Dance party
Some people are very good at masking their pain from the world. There are women who can bear the burden of chronic illness with a smile, never letting anyone see her flinch.
I am not one of those women.
I wince a lot. When I stand up, my left knee usually yells at me to sit my ass back down. Last year I had a pinched nerve in my back that hobbled me for months until a steroid relieved the inflammation. My feet ache almost constantly because, according to a podiatrist, I got a shitty hand of DNA.
I don’t hide it when I hurt. And I am in pain most days and I admit that sometimes it keeps me from living my best life and after all these years, I am reasonably sure most people find me annoying.
But when I am in the pool, I am weightless, I am flexible and I am free. Water takes the pain away. Turtles are slow AF as they lumber along on land. In the water, they move gracefully.
I am a turtle.
I found a new aqua cardio class at my gym and besides being a kick-ass workout, the instructor had a play list that turned that hour into a splash-filled dance party. And I am here for that.
Never underestimate the power of a great song the get the heart pumping. It’s summer but Earth Wind and Fire got me swaying like it was fall.
“Ba de ya, say do you remember /Ba de ya, dancing in September/ Ba de ya, never was a cloudy day”
From the first piano bars of “Dancing Queen” my body is in motion and I feel as young and sweet as I was at 17.
“See that girl, watch that scene, dig it, the dancing queen”
As I and my dozen classmates were doing jumping jacks, a movement I am medically prohibited from performing on dry land, I was adding hips shakes under the water. My hands were waving over my head as I was feeling the beat of the tambourine, oh yeah.
When we began the cross-country style movements, it was chuga-chuga motions to the Kyle Minogue version of “Locomotion.”
“A little bit of rhythm and a lot of soul”
I am not one to pick up choreography quickly, but this was easier to learn than your ABCs.
Rocking horse involves standing in a mid-stride position, landing all weight on one foot in front then rocking to the foot in the back, then switching after eight repetions. A totally unsexy move, until you add a little “Cake by the Ocean”
“Let’s lose our minds and go crazy”
Even the cool-down period at the end included a tune from my life’s soundtrack. As I did a quad stretch in my permanently screwed up left leg, a feat I cannot do anywhere but the pool, the “Landslide” brought me down.
“Time makes you bolder, even children get older, and I’m getting older too. Oh I’m getting older, too.”
”Take my love, take it down, climb a mountain and turn around”
I can climb mountains in the pool. The water takes away everything that weighs me down.
It also makes me feel like I am invincible. My sore muscle later that day reminding me that I am indeed very ‘vincible’.
But that hour was worth the Aleve and the aches. I had “The Time of My Life.”
