And now for something completely different

If you’ve found this post because you googled ‘CrossFit’ and somehow ended up here, let me start by apologizing right now.  You probably spend your time kicking ass and visualizing that perfect butterfly pull-up.  When the WOD gets started you rip off your shirt because your abs can be seen from space and it’s a crime against humanity to keep them covered.  At least, I assume that’s why you rip off your shirts.  Don’t really know.  This blog is not for you.  (Except for maybe a recipe or two.)  Love you.  Now: Buh-bye.

The rest of you know me.  At least a bit.  You know I spend my time crumpeting around, falling into fantasy land, wringing my hands or gushing over being an American in the UK, going gaga over history, enjoying a good bakery, picturesque ruins, and a pretty close-up shot of a flower.  I never ever rip my shirt off.  The idea of me visualizing a perfect butterfly pull-up is as ludicrous as me attempting one.  Running in the mud has been as crazy as my midlife crisis has gone.

I’ve lost a lot of weight since my mother was diagnosed with cancer this last time.  The connection is not subtle.  She was diagnosed with lung cancer: I committed myself to eating healthy and losing weight.  There may have been an element of bargaining.  If I worked hard and ate clean, every day, maybe I could accrue extra health points which would magically transfer to her.  This did not work.  I don’t really want to talk about it.  Seventy pounds later, she’s passed away and I’m still here, wondering where to go next.

Where I go most often, these days — when I can tear myself away from gibbering at the dark and making my fireplace roar — is to CrossFit.  The idea that I belong there is nearly fantastical — forty-two, mother to three, two years ago barely able to finish walking 5k in an hour? And after so many months of hard work, still overweight and still slow and still weak?  Yet, somehow, through the alchemy of sweat, tears, and high-fives, my local affiliate is starting to feel like a home away from home.  And you know what I do when I like something.  I get in really close.  Closer.  Now look upside down at what you usually look at straight on.  And … take a picture.

You didn’t know CrossFit was adorable, did you?  Kettlebells for the kids.  

And for the big kids.  Because so much of what happens here feels like reclaiming youth — at least to me.  When was the last time I did handstands for fun?  For any reason at all?  Oh right, it was today.  At CrossFit.

There’s a serpentine elegance to the stacks of weights.  I used to find them intimidating.  Now they’re just tools.  Tinkertoys for big girls and boys.

Again, they say.  And again.  And again.  Just keep moving.

Those wicked-whip jump ropes!  How is it possible to smack myself on the forearm … the calf … and the butt … all in one go?  My talent for imperfection is limitless.

Colorful rogues through a forest of steel.  You know I do love a cheeky rogue.

My favorite.  The ropes.  I suck at this, too, but I love it.  I’m Jack, going up the Beanstalk!  I’m a pirate!  I’m a monkey!  I’m anything I want to be!  Also, I’m falling, aieeeeeee!

They seem so wholesome, don’t they?  They say: Come on, give us a good grip, see what might happen.

These bands.  This bar.  For me, it’s like staring into Khazad-dûm.  When I started, I used two green bands to do a pull-up.  Then a green and a blue.  Now a blue only.  One day maybe a free pull-up?  One day.  I may need a Balrog nipping at my heels to get all the way there.

I don’t know what other people see when they see this.  I see something like a kitchen.  Beaters, mixers, ovens, all for pounding and folding and baking people into … improved versions of themselves.  Not morally, not that.  More resilient, maybe.  Tempered.  Well-leavened.

Reminders of the ‘fundamentals’.  Scaling options are pretty much where I live.

Who knew a tennis ball could be so amazing when placed just there by the shoulder?  Or pvc pipe could be the gateway to olympic movements?  

A cheerful sea of rage balls.  

Well, fairly cheerful.  Until you look up.  And the distance from here to where the ball needs to be is as far as the distance between life and death.  And you squat down, fix your eyes on the goal, and throw.

And keep throwing.

At the pool. Not like Gatsby. Whatsoever.

I think it’s obvious that I’m in need of some kind of break.  Enter our local town pool:

It’s the most amazing municipal pool I’ve ever seen, anyway.  Granted, I grew up going to the pool in Southeast DC.  Still.  It’s fairly gorgeous, isn’t it?

Apparently once pool season comes around, my local peers will swim.  No matter the weather.  No matter the temperature.  No matter what.  Here was the scene at a recent birthday party:

Rain?  Hail?  Doesn’t matter.  We’re at the pool, so we will swim.  I suppose the lack of thunderstorms means pools don’t need to be cleared for safety reasons during downpours.  Just keep swimming.  As one does.