genuine happiness is genuine gold

I have mentioned her previously here—ageless, gorgeous, a knock-out, smart, funny, perpetually a Kindle in her hand (she not only reads great books, she once owned a bookstore).  We dance Zumba together, when I'm very lucky.  She shows up all blonde and coiffed, I show up all frizzy haired and old eyelinered, and we do it up.  She goes crazy for the Charleston.  I'll give her that if she'll dance my tango.

Her name is Joy, and I flat out love her.  I refuse to believe the things she tells me about how old she is.  Not even close.  Not for a minute.

Today I barely got to Zumba on time.  I didn't think, in fact, that I'd make it, but I finished a client call with seconds to spare and made a mad dash for the gym.  Looking back, imagining myself a no-shower for Zumba, imagining that client call gone just five minutes longer, I feel bereft.  For I would never have seen Joy in her joyful frenzy, plastering Xeroxes of The New York Times review of Small Damages all over the club town.  When she saw me she ran for a hug, Xeroxes in hand, then orchestrated a round of applause among the gathered dancers, then went about telling all the ladies I Zumba with that I'm an author in disguise.

I watched her with awe.  I listened to what she said.  I caught a glimpse of the mess of me in the mirror and tried to reconcile my image of myself with the beauty of her.  Not possible.  She rushed by as the music was getting started and said,

"I'm as proud as if I were your own mother."

Genuine happiness is genuine gold.

Read more...

this is what happened at Body Combat

Maybe (technically speaking) going to the gym today was not the smartest move.  I'm still battling vestiges of this month-long flu and my balance is not, shall we say, terrific.  But I was missing Teresa and her Saturday morning Body Combat class at Club La Maison.  I was in need of some air-punching, knee-stomping, kick-slapping action.  And besides, it's St. Patty's Day.  Teresa is always good for a holiday.

So I went, and 45 minutes in I was breathing heavy and thinking of quitting when a woman who has been absent from among us for quite awhile appeared in the doorway, her pink cap on, her smile still bright, her fists still ready to knock some air.  She has been battling a real illness, we have been worried for her, and when we saw here there, ready to give Combat a few of her rounds, the room erupted with cheers, Teresa the loudest of all.

We go to the gym to stretch our muscles, to move our blood, to make room for an afternoon cookie—of course.  But mostly it's the camaraderie that keeps us returning.  It's Teresa in her Irish hat and tie, her stick-on tattoos, her insistence that we keep going, no matter what.

It's the courage that we find in others.

Read more...

Book Making, Fundraising, School Speaking, Thanks: A little about a lot

I'm going to spend this beautiful day in the company of the students and faculty of the Country Day School of the Sacred Heart, which chose Dangerous Neighbors as its summer read. 

Before I head out, I wanted to share these few things:

First, readers of this blog know how moved I was by the Logan Schweiter Fundraiser, which took place at Club La Maison.  Today, at Generocity.org, in a story called "A Spectacular Act of Love," I report on the remarkable efforts of literally hundreds of people who together raised an extraordinary amount of money on behalf of a young local teen still recovering from a near drowning following a storm.

Second, yesterday morning I had a chance to read the Vanity Fair story "The Book on Publishing," which can also be found on Nook and Kindle reading apps at vfr.com/go/ebooks.  This extended essay by Keith Gessen takes an instructive look behind the scenes of one of the largest book auctions in recent history, which yielded Chad Harbach, a first-time author, a $665,000 advance from legendary editor Michael Pietsch for the novel (ten years in the making) called The Art of Fielding.  Anyone who ever wondered just how major parts of the industry work will have questions answered here.

Finally, a bouquet of gratitude to Medieval Bookworm, for her eloquent words about You Are My Only, and a thank you to Caribousmom for letting me know those words exist.  I am, as always, very grateful. 

To the Country Day School I now go.

Read more...

In the aftermath of the Logan Schweiter Fundraiser at Club La Maison

I am so proud of my community for coming out in such lavish support of Logan Schweiter, the young man I wrote about a few days ago—saved from a near-drowning following a surging storm, but with so much work ahead of him now.  Club La Maison brought so many people of so many ages together for walks and runs, face painting, dancing, a massive silent auction, good food.  It stills the heart and quickens it—both—to see what people will do for a young boy whose life was so radically rearranged by a storm. 

I send my love to Logan's family.  I am humbled by what my community can and will do.

And just for the record:  those girls above can dance.  I'd have brought them both home with me, if I could.

Read more...

Dancing for Life: The Logan Schweiter Fundraiser at Club La Maison

Back on July 25th, long before Storms Irene and Lee had shown us their wrath, my hometown was being saturated by torrential rains.  Down the way, not far from where I live, three friends ventured out to a creek with pool rafts in hand.  They could have never known that a creek normally just a few inches deep would swell to more than ten feet. They could have never guessed that one among them, Logan Schweiter, a 12-year old lacrosse player, would be swept away and down, through underground culverts.

It is estimated that Logan was underground and in the swell of water for a 200-yard stretch until his body was swept into a tree.  A neighbor, a doctor, rescued Logan with the help of a local firefighter and EMT team.  But much damage had already been done, and today Logan remains hospitalized, his life, and his family's life, dramatically rearranged.

Tomorrow, Club La Maison, a place I travel to as much for the fun I have with the ladies of Zumba, Night Club Cardio, and Body Combat as for the work-out I so desperately need, is conducting a fundraiser on behalf of the NTAF Mid-Atlantic Brain Injury Fund in honor of Logan Schweiter.  "Together we can help," reads the slogan, and in addition to a massive silent auction (offering everything from horseback riding lessons to a night stay at any Marriott to private tennis lessons and personal training sessions and interior design services) and a host of special events, the club's own Andrea and Brenda will be conducting back-to-back Zumba and Night Club Cardio events that you can join in on for a minimum $10 donation each, starting at 5 PM.  Andrea and Brenda are gifted, fun, dear leaders—perennially building new choreography and inventing new dances to keep us ladies fit and fancy.  In fact, that's Brenda up above, kicking off her new Night Club Cardio program this past Thursday—an inaugural session which had us all flashing our bulbous, neon rings, swinging peace wear, and drinking our skinny water margaritas (thank you, Brenda!) while the disco lights flared and a lit-up Michael Jackson glove showed us the way.

Join us, if you can.  Make a difference for this boy and for others who are not nearly as lucky as are we.

Read more...

The Ladies of the Gym

Her name is Joy, and, oh baby, does she earn it. Steps right in beside me at Brenda's Zumba class and works that floor (works it, works it). It would be preposterous to guess her age (there are grandchildren involved and perhaps great-grandchildren), but she's got all the glamour of a movie star and a running stream of Joan Rivers humor, though Joy is elegant, perpetually, in her witticisms delivery.

I've written of her here before. Written of Sarah, Betsy, Julia, of Brenda and (on other mornings) my remarkable teacher, Andrea. They are my gym friends, my smack-the-air-down-with-me babes, my little bit of lift when I need lift, my salsa sweethearts, and I saw them today because I returned to Monday Zumba after a few too many weeks of worrying about the state of this house, this garden.

I belong here, I thought, when I was dancing with them. I belong beside Sarah, a former model, mind you, a knock out, who doesn't care one bit how her hair is flying or whether or not she's singing along in tune (though she is in tune, I swear it:  whooo hoooo). I belong beside Betsy (the beauty queen from my high school and still so gorgeous, a woman with whom time has not interfered and a woman who still, after all these years, seems unaware of her own beauty) and I belong beside Joy, who basically split my ribs before I even started dancing with some story she was telling. I am far from the beauty these women are, but they have let me in, and I am standing proud beside them.

You want to know who I actually am? You come find me at the club. Being crazy and doing silly with the ladies of the gym.

Read more...

What are you working for?

I didn't have time for Zumba today, of course I didn't.  Stay at your desk, I told myself.  Just keep working.  Get that project done, make that call, return that email, write that story, do not stop because if you stop you'll be behind again. 

On the one hand, the chance to draw a thin blue line through another four to do's.

On the other, my friends, a little morning laughter, sweat.

What are you working for? I asked myself.

So that I can live, I answered me.

I was out the door.  I was at the gym.  Standing beside Sarah.

Read more...

Club La Maison and my Phillies moment

I love my gym, Club La Maison.

That's a sentence this strident-non-joiner, this independent, this I-take-my-walks-alone-(mostly)-thank-you-so-very-much person never thought she'd think, let alone write, let alone blog for public viewing, but I find that sentence creeping up increasingly as I make my way to the club at all hours of some days to dance cha-cha or to punch air or to knuckle down and sprint against my gorgeous friend Sarah.  I've found Joy there (both a woman and a feeling).  I've found instructors who are so incredibly good at what they do, so unfailingly enthusiastic, so encouraging, so moonwalking fabulous that I've given up my solitude to be in their presence.  I'm never going to look good at the martial arts stuff, but they're not laughing me out of the gym.  My arms are still pathetic skinny sticks, but the strength-infused make like they don't notice.  I break the rules on Zumba tango; Brenda lets me pass.  I still don't know how to stand perfectly straight, but Valerie, the city's top posture expert, allows a little slouch between our talk.

So, truly, when I showed up yesterday for the gym's fall extravaganza, all I really wanted was to burn 450 calories and to chill with some of my friends.  I got that in spades, but I also got a raffle ticket.  I could, I was told, slip it into any one of the prize-promising  buckets. I went for the Prize Supreme:  Tickets to see my Phillies clinch (because you know they could) the division title.  Today.  Tickets, a cap, a T-shirt, a water bottle, honest to goodness—sounded like a piece of heaven to me, and when they called an hour later to say that I had won, I asked if angels had been involved.

I've been up like a crazy woman pounding away on corporate work so that I can have this afternoon free.  I don't care if there are clouds in the sky.  All I see is sun.

Read more...

Body Combat (Girl Power)

I was beginning to feel my energy return.  I scrubbed the bathtub and didn't collapse.  I wrote two pages, and kept part of one.  I cooked a full meal and then, the next day, cooked another.  I got up Saturday morning and said to myself:  Oh, Beth.  The time has come.  Body Combat at the gym.

Body Combat.  It's martial-arts inspired.  It's hit-the-air-like-the-air-is-your-enemy inspired.  It's jabs and hooks and upper crosses and more jabs, some shuffle to the right, some roundhouse kicks, some smack around that invisible punching bag. You take a run around the room when you're done, then you hit the floor for triceps and abs.

Was I up to this?  Could I even do it?  How silly does a dancer look, after all, when she's boxing an invisible bag?  Cha-cha hips don't work so well in this environment.  Neither does the foxtrot frame.

But I gave it my all.  I punched and kicked and sword fought with the rest of them, trying not to mess too hard with the otherwise fine mojo in the room.  The two instructors, meanwhile, gave their all back to me, recognizing my newness, praising my stamina (got to find something to praise), telling me that my form would come.  At Club La Maison, the instructors rock.  These girls were no exception.  You do something hard, they keep you going.  You feel like a fool, they won't let you.  No matter how silly I might look, I'm going back.  Combating myself forward.

Read more...

Rocking the Zumba with Sarah, Brenda, and Peggy

Sarah started it in Zumba today. It was her fault, I know that it was. Walking in late looking like a movie star, then saying her honey southern hello, then collecting her rivers of hair, then smiling with her eyes, both so blue. She's just too cute, and what could I do, there beside her, and there behind Brenda, and there, nearby, Peggy, newly home from Guatemala.

So we kicked the samba merry. So we went full pivot with our hips. So I bounced my head and Sarah bounced hers harder, and when the cha cha came on we were all knees and angles, and when Bollywood blared we knocked the air off of our thighs. When Sarah went big, I went bigger, and when we both went big, Brenda noticed and Peggy laughed. "You two are rocking and rolling, aren't you?" Brenda said forgivingly, and I wanted to behave, but I couldn't.

I've had a hard couple of weeks, and for many days there I could barely breathe, and you know how it is when things seem hopeful once again, when the knots loosen, when you can see past and maybe push through. Zumba might be exercise most days of the week. Today it was an hallelujiah.

Read more...

Into the Tangle of Friendship (at Zumba)

I returned to the gym today with a more functional toe and with the energy I always have when finding my way back to something that I love. My friends were there—yes, I will call them my friends—and we took that one side of the Zumba room that we've come to think of as ours, and we danced—Brenda leading the way. It doesn't matter what I look like when I dance Zumba. No one in that room stands as judge. No woman has to wait for a man to say, Will you dance with me?

When it was over, one of my Zumba friends mentioned that she'd been reading Into the Tangle of Friendship, my second book, a memoir, published what seems years ago. She spoke of the book as if it had just been written yesterday, as if it were brand new, and in that way she gave it back to me. Driving home, I felt enormous melancholy—for the books I've written, for the books I haven't written, for the words I haven't found yet.

Read more...

And then when it isn't white, it's sky

I don't remember when this day began. Was it with the midnight text message from my son, or the one he sent at 1:08 AM? Was it when I heard him come him an hour later, or when I finally gave up on the possibility of sleep and got up to get client work done? Perhaps we'll call the beginning of this day Zumba at 5:45 AM (or the cha-cha Zumba around 6:10, or the Charleston jive twenty minutes on).

Or let us say, instead, that this day had no beginning.

But look: Just look at its spectacular end.

As if someone were painting the sky just for me.

Read more...

Zumba Joy on Thanksgiving Morning

For many of us (and I am most assuredly part of that us), these past many months have changed the way we go about our business. With less to spend, we think harder when we spend. With fewer options, we "shop" in our own closets. We light candles at our meals, as if ambiance were itself a savory something. We find great joy in the simple things—in dreams shared over tea, in walks among the falling leaves, in books long in our possession.

This morning, at Club La Maison, I found that joy, again, in Brenda's Zumba class—in how the so many of us made room for the so many more, for those sisters and friends who had come from out of town and took the dancing risk. Sometimes we are gypsies in Zumba. Sometimes we are Mexican cowgirls. Sometimes we are dancing Bollywood, and sometimes African rhythms, and sometimes, yes, we wear boas around our necks, and heaven help anyone who has not joined in, but is only standing there watching. The thing about Brenda and Zumba is that it locks nobody out. The door is always open to this essential, simple joy.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Read more...

Myself, Today

Today: Awakened at 1:35 AM, I come downstairs and do not sleep. A few lines make their way to a blank page; I do not know if the lines are good.

Morning, then, and at the gym, I find Ann, an old friend, long lost; I'd once thought forever. In the large group room Teresa, leading the Body Pump class, has chosen the music of men. She turns her barbell into a guitar and sings her Aerosmith loud; the rest of us abide her antics, need her antics, love them. We don't scream the pain we feel. Many times a week Teresa leads this class and yet on Saturday it is as if we are her only students, her passion just for us.

Mid-morning and in my in-box I find the first official review of The Heart is Not a Size. I am overcome. The reader has found within my work just precisely what I hoped a reader would. A faster plot. The smell of dust. The have-everythings who learn from those who possess little.

Noon, and while shopping for the small dinner party that I'm throwing Sunday, I find my father at the Farmer's Market, sit with him while he eats his lunch. Then there is the frenzy of deciding and shopping. Yes, the serrano ham and the lavash, the strange apples from the Lancaster trees, the fatter berries and the insanely rotund scallions, and why not those tomatoes, which cannot decide what size they wish to be.

Mid afternoon, and I sit with the work of my fantastic Penn students, who move me to tears with the way that they think; I sit with Patricia Hampl. And then time alone with the Horace Kephart segments of the Ken Burns film, "America's Best Idea" (go to episode four, plays segments five and eleven). I don't care what you want to say about my great-grandfather. He did this country good. He saved what remained of the Great Smoky Mountains from the avaricious loggers, all the while knowing that once the park was made, it would not be his homeland anymore.

Later, a conversation with Andra. An email exchange with my friend Buzz. A note from Alyson Hagy, perhaps the grandest writing teacher of all.

Later, dinner.

Later, now.

Myself.

Read more...

Gymtastics

So it happened: I joined the gym. I had gone all these years being the rebel non-joiner (I was clique-less as a teen, mommy-and-me free as a young mom, a failure in a book club, and I was kicked off a committee at church once for having too strong of an opinion about, well, most things). But I was getting bored with my little self-imposed, in-the-house exercise routines and my neighborhood jaunts have been lately messed with by these biblically saturated days.

So two weeks or so ago, I sashayed down to the gym and walked into a class called Zumba. Do you know about this? An hour of cardio set to Latin rhythms. I thought I could handle this because, well, you know: I dance. Let's just say I made it through. Barely. Nearly defeated, I rose the next day to conquer Abs and Arms, which is to say fire and indescribable pain. The next day I chose to think that I could Body Step my way to glamour (excuse me, but what's an A step? What's an L?). One day later, I could be found at Body Pump, thinking (the thought was all over my face): Barbells? Are you kidding me? For an hour?

Every day I'd come home and say, That's it. I cannot. The next morning I'd rise with the desperate hope of proving to me that I can.

And guess what? I am finding that I love the challenge. That I love the way the other women work, how they don't give up, how they make room for the one or two men, how today one brought me a mat and one brought me a chair, and how somehow community coexists with anonymity. I like thinking that maybe someday I can and that, already, so many others do.

Read more...