Swimming Naked

The Russian girl at the spa tries to preserve my modesty by leaving the room while I undress. I told her not to worry and am out of my clothes and onto the table in before she can close the door. She gives me a tiny blue towel to cover the stubble she is going to ruthlessly rip from my body in just a few minutes. I am curious as I wait for her there in my black bra and blue loincloth as to how many of her Brazilian wax customers are shy when naked. I am also delighted to realize I am so comfortable sans clothing these days. Every morning I slip out of my hotel bed and into the shower with no stop to remove anything. I let the endless supply of hot water flow over the sensual new body that I have worked for, paid for. I have become vain, leaving off dressing until the last possible minute, watching myself in the mirror as I treat my skin to the lovely sounding “Mandelular body soufflé”, dry my hair, pamper myself. Two years ago I would have dressed in the dark to avoid the reality I thought had no solution.

I have had many interesting reactions to my decision to have the tummy tuck. Most people just tell me I look great and keep their private thoughts to themselves. Those people I call my friends. Some people think surgery is all they have to do to achieve a perfect body and I have to explain to them that they have to first learn the discipline of diet and exercise. They are unconvinced and ask for the name of my doctor. I give it, knowing he will set them straight. Another response I have heard frequently is summed up in one statement from a slightly drunk friend at a bar. “Damn, that must have hurt like a son of a bitch.” My reply to her was, “No pain, no loss.” I must admit I was floored this week when a male acquaintance said with a touch of disapproval in his voice, “That must have cost a lot.” I just told him yes and let it pass, but I’m using this vehicle to reply to his accounting soul. No, I cannot justify it financially, but I could not afford not to do it. For my friends who tell me I look great and let it go, thanks, I love you too. For those that are looking for a quick fix for their own issues, my advice is to stop searching for that magic pill and get to work. For those that fear the pain, know that the brief physical sting is of no consequence compared to the years of emotional hurt that filled my life. For the fiscally responsible let me add it up for you. Doctor’s fees and hospital, $6,120, new clothes for my new body, I guess well over $4000 in the last year. Being comfortable in my own skin, priceless.

Absurd Things Only the Very Married Do

I am leaving the house with my Ipod and my sneakers. My husband says,

“Have fun at the gym.” I glare at him and then roll my eyes. I come home later, sweaty and exhausted. He looks up from the sofa smiling happily, “Did you have fun,” he asks?

I explain to him once again that the gym is not “fun” anymore than doing the dishes, or rotating the tires on the car, or cleaning out the cat liter box. It’s just something that has to be done for basic maintenance on my body. The next day we repeat this verbal exercise, and the next, and the next, ad nauseam.

Since my daughter has started getting off work at 9 she and I have been going together for a last half hour of cardio after she gets home. My husband and I do our stupid conversation again as I go out the door. As my girl and I walked to the car she said,

“I'm so tired. I’d rather have someone stab me in the eye with a stick than exercise tonight.”

I replied, “Root canal sounds good to me.”

We staggered in the door at 11 and my husband smiles cheerily from the couch where he has been sitting watching TV the entire time we were gone. “Did you have fun at the gym?’

I am just too exhausted to play the game, so I smile and deadpan, “Yes dear, it was great.”

I bet you can find the new year's resolution hidden in this story

Christmas is not a good time for funerals. It’s cold and often rainy plus people are working hard to inflate their holiday spirit and then clunk, someone dies. It’s a bummer, really. My husband and I stood beside not one but two of our good friends who had the unfortunate inconvenience of losing their elderly mothers the week before Christmas. The fact that one was Jewish made no difference because my husband remembers fondly sitting around her Hanukkah tree as a teenager. He shared that memory with her the last time we saw her alive. The giggle and the grin she flashed at the recollection made her look 40 years younger than her almost 90 years.

We stood milling around in the foyer of the funeral home with a remarkable cross section of humanity, all ages, races and creeds. It struck me as a very large and diverse crowd given the time of year, the awful weather, and the age of the lady whose earthly remains rested in a plain pine box covered with a black velvet drape. The cantor had an awkward pace when speaking, but when he performed as shaliach tzibbur, emissary of the congregation, he voice rang strong and true. It made me wish for his life to be a musical so he could always sing his thoughts with flawless ease. Regardless of his hesitation, the words he spoke, both in Hebrew and in English, reached out and touched the assembled mourners. He told her life like a song, how she loved to dance, her generosity with her family and friends, her prepetually youthful attitude. Then he turned the service over to the audience, allowing sons and daughters, inlaws and friends to share their stories. When it was all said and done we had laughed and cried and rejoiced that this woman had lived, really lived, and made her own distinctive pattern on the fabric of all our lives.

Our friend thanked us again and again as we stood in a freezing rain, under a drippy tent, watching the box that held his mother lowered into the earth. In unison my husband and I replied, “Where else would we be?” Usually he is not a practicing Jew, having married a shikse, a protestant girl, and now teaching at a Methodist University far away in the mid-west. Today however he wears the Yamacha and clings to the tradition of his people. Our friend whispered that his mom hated the custom of putting a shovel of dirt into the open grave, yet when it is his turn, he adds his bit of earth and places the spade down into the loose pile for the next person. I feel the thousands of years of tradition as each man and woman takes their place in the line to find closure and consolation in the ritual act. After we were invited to stop by his mother’s home for the meal of condolance and to share in the first day of shiva. I did not check to see if mirrors were covered, but I did enjoy the lox, reminissing with our friends, and being surrounded by the books and pictures of this remarkable woman. I am smiling as I tell our friend how happy we are that we could be with him today, and how lucky we all are to have been blessed by his mother.

A few days later my husband and I headed to yet another funeral home to console another grieving son. On the way he told me the only story he knew about this friend’s mother, an event that occurred a few years before we met. Both of the men were in their mid twenties, working professionals, but my husband owned a home of his own while his friend lived with his mom. His door bell rang on a Sunday morning and his friend stood there with a worried look on his face. Seems like he had spent the night with his girlfriend, later his wife, and he wanted my man to cover for him with his mother. “Can you tell her I spent the night at your house, please?” said the fully grown man standing at his door. Of course, my husband agreed to provide the excuse and I shook my head in amazement at the recollection.

When we arrived at the mortuary the deceased rested in an open casket at one end of the room and the living gathered at the other end. After expressing our sympathy and signing the book, we all stood around and chatted about anything else we could thing of except the corpse. The company consisted of a few coworkers of our friend, his sister and brother in law, and a girl who had been the decease’s caretaker. The state personnel system where they work was brought up in review, and stories shared about conferences and meetings. Our friend talked longingly of traveling to England as well as other places he had never been. I think I heard a resolution in his voice to go, now that his duty to his mother is done, but I wonder if after all the years of allowing her to hold his spirit, the will to start living fully has grown too weak to reanimate. Someone asked about the service and our friend said it would be held the next morning, graveside only, and he was sure that even if it rained the mausoleum could hold all the mourners. I have no doubt that there will be room for all who wish to attend.