Spinning

I woke up bleary-eyed and wondering why my sit-bones were so sore. Oh yes, I went to my first spinning class last night. A warm but pleasant evening outside, and here was a full class of people riding stationary indoors.

I have been trying to work up the nerve to take a class for a few months. Walking by the room, I've been both intrigued and intimidated. The participants always look so relaxed, despite the sweat showering down to the floor, despite their thighs tightening through the resistance. Maybe not relaxed, but confident, in control.

Perhaps part of my fear stemmed from my lack of experience on a regular bike. I am the rare exception, having ridden bikes very little since I was a child. In fact, I had only ridden a bike with handle speed/brake control once before my husband bought me a bike for my 30th birthday. Stopping and getting off the bike (without falling or injuring any body parts) are my main troubles. I'm sure these would come more easily with practice, but it's difficult to get a certified chicken like myself to keep doing something that could cause injury or, worse, embarrassment.

One would think that my years of dancing would have made me more graceful, centered, balanced. Not so when an apparatus is involved. My center of gravity does not extend beyond my own body.

Back to spinning...here is a bike that's stabilized, which takes care of the problem of getting off the bike. But of course there's a problem. We're talking about a bike and me in the same breath. There is a crank system, which the rider turns to increase or decrease resistance to simulate hills and flat terrain. The instructor would shout out, "Increase to a seven and a half" or "Level out to a five." It was dark in the room to keep it from heating up more than necessary and I never did figure out how to tell what number I was setting the crank to. No visible numbers as far as I could tell. So I faked it, turning the crank randomly when the instructor yelled out, "Up to an eight!" I measured my resistance in terms of viscosity, pedaling through air, water, butter, molasses. Pedaling toward reconciliation with the bike.

Peony

Typing remains slow and frustrating. Perhaps not the best time to start a blog.

This difficulty began on Friday. I went into the garden early to beat the heat. Summer's switch was turned on early this year. 90s and high humidity already. After braiding some of the fading daffodil stems as my mother-in-law suggested, I decided to do some deadheading for a change of pace. Half way through pruning one of the peonies, I cut the edge of my pinkie with the garden shears. Odd that I didn't cry out, but instinctively I must have known such energy would be fruitless since there was no one around. I put the bleeding finger into my mouth and ran inside.

The wound continued to bleed after cleaning it and putting pressure on it. My husband returned from his trip around 2 and examined the damage. He confirmed my suspicion; while the wound was bad it wasn't the type that could be stitched. Essentially I trimmed some flesh from the finger. There was nothing to suture together. Bleeding continued into the night and I began to panic. Would the bleeding ever stop? Would I remain without a chunk of my finger? Would this pulsing pain running through my hand end?

The next day the bleeding stopped and by Sunday the wound started to scab over. There is some pain, it's difficult to type (I'm getting very familiar with the backspace key), and as my husband says, "It ain't pretty," but the finger is healing. And I'm humbled once again by the work my body does. Yes, healing is slower and less efficient than when I was younger, but this body still surprises me with its power. It's hard to think that it will not always be so.

I'm hesitant to finish deadheading the peonies. Perhaps I should let them heal their own bodies, let the dried petals paper the garden bed, let the stems scab over, let scars form to remember the painful blooms.