palace of winds

Last night Jo invited me to her Triple Threat class at the YWCA, which was fantastic. We did 20 minutes on the BOSU — it’s like half a big exercise ball attached to a plastic circle. We used it rounded-side-up, but apparently there are lots of things you can do with it the other way too. We did all sorts of aerobics moves on it; it reminded me a little of a step on crack. It’s all about balance, so on my part there was a great deal of flailing around and touching back to the ground and then getting right back in it. The next 20 minutes were strength and toning with the medicine ball, the hardest part of which for me was all the jumping, because by then my legs were jumped out and were no longer terribly interested in propelling my body off the ground and were most definitely not interested in lifting both feet off the ground simultaneously. The last third was yoga, sweet yoga, full of contortions and more flailing and then lying on the ground really liking the whole not moving thing.

I’ve been thinking a lot about exercise lately, and food, and my body, and I have a lot of things to say about it but now isn’t the time. Largely because now is the time for working, not nattering on here with the navel-gazing.

But before I get to it, I must briefly celebrate learning to like my own tabbouleh. If I remember I’ll post a picture soon because it’s the most beautiful dish — darkly, lushly green with parsley, flecked with bulgur, with inviting sleek red hints of tomato. Mixing it up before the final dishing, just looking at it, I had the oddest sense of craving — not a mouth-craving, which I’m used to with food, but a body-craving. Some part of my physical being I don’t know I’ve ever heard from before telling me Yes, yes, yes. So I was all set to love this gorgeous, swooningly nutritious dish. And I tasted it, and POW there was parsley and lemon and PARSLEY and tangyherby, and my tongue reeling, trying to make sense of things, staggering around ‘I’m trying, I’m trying, but isn’t this a garnish?’ And we, my mouth and I, were valiant, we truly tried, but eventually my throat took pity and said No more, enough.

So I boxed up what I couldn’t eat, and the leftovers, and put them in the fridge with a sinking heart, thinking about all that wasted tomato. I had my fingers crossed that the lemon and just-cut parsley and mint and all would calm down a little overnight, would lose some of their assaulting pungency. I resolved that I would try at least two bites at every meal for the rest of the week, and if I still didn’t like it then it could go in the garbage.

Monday lunch? Some combination of the overnight in the fridge and my tastebuds regrouping worked magic. And I could not only eat an entire serving, but I was actually kind of liking it with my mouth as well as that weird nebulous unidentified body place that seems to be smart about nutrition. And I have been liking it more and more ever since.

So now I am one for two on the multiple-try-policy, which I consider a very good thing.