Requiem for a diet

We're at the halfway point of summer, and my diet is officially dead. After subsisting off of vegetables, nonflavored yogurts, and string cheeses, and not losing a single pound, I decided I'm much happier with my cookies, ice cream, and pizza, thank you very much. I'll try to slip in a salad every once in a while, but I'm a much pleasanter person when chocolate is one of my major food groups.

But I'm not totally disregarding my health and well-being. In fact, I started jogging four mornings a week about a month ago. I'm completing around four miles each day at a staggering eleven minute mile pace. I'm not going to win any races, and, truth-be-told, I'm not actually losing any weight this way, either, but I remain optimistic. The smart thing to do would be to combine the diet with the exercise, but if you're anything like me, and you find your appetite spiking once you've begun exercising, you'll immediately recognize the major flaw in that plan. There's only so much satisfaction one can gain from a carrot stick dipped in hummus.

One thing I have noticed about my exercising self is that my creative juices are flowing more freely. It's a good thing, too. Just three weeks ago I began taking a writing workshop through the Chicago Parks district. I've never been much of a writer, and prior to the Law School Widow endeavor, I only wrote scholarly essays as a University student. Mind-numbingly boring stuff like the Irish Press' Response to James Joyce's Writing, the Role of Practice in Motor Learning, and, yaaaaawn, the Epidemiological Study of the Growth of Obesity Rates in American Youth.

Creative writing? Hardly.

But things have changed. I'm no longer in academia, and I have discovered writing to be the best way to stay connected to friends, family, and oddly enough, myself. So here I am, every week, trying to narrate my life in such a way that my dearest ones will enjoy hearing about it, and trying to extract the deeper meaning of my existence. It's a whole new ballgame. No Framingham Studies to illuminate me, no Richard Ellmann to shed light on how my childhood has shaped me. No secondary sources whatsoever. I'm flying solo.

By accident, I came across this writing class. Figuring I could use a little time to myself to stretch out those mental muscles, I signed up. It's been interesting. The instructor is a dynamic, charismatic African American woman who has a life story worthy of a saga. We are given specific instructions to write characters, scenes, scenarios, and always we are asked countless questions. "How are you going to show that to your reader?" She pries. "How do we know? Where's this going?"

I found that my legs had lost any spring or flexibility they may have had at one time, when I started jogging again. I plodded along, willing my legs to keep moving. But they felt like lead, and when I got home, I was simply wiped out. Slowly, they're starting to respond to my entreaties. Keep moving! I demand of them. A little longer! I coax. Don't give up on me! I beg them. And little by little, my legs are cooperating. I can't convince them to move any faster, but they are holding on for the longer distances. I actually bamboozled them into a six mile run yesterday. Of course, they're making me pay for it today.

My brain is experiencing the same kind of rude awakening, as I force it to imagine and describe a story of my own making. While I jog along, waiting for my legs to unclench, my brain is undergoing the same kind of process. It's fighting my efforts to follow a story line to its natural conclusions. What happens if my character does this? I ask my brain. How do we reveal that? I prod. My mind, gummy and stiff from years of misuse, stretches itself slowly and cumbersomely around these problems, while my legs shuffle along, fighting each step. Gradually, they both relax and work more supplely. Compliantly, my muscles give up their resistance, while my mind gives up its secrets.

Summer is reaching its halfway point. My children, in the midst of camp fun, are blissfully oblivious to the impending start of their kindergarten and third-grade years. The baby scarcely realizes she's in for a full week of her day care.

For my husband, nothing has changed. He's painfully aware of every passing moment, as he clambers to do his research and complete his assignments for his Negotiations class.

I'll just be happy to lose a couple of pounds before the days shorten again.