Dear Calves~ thank you for your service! You’ve always been mighty!
The kind of calves that got me noticed in the gym, and many many requests for ” How did you get those calves?” The answer of course was genetics plus point shoes at 12 years old…I could say the same for my glutes and hamstrings which were also remakable but not quite the stars like my calves were.

I say were, because this week I noticed how different the calves are now – this is a new development just in the last 4 months, my calves are suddenly angular, linear where they were curvaceous. My legs are noticibly weaker, I have begun to fall from time to time. The balance muscles are going~ the anterior and interior ones that keep you upright over uneven ground are leaving me. Just 2 months ago I finally stopped wearing real heels…as in 3-4 inch heels. Much to my doctors distress I had continued to wear them for 3 years after they advised me not to… but it was actually easier to walk in them due to the 1st signs of weakness in my left calf being along the shin bone and responsible for the flexation of my foot, so as my foot drags in flats I was more susceptible to falling in flats. I still look for a shoe with a 1-2 inch rise, because it helps me walk. Thank god the elevated sneakers are in vogue again! Spoken like a true shoe collector I’m clear… I have given away over 100 pair of shoes through out the past year as they became unwearable.

The curve is gone the cut up the middle of the back of my calf is gone, I miss the shapely-ness of it- the-no-matter-how-fat-I-got-I-still-had-great-legs-count-on-ability of it, the stregnth of it~ these are the legs that could squat 425 lbs in my mid 20’s ( which is probably why I have walked under my own power for so long), the extraordinary look of the well formed muscle tapering into the slim ankle…I would have been a hit in the late 1800’s when a well turned ankle was the bombdiggety of attractiveness! It probably says something about our culture that what freaks me out with the most emotional impact is not the reduction in my breathing ( though I wont go swimming again!) it’s the muscle twitching in my face, the screwed up facial expression I get whenever I drink wine, the drooling that becomes increasingly difficult to control, and loss of the muscle groups I could always count on for attractiveness. Forget looking good I’d just like to pass for normal! Which is hard to do when your ass falls off! Yes my formerly righteous bubble butt is gone as well…let’s just say that my nick name in highschool was “buns” and Boom-Boom.

Whats really amazing is how attached we are as human beings to our identity, or to how we have come to know ourselves…I can be as transformed as I want or as philisophicallly grounded as I want AND it does not prevent the IMPACT of the LOSS of who I had known myself to be! How I knew myself to look, and other constructs that became how I got along in the world. I have known that the physical structures in our environment set us up for how we move and manage ourselves but I was always looking at my SURROUNDINGS in regard to that and rarely if ever looking at my interior physical structures…for what they provided in the realm of my mindset or what I felt was possible to achieve, and how I percieved myself in the world. I can see new levels at which I took my body for granted.

Ignorance is bliss has a new meaning…I continually get irritated with strangers who are having superfluous conversations or are gossiping. Really? I think THIS is what people spend the minutes of their life on when they dont have an issue or a challenge or a focus? WTF? For the same reason I don’t watch the news often as I find much of it to be LEGITIMIZED GOSSIP and speculation and rarely any real news. Certainly not positive news, and I guard my optimism with a fierce vigilance. I don’t need the poison thrust on me from some deliberatedly dramatic headline or some ridiculous fluff involving some celebrity gone to hell in a hand basket. I’m not saying having a cause or a purpose is any better, it’s just what makes it all worth while and interesting. After all you know what they say about an unexamined life…definitly NOT worth living.

So I celebrate my calves today, for all that they were for what they still are and for all they will continue to provide! Take a moment and celebrate your own won’t you? Have a love fest with your whole body in fact! Appreciate what you’ve got when you’ve got it. Take care of it and hold it dear, value it and give it rest. You never know when you’ll need those reserves of energy and stregnth.