirts of Old Jaffa. It was, according to Google maps, just under eleven kilometres there and back, and even with a ‘cool' twenty degrees, I wasn't sure if I'd be overdoing it to contemplate anything more, especially as my planned route down the boardwalk than runs all the way down the beach-line from the Old Port of Tel Aviv to the Old Port of Jaffa would be buffeted by a brisk sea breeze, as well as beat upon by an already warm (for me) and bright sun. 

But never one for shying away from a good seaside jaunt, I donned my walking shoes (brought especially), applied lashings of factor 50 sunscreen (see note above about burning under low-level lighting), made sure I had the spare battery for my phone safely tucked away in my shoulder bag (because photos would happen), and set off, pausing about ten minutes in to catch a view of the boardwalk, shrouded in sea-spray a little further on, the marina in the middle distance, and Jaffa way, way off on the horizon.

I enjoyed the opportunity to revel in sights I'd never see at home, like stands of sheltering palms on the beach;

and stands of sheltering umbrellas on a boardwalk look-out point.

It's a lovely long walk, though in places somewhat damp, where waves crashing into the rocks sent their topmost curls onto the path, soaking both the walkway, and passers-by unaware that the path was wet in places for a very good reason.

It was quite fascinating watching the distant skyline of Jaffa slowly come into focus; almost with each passing step being able to discern more of the buildings and landmarks as they separated from each other into individual entities. My camera roll, before it was judiciously pruned, bears testament to this! Had I my wits about me before deleting them, it would have been interesting to make some kind of electronic flip-book of the (otherwise very similar and not altogether worth keeping on their own) photos from the last couple of kilometres leading up to Jaffa's Old Port. But, as usual, I continue to come up with good ideas only after the fact!

But then, suddenly, you're there, at the Port of Old Jaffa, the port from which Jonah embarked (according to the stories) for Tarshish before getting swallowed by the whale.

You'll notice that I didn't, as originally planned, turn back at the outskirts of Jaffa, because by the time I was in the mutual outskirts of the old and new cities I was already of the mind that seeing as I had just walked 5k to get this far, it would be ridiculous to turn back without seeing a little bit of one of the original settlements of the region. Not that there's much left of anything original, mind you, being habitually turned to rubble over the millennia, but I was drawn to the sheer historical weight of the place, and decided to walk on.

Yes, yes, and I was also drawn to the possibility of finding pretty doors. I admit it. I continued on in part to search out characterful portals. What can I say? I like doors. (They're all over on the companion blog to this one, which you can find by clicking on my profile picture.) I wasn't disappointed, either, and coming across a wall in the centre of the old city that was the resting place of several gorgeous specimens (just the doors; no doorways) reinforced my feeling that exploring the old place had been a good idea.

My PRESHUSSSS!!

I walked a little around the port, finding the Greek Orthodox Church of St Michael to be rather photogenic,

wandered around a little cliff-top garden that sported lovely Mediterranean views and interesting flora (I won't tell you how many photos of cacti, palms, and other exotic plants I only ever see in botanical hot-houses, I took whilst on my wanderings. It was like wandering into an IKEA megastore for the first time, having only ever seen their merchandise in captivity on a magazine page, then actually seeing them live in the wild of the showroom. Forgive the comparison.),

and found St Peter's Church near a lovely square full of cafés, jewellery boutiques and a visitors' centre, (and I realise that I didn't actually take a photo of the beautiful peach brick and white stone building, the bell tower of which can be seen for miles around, although I did capture the doors, so there's that?...).

It was then that I realised the rabbit warren of tiny streets called ‘Old Jaffa' on the map, wasn't a potentially run-down, possibly scary labyrinth in which to get lost, but a gentrified (and no doubt extremely expensive, property-wise) tourist-trap of an artists' colony, whose enclosed lanes, named after signs of the zodiac, contained art galleries, craft workshops, and picturesque views.

And just when I thought it was time to turn back to Tel Aviv, I came across a suspended Jaffa orange tree; Oranger Suspendu by Ran Morin, made of steel, artificial stone, and an orange tree. A final photo before I retraced my steps north and headed beach-ward once more to discover, after plotting my course on the map once I got back, that I'd walked over fourteen kilometres. It was worth every step to experience more of this complicated, beautiful, and fascinating country!

*Jaffa Kijk is an unashamed pun over two languages for which I perhaps apologise a little... Kijk means ‘look' in Dutch, and sounds like ‘cake'. If I wasn't so averse to littering my blog with emoticons, here would be the perfect place for a sideways wink!