her able hands

Chris and I went to a Mardi Gras party and fundraiser for a group of NOLA displaced musicians — via Habitat for Humanity. A local band, Costly Court, rocked the little catering hall in a strip mall, and people, I danced until my legs turned into rubber bands. The kind of rubberbands you find in your grandparents’ junk drawer that have been stuffed into a baby food jar for 38 years and are flaking apart and have no elasticity. I need to do that more often. I relished the feeling of walking out into the snow at the end of the night (we left before the band stopped). I felt sexy, fluid, released and very, very grounded.

The next morning I got up and met a few of the women from the night before and hiked a couple of miles around a lake in a snowstorm — through more than a foot of snow, some places close to 2 feet. With those same crusty rubber band legs. I haven’t had my heartrate up that high two days in a row in, oh, at least five years. Did you know that it’s almost impossible to hold a conversation while humping up an incline through deep snow with the wind in your face? It’s hard. But I gave it hell. There was an expectation that because I’m so tall and have such long legs that I would want to be at the front of the line so I could blaze the trail ahead. But I hung back and enjoyed the normal pace. If I had gone ahead I would have pushed myself too hard and my heart would have burst inside my chest and leaked out my pant leg into my boots.

I intended to get up and ride the bike today, but my moon cycle came on a week early (all the exercise?) and I’m so not sitting up on that tiny seat with these cramps and an uncomfortable pad getting shoved up my butt.

Come on, weekend!

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