I have been a member of a gym for about a year now, and see a personal trainer from time to time. I run, swim, lift weights, and stretch, three to four times a week. And, due to genes, a love of food, and some medicine I need to take, I am still about ten kilos over the suggested weight for a man my age (46). Then again, having neither won nor lost Lee Child's lottery of life (I am exactly medium height, at 5-9, neither short nor tall), and being a middle-aged man, most of the excess baggage appears around my midriff. This has got me so down it was beginning to look up to me, and then the other day - zap! - I had a thought. Who hates me this way, other than me? I am loved by wife, and friends. More vitally, some of the best guys ever, guys I loved, were love-handled or even fat - Orson Welles, Dylan Thomas, and Babe Ruth spring to mind. Wallace Stevens, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Diego Rivera - all had a bad BMI. If being a chubby hubby was okay for them, why not me? I feel reborn. I will still exercise, I will still try to control my poor nutrition, but I will also try to enjoy looking like a southern hick cop chewing a toothpick, hoisting his belt, letting his manly flesh roll over, as it does, as it can and should.
A poem for my mother, July 15 When she was dying And I was in a different country I dreamt I was there with her Flying over the ocean very quickly, And arriving in the room like a dream And I was a dream, but the meaning was more Than a dream has – it was a moving over time And land, over water, to get love across Fast enough, to be there, before she died, To lean over the small, huddled figure, In the dark, and without bothering her Even with apologies, and be a kiss in the air, A dream of a kiss, or even less, the thought of one, And when I woke, none of this had happened, She was still far distant, and we had not spoken.
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