by Jenny Rose | Sep 20, 2018 | A Flourishing Woman, Body
Photo by Anna Dziubinska on Unsplash
I hate to shop. I hate the seductive manipulation inherent in the activity. I’m frustrated by the variation in sizes and disgusted by the ridiculous fashions and prices and the terrible quality. My idea of a great shopping experience is to go to Goodwill and find men’s button-down cotton shirts or buy multiples of Carhartt jeans and shorts on sale. Whenever possible, I shop online, concentrating on sales, outlets and brands that emphasize durability, comfort and easy care rather than shoddy glamour.
One of the drawbacks to shopping online is getting the size right in unfamiliar brands. Regular swimmers know swimming suits don’t last. Sun and pool water take a toll quickly. Suits become thin and transparent and loss their elasticity. The fabric breaks down.
Swimming suits are expensive, and they have to fit well or they’re miserable to wear and impossible to swim seriously in. Teeny-weeny bikinis might look great on the right body poolside, but every woman knows actually swimming in them is another matter, and forget about diving. Men’s comfy jeans cover a multitude of body imperfections, but women’s swimsuits are a different story.
Photo by Todd Quackenbush on Unsplash
All my life I’ve needed a long torso suit, which means fewer choices and more money. When tankinis came out I was delighted because they allow me to wear a regular size, but they’re just as expensive, if not more so, as a standard tank suit. I buy from a big online retailer specializing in all things swimming, and they had a huge Labor Day sale. I was ready. My old suit was beginning to bag, sag and break down.
I shopped for a week, watching prices come down and considering my needs. I finally took the plunge (so to speak) and bought what I wanted. The tankini tops were easy. I’ve worn a 10 in every brand since I was a teenager. No problem. I chose tops that would coordinate with black and got black board shorts for kayaking and black bottoms for swimming. The swim bottoms, however, were an unfamiliar brand. Great price, but unfamiliar brand.
There was a size chart, which I looked at — impatiently. I wanted to make the order and be done with the whole miserable chore. I was pleased to be saving so much money, but I was sick of thinking about swimming suits. I have a sewing tape measure somewhere, but I don’t know exactly where. I had a little construction tape measure in my desk drawer, so I dropped drawers and measured my waist and hips with that. No mirror. Wrong kind of tape measure. Impatient and irritated. According to the size chart, I needed an XL in the swim bottoms. That seemed ridiculous. My ass isn’t that big!
Is it?
Well, I thought, maybe it is. Or maybe the brand I was buying ran really small. My favorite cotton bikini underwear is made in such a way that size 10 is large, not medium. I needed a new suit. I was sick of shopping. I didn’t want the hassle of returning a wrong size, and I didn’t want to refuse to acknowledge the true dimensions of my body out of shame or pride.
So I placed the order and a few days later it arrived. When I unpacked the swim bottoms, they looked huge. I tried them on, over underwear. You couldn’t call them tight, but I thought I could make them work. Everything else was great. I threw away the packing and receipt, discarded my old suit and put my new suit in my swim bag.
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
Getting into a new swimsuit is like trying to stuff yourself into a spandex straight jacket. Getting out of a new suit that’s wet is even worse. I always wind up giggling and feeling as though I’m wrestling with an anaconda. I suited up, showered and got in the pool, feeling spiffy in my new cobalt blue and black swim gear. I put my goggles on and pushed off the wall. My waistband floated up off my waist, the swim bottoms filled up with water and began to slide gently and elegantly off my ass and down my legs. Whoops!
I stood up, took my goggles off, and yanked the bottoms back up. The pool was not busy. Nobody was paying any attention. I was torn between hilarity and frustration. I really wanted to work out, and I hadn’t brought a spare suit. Dammit, I was going to make these work! Maybe if I didn’t push off the wall with my usual vigor it would help. I put my goggles back on, made sure no one was looking, and pushed off the bottom, gently.
The waistband floated off my waist, the swim bottoms filled with water and started to slide off my ass. I kept going, just to see what would happen. I was swimming freestyle, and the bottoms couldn’t quite slide all the way down my legs. Maybe, I thought, I’m not as exposed as it feels like I am. Maybe from above no one can tell how loose they are. Except that I could feel a big bubble of air trapped between me and the fabric. Bubble butt.
Shit!
I tried tucking the hem of the tankini into the bottoms. No dice. The tankini fit just fine, but it’s not long enough to do more than meet the waistband of the bottoms, especially on me.
I was irresistibly reminded of my youngest son, lifted out of his crib in the morning and toddling down the hallway with his usual sunny-natured glee and his sodden diaper hanging to his knees.
Except his diaper had been white and mine was black.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
I longed to tear the stupid bottoms off and throw them on the deck. I’d rather swim naked any day of the week anyway. Seeing as how I was trying to get hired at this particular pool, I thought that might not create a favorable impression.
I climbed out of the pool via the stairs, holding onto the waistband of my bottoms as unobtrusively as possible, and asked a staff member for a safety pin. Surely they had a safety pin, or even a diaper pin somewhere. Things like safety pins, paperclips and rubber bands are in every desk drawer in the world, aren’t they?
Snorting with laughter, because every woman knows the drill of a sudden broken elastic in a waistband or a bra strap, a broken heel or strap on a shoe, a hem that lets go or a stocking that runs at the worst possible time, the lifeguard searched the desk. No pins.
Another lifeguard suggested a rubber band. Good idea!
No rubber bands.
The second lifeguard reached in her pocket and handed me a covered hair elastic. It was even black!
I pulled in the fabric at the waistband, pinched it together as hard as I could and fastened it with the hair elastic. Now the bottoms were much tighter and I had a thick pigtail of fabric poking out at the waistband. It would be invisible in the water.
I returned to the pool, went through the goggle thing and pushed cautiously off the wall.
Hooray! It worked. There was still a little too much slack in the waistband, but they stayed on and didn’t bubble up.
Photo by Chris Kristiansen on Unsplash
In the end, I had a great workout. I returned the hair elastic with thanks when I was finished and then stood in the shower and took several minutes to extricate myself from the tankini top, banging my elbows, writhing, wriggling and squirming. By the time I was free of it, my swim bottoms were around my ankles. No effort required.
Fortunately I have a friend who has a sewing machine. I can sew on a button, mend a simple tear and patch (sort of), but you couldn’t call me a skilled seamstress. I swim again today, and there’s a great big pin in the waistband of my bottoms and a rubber band in my bag, just in case. I also went back to the sale and ordered another pair of bottoms in a smaller size. They were even cheaper.
Here’s what I learned:
- I hate to shop.
- When taking your own measurements, do it with a cloth tape in front of a mirror. Better yet, have someone else do it for the sake of a reality check.
- Don’t throw away packing and receipts until you’ve worn the stupid thing!
- Always carry a couple of safety pins and rubber bands in your swim bag. Consider also Liquid Nails, Super Glue, waterproof duct tape and a staple gun.
- Always carry a spare suit.
- One of the most important keys to life is a sense of humor.
Have I mentioned I loathe shopping?
By the way, I got the job!
All content on this site ©2018
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted
by Jenny Rose | Aug 30, 2018 | A Flourishing Woman, Creativity
It’s been a busy week. I haven’t done a lot of writing. Some weeks are about notes, research, sudden creative inspirations, edits and days with a foot in two worlds, the world of the auto shop I’m sitting in this minute with a rattling air conditioner in the window to combat the 100 degree heat index outside while mechanics do surgery on the inside of my old Hyundai to fix the air conditioning, and the world of my imagination.
Other weeks are just about life — activity, interaction with others, appointments, friends and unexpected opportunities, along with the small stories of household and routine, like the AC in the car suddenly ceasing to breathe chill and becoming as thickly humid and overheated as the land’s late August exhalations here in Maine.
Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash
A long time ago, when I was a teenager, I got my first job as a summer lifeguard at the local outdoor pool. I loved it. I got trained as a water safety instructor, which means a swim teacher. I was also an IV-certified EMT doing volunteer fire and rescue work.
I’ve never lost my love of water and swimming, and I visit the pool once a week here in Maine. As a regular, I’m familiar with the staff and the facility. A couple of weeks ago one of the pool staff mentioned a part-time position was opening up. Before I left that day I applied for the job and was set up to re-certify as a lifeguard, more than 30 years after the first time. Thirty years. How did that happen?
Now, of course, the process for getting certified is all online. There’s a book, a big, brightly illustrated textbook filled with pictures and graphics, but all the material in the book is also online. The first time around, I learned out of a small paperback manual with black-and-white line-drawn illustrations. The online course is about seven hours of audio, video, multiple-choice questions and written material. At the end, there’s a test. A few hours at the pool in order to practice skills (the most important part) completes the re-certification process.
I’m a good student and confident of my skills, but I unconsciously expected much the same learning experience I had the first time around. However, lifeguarding techniques have changed. The emphasis used to be on personal safety, as drowning people often panic and become dangerous to their rescuers. I spent a lot of practice time in the diving well with a huge college kid built like a tank while he pretended to drown and then tried to drown me as I tried to save him.
Now, there’s great new equipment and gear that make water rescue considerably safer, and the techniques have changed accordingly. Also changed is the way one approaches CPR. When I learned and performed ventilations as a first responder, it was, literally, mouth-to-mouth. Now, lifeguards are equipped with fanny packs in which they carry plastic ventilation masks and Nitrile gloves as protection from body fluids and possible pathogens. Everything, practice included, is done with the mask as a barrier between victim and rescuer.
Photo by Chris Kristiansen on Unsplash
It’s a strange feeling to revisit this information. Lots of memories. I don’t know if I’ll get the job, but even if I don’t I’m pleased about the chance to review. I think everyone should take basic first aid and CPR, and it’s been a long time since I had a refresher. The first time around, I was the youngest lifeguard on the team. This time, if hired, I’ll be one of the oldest. What an interesting circle.
My partner and I love cats. For several years I’ve been uncomfortable with the problem of cat litter disposal. I’ve tried some of the more organic litter, but never found anything both the cat and I liked. The clumping litter is convenient, but I collected it in plastic grocery bags and never found a way to compost it. We’re trying to reduce our use of plastic and our non-compostable waste, and dealing with cat litter has become more and more of a problem ethically. My partner recently came across the idea of using wood stove pellets as cat litter, so we tried it.
I’ve never had a pellet wood stove. It turns out the pellets are small and made of compressed wood scrap, a little bit like animal feed to look at. They’re cheap to buy, especially if you buy a pallet at a time. Cat litter costs three times as much. When they get wet, the pellets dissolve into sawdust. Cleaning the box is like cleaning an animal stall bedded in shavings. I scoop out the damp sawdust and solid waste and throw in a new scoop of pellets. There’s absolutely no smell and less mess outside the box. If our old cat does get pellets between her toes and tracks them outside the box, they’re easy to pick up.
Best of all, we can compost now, and I can stop throwing away any kind of plastic shopping bags. We can switch entirely to canvas bags. Less to haul off to the dump.
My partner has a fleecy polyester blanket in deep, rich colors of brown, black and green that has been a bed for multiple cats for years. We recently cleaned out the little niche it was lying in. I went over both sides with a stiff dry scrubbing brush trying to remove grey and black hair belonging to long-dead cats and then we washed it, but it was still coated with cat hair. I had a lint brush, but that didn’t work at all. I also tried a damp sponge, which is what I’ve always used on upholstery and cloth to remove cat hair. A damp sponge works well if you do it once a week, but this blanket had no attention for years.
So, I googled it. As you can imagine, this is a common problem.
My favorite solution was to obtain a paint roller, wrap the roller in duct tape, sticky side out, and store it, along with a roll of tape, in a closet, bathroom or with cleaning supplies. What a great idea! Fast, easy and cheap. However, I wasn’t sure we had a clean paint roller, so in the end I found a clean plastic dish glove, hung the blanket over the back porch railing, and rubbed it with my gloved hand. I didn’t have much hope, but it worked like a charm. Who knew? Cat hair came away in clumps and clots and floated down onto the grass, as well as adhering to my sweaty face. Too bad it’s not nesting season. I wore out my arm and the blanket looked a lot better, but there was still plenty of hair adhered to it. When I’d rubbed away all I could, I put it in the dryer with a fabric softener sheet on the air setting. A half hour later the dryer trap was filled with cat hair and the blanket was like new.
Photo by Viktor Jakovlev on Unsplash
I also spent part of a day kayaking with a friend on a lake. Too bad I’m not as graceful with paddling as I am swimming. Too bad my arms are about as strong as spaghetti noodles. Too bad I’m so inept the paddles clunk against the side of the kayak with every stroke. Too bad I can’t get the hang of using the paddles without having water run down them and into my lap, or inadvertently bumping my long-suffering friend in the head.
I had a fantastic time.
Then we spent a hot afternoon with an old friend of my partner’s shooting at round metal targets with various firearms and varying degrees of accuracy while I asked a thousand and one questions and continued my education on handling guns safely and developing confidence and skill in using them.
So that, friends, is what I have been doing instead of working on the sort of post I usually write. In the pause from writing, I’ve been refilling the well of creativity with everything, and with nothing. With what it’s like to be alive in the world. With sore shoulders from paddling, remembering old rescue skills and long days on a lifeguard stand in the sun, the challenges and joys of living with cats and the smell of cordite. With spending a morning working in my friend’s farm store chatting to locals, enjoying the animals and studying my lifeguarding manual. With heaving boxes around and shelving books during my volunteer hours in the used bookstore. All of this will somehow, some way, someday recycle into my writing, because everything does.
My car is ready. I’m off to pick up my partner’s laptop at the computer shop in air-conditioned comfort. Then I’ll go home and give this draft another look; decide either to delete the whole thing and start over or get it ready to publish in the morning. I wish you all a good week and a safe Labor Day.
Photo by Karina Vorozheeva on Unsplash
All content on this site ©2018
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted
by Jenny Rose | Sep 1, 2016 | A Flourishing Woman, Body
Last weekend I took my own advice and surrendered to the now of my life. Two big, heavy wooden doors opened like wings and I came home to dance between them.
One of my dearest friends introduced me (kicking and screaming all the way) to dance more than ten years ago.
“No,” I said, “I can’t do that.”
“No,” I said, “I don’t know how.”
But she, in her infinite female wisdom, nagged and niggled and poked and prodded until at last I agreed to try it. Once. Just to get her to shut up about it!
So I tried it and found myself there, waiting. I rarely missed a dance for years afterward. Ours was a small group of dancers, ebbing and flowing over the years, but the core group remained remarkably the same. Sometimes there were only two of us. It didn’t matter. It was a safe place, a place to be with myself in candlelight, a place to be in my body without thought, shame or responsibility. Everything happened at dance. We raged, we sobbed, we hurt, we lay on the floor. We shouted and clapped, farted, belched, giggled, played, pounded on the walls and danced until we drooled. It’s one of the few places in my life where I’ve felt I belonged.
Leaving my dance group was the most painful loss when I left my old life and came to Maine. I knew I could never replace it, but I hoped to find another place, another group, another dance.
The farmhouse I live in is more than a hundred years old and that means the ceilings are low. I don’t need a lot of room to dance by myself, but I do need to be able to move freely. I did dance a couple of times the first winter and spring I was here, but I had to make myself small so I didn’t scrape the ceiling with my hands and my heart was filled with what I’d left behind. It was so painful I didn’t want to face it again.
In Colorado we danced in a yoga studio. It was a beautiful space — clean, high ceilinged, wood floored. Perfect. Our little town was safe after dark. The studio was easily accessible, heated, had a bathroom available, and for most of us it was less than a five-minute drive to get there.
Since I’ve come to Maine I’ve searched for a local group. I’ve talked to several women about dance. Some have been intrigued, but they’re busy, or they have partners, or we don’t live very close together, or there’s no place to get together and do it. You know.
Here, the nearest town is twenty minutes away in good weather. I’m sure there are places in town we might use, but I don’t know where. Or who. Or how. I’m intimidated and overwhelmed and it seems ridiculous to try to find a suitable gathering place when there’s no dance group to use it.
So I stopped trying. Too painful. After all, now I have a partner to hang out with in the evenings. I told myself I’d keep thinking about it, look for openings, and eventually, maybe, be able to start another group. Or even find one. One day. When we had more money. If we moved somewhere else. If we had a better car that could actually deal with driving on winter nights.
But this summer there’s a lot of movement and change, not all of it comfortable. I’m learning a lot. I’m feeling a lot. Writing is good, and so is swimming, but dance accesses something deeper. I’ve known for a few weeks now I need to find a way to get back into those depths for my sake and for the sake of my loved ones.
So I decided to quit playing games with myself and figure this out.
Naturally, an old farmhouse in Maine comes equipped with a barn. Ours is a total of 
four stories, a typical New England nineteenth-century barn. There’s a bat colony in the top of it and it’s an apartment house for rodents. It’s constructed of gorgeous beams and posts with high ceilings and huge blocks of stone in the foundation. Windows look across the tops of the trees and over the river valley, most of them without glass now. We have six cords of hardwood stored in the driveway level and miscellaneous stuff on the top two floors. The spirit of the building is in the cellar, though, which is accessed through two huge heavy wooden doors that are permanently propped open in the back of the building. This area is mostly underground and the stone foundation can be clearly seen. There are old pens and animal stalls built by hand from the plentiful wood here; not boards, but logs and saplings, rough cut. The mowed area in front of this lower floor is not visible from house, driveway or road and is surrounded by trees.
So, I built a playlist of good music, a mix of old familiar dance tunes and some new discoveries. I swept and raked, picked up trash and got rid of some impressive spider webs. I found an old rusty tin can, filled it with dirt, and stuck incense in it. I put on a skirt and some jewelry, found a pair of light shoes I thought would work (I’ve always danced barefoot), grabbed a yoga mat to sit in the grass and stretch on and went to see what would happen.
They were all there, my dancers. It seemed to me I could almost reach out and touch them. They mingled with the ghosts of animals who once lived in this barn, long dead; generations of birds, now flown from empty nests in the rafters; and the dirty lace of old cobwebs. My feet felt clumsy and heavy in shoes and it wasn’t night, but my body remembered how to move and my brain remembered how to lie down and rest. The music swept me up, pushed me with sharp elbows and knees, shook me by the scruff of the neck, played with me and soothed me. I danced with my expectations, my stories, my fears and limitations and loss. I danced with my disappointment and grief and rage. I threw down my rigidity, refusal and denial and danced in their blood. I danced with the joy of coming back to myself.
I danced in an old barn, in a new life, but not alone. The past is still with me, the dancers I knew green and supple in my memory. The pain of change is not, after all, too great to bear. I don’t need money. I don’t need a better car. I don’t need anything that hasn’t been here all along. I don’t need to wait for anyone else or anything else. I just needed to surrender to what is now.
So this one’s for you, my dear Bobbi; for you, Jill, in all your beautiful sensitivity; for you, Rena, who taught me so much about strength, courage and being real; and for you, Pat, who brought essential balance to our group and allowed us to dance with a playful small boy.
Half a world away, you all still honor my dance with your presence.
**************
We based our dance practice in Colorado on the work of Gabrielle Roth, and I still follow this template. Please see my resource page for links. Also, here’s a wonderful piece about the power of dance.
All content on this site ©2016
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted
