for Betty Rocker
I roll out the yoga mat in the living room
and find the You Tube channel
on which the twenty-something girl
with an armful of tattoos and a perky smile
tells me in her perky voice all about how great it is
I am going to take care of myself for just
fifteen minutes a day. She says that
five times, as if to both belittle it—
you spend more time than that
on social media, she suggests—
and at the same time elevate it—
you can do so much good in just fifteen minutes!
Some part of me wants to hate her,
but she is clearly so happy about what
we’re about to do together in our living rooms.
She claps to punctuate each thought,
and does a little skip in place as if to say
I am ready before I am ready.
I have been ready before. I remember
what it’s like to be ready. I remember
multiple decades when I was so ready
I just never stopped. I remember feeling
somewhat sorry for people who, as I do now,
rely on someone else to tell them to kick
and how high.
But I don’t hate the perky young woman.
In fact, I can’t help but fall in love
with her exuberance, the way she enthuses
through the burpees and turns the wide plank
into a star, whee! she squeals. And in fact,
as I do crescent kicks, like a ninja, she says,
I can’t help but laugh and smile because
she is right—it’s fun. And I feel goofy
and great and so glad to be the woman
I said I would never be. Somewhere,
a young woman is feeling sorry for me.
Somewhere, another woman is doing
lunges and squats in her living room.
Tomorrow we’ll do it again.
