I’m on a solo bike trip that would be the most common response to the Family Feud question “what kind of bike trip would a white middle aged Canadian geeky academic go on?” I’m riding from Amiens to Bruges, through memorials and battlefield sites from the first world war. I booked this trip last winter before I embarked on months of moving across country and a million other things and just generally letting my fitness routine slide to the bottom of the priority list.

On Monday, I wrote on my personal blog about my trepidation before I started riding, and then about the wind sucking the life out of me on my first day of riding. My second day of riding was longer and more complicated, but I wasn’t as shattered at the end — it was a little less windy, the hills weren’t as steep, and my asthma inhaler worked a little better. I had a lovely conversation with a woman from last night’s hotel, and she was super encouraging and drew me a little itinerary that fit what I wanted better than the tour company’s plan for the day.

It’s still not easy, though, and I’ve been pondering what part of it continues to draw me, makes me feel like I haven’t had a summer if I haven’t done a slightly too hard solo bike trip. It’s not exactly “fun” — the terrain isn’t straightforward, the wind is always tearing at me the wrong way, and it’s very hilly. I took a detour today off the planned route to see a little Canadian military cemetery near Courcelette, and I asked google maps how to get to the town where I would rejoin the planned route. I ended up on 3.5 km of road that started like the image on the left, become the middle one and ended like the one on the right.

It’s a good thing the bike my tour company gave me is a solid hybrid. And at the end of that track, I saw my first actual fieldpoppies. The ground is so parched and most crops have been harvested, so despite the poppies on all of the memorial signs, I have hardly seen any real ones.

The ride was a series of little challenges like that — the tea room at the Thiepval memorial was closed, but there was a vending machine and a bathroom. The nice man at the Newfoundland memorial wanted me to park my bike across the street and take off my helmet for decorum and I just couldn’t bear it, so I just gave a nod to the NFLDers and kept going. There was a road closure that meant I had to plot an alternative that — I hoped — wouldn’t be another rutted track or a main road filled with fast trucks. It wasn’t, but it added 10 km or so. When I finally got to my hotel, the desk guy eyed me skeptically, checked me in laconically and didn’t make any kind of effort to help me carry the heavy bag that had been delivered while I was riding, even as he told me my room was up steep stairs. So I dragged it, bike shoes and all, self-reliant once more. And of course, when I arrived in Arras after 65 tough kilometres with low blood sugar and a need to eat, I ran into the eternal french problem of restaurants firmly closing between 230 and 7.

And yet, it’s fun. It’s nice when people say things like “I could never do that” — because I don’t think I can either, really, but I’m just bloody determined. Dealing with the curveballs makes me feel competent. I’m glad it’s not 35C and that my body is mostly holding up. It feels appropriate that this quasi-pilgrimage to those horrific battlefields isn’t on an air conditioned bus, but is measured out in one pedal stroke at a time. I like this time-out-of-time feeling where — despite September looming at me — I can hold real life at bay for a few more days. I like discovering towns I would never ever go to if I weren’t on a bike, towns that aren’t fancy or magnetic, but just where people live. I ended up finding food in a place called Emilie and the Cool Kids that sells juice and hot dogs, but they were out of hot dogs. I asked for a quinoa salad and they were out of quinoa, but somehow, I ended up with the exact thing that I most want at the end of a long bike day — a salad made out of spinach, goat cheese and pasta with sundried tomatoes. I like being put into the place of noticing and enjoying the small things — I savoured the heck out of that salad and whatever the juice was that came with it.

I am having a lot of thoughts about memory, and who gets to tell stories, and why there are weddings at a tea shop at a huge war memorial, and what it means to us to honour rows of stones marking unknown soldiers when we, as humans, never grow out of the kind of bullying and territorial behaviour that leads to war. It feels unnerving to be touring the historical places that are part of solidifying Canada as a country at the same moment when our sovereignty is genuinely threatened more seriously than in nearly a century. And somehow, riding my bike through these sites reminds me that humans are resilient, and that we get through it. So I keep pedalling. Noticing the ripe apples and the unexpected goat cheese and the gift of a woman named Isabelle who was invested in my joy.

Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede-Desmarais, who has another four days of riding.

I just finished reading an advance copy of What We Found Instead, by Heidi Reimer, and it embodied everything I ever want in a summer read: compelling plot, emotional depth, and the kind of writing that makes me go “oof,” because I’ve been hit with a massive truth in a few simple words.

I’m not really a “beach read” kind of person — I don’t spend a lot of time sitting still during the summer. My best summer reads fall into three categories: diverting audio books read by people with clear voices that I can listen to while I’m riding my bike; books with good writing but simple enough structure that I don’t lose track of what’s happening when I read them in chunks on trains or eating solo travel meals; and books that I can wallow into in a hammock. What We Found Instead fits all of those categories.

Set mostly in Ontario, mostly in the north, it’s the story of two women who find themselves in an unlikely orbit when they discover they are both in a relationship with the same man (not a spoiler, this happens in the first chapter). There is plenty of plot, but really, it’s about two women who want more than they have been allowing themselves, and who have to learn to trust themselves and each other to get it. It’s funny and hard and deft and compelling. If you advance order it, and connect with Heidi via her subtack, you’ll also get a delightful prequel sent to your email.

I did get an advance reading copy because I know Heidi, but I’d rave about this book in any case — it takes a lot to penetrate my ADHD/ over busy hummingbird mind these days long enough to care about imaginary people.

Since I moved to Nova Scotia, I’ve been trying to spend more focused time reading — and I’m also compiling a list of audio books for hours on the bike, overdue training for a solo cycling trip at the end of August in northern France and Belgium. My current stack includes two beachy froths from Emma Straub and Carley Fortune, Emma Donahue’s The Paris Express, The Midnight Train by Matt Haig which Sam left for me when she and Sarah hung out in my new place before I even moved here, and Black. Single. Mother. by Jamila Lemieux.

What’s on your list? And add Heidi’s book to it :-).

Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede-Desmarais, who is still trying to create order out of chaos in her new little red house by the sea.

The world is about to get a new novel from my friend and coach Heidi Reimer, called What we Found Instead.

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Long time readers of this blog will know that the biggest joy of the last year for me has been fully embracing my creative writing self — and finding an amazing learning space, writing coach and community of writing women I meet with almost every day to co-write for a while. And I’m so thrilled that Heidi, the coach who has taught me so much, is launching her second novel.

Sam and I were talking about why telling stories about writing belongs on a fitness blog. “It’s the same process,” she said. We need goals, intentional plans, persistence, discipline, community — and celebrating our accomplishments.

I asked Heidi if her characters do anything fitness-y as well. “They do go swimming! And canoeing. Albeit a bit badly.”

That sounds like us.

Preorder it from Penguin Random House Here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/696555/what-we-found-instead-by-heidi-reimer/9781039002210

And follow Heidi on substack here: https://heidireimer.substack.com/p/at-lastthe-cover-reveal

I have had a lot of amazing mentors and friend-guides in my life, and she is at the top. I feel so happy you all can get to experience her too.

Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede-Desmarais, who would like to be canoeing and swimming right now instead of packing to move to Nova Scotia.

About 8 years ago, I wrote a post about how I feel like I’d gone through about eight different fitness identities in my life — and I was wondering which one I was entering. I thought it was “Aging Adventurer.” Maybe that’s what happened — I certainly traveled a lot, rode my bike in a lot of different countries and territories, engaged with grit in all sorts of different ways. But that’s not so much true right now. It’s more… Try Hard to Get Off the Couch.

Since I turned 60 last year, I’ve definitely… slowed down. It’s a lot harder to see the “adventurer” part as being louder than “aging.” This was the first winter in almost 20 years I didn’t travel anywhere warm or sunny, and I found it very… heavy. Dark, cold, lots of emotional residue of various kinds. For some reason, I canceled my gym membership. I just… hibernated.

I’m curious — am I alone in this? How easy is it for all of you to stick to your movement intentions, to set a training plan and follow it, to argue in your head between the couch and whatever diversion besets you (scrolling, gaming, mindless TV, consumables of whatever kind…)? What are you noticing?

I used to be able to happily run 5 kilometres without drama. Last Friday, I ran 3 km for the first time in months and — after a cold and a bunch of stitches in my hand after a kitchen accident last weekend, it was a Feat. I am finding it a lot harder to get myself outside, to get off the couch, to feel rested enough to even contemplate an adventure. The world and all that out yonder sure doesn’t help.

I’m just noticing, and realizing I have to set some actual intentions, that I am not the person who can just get on a bike and ride all day without training anymore. I’m trying to define what it is I am trying to do in my body.

Today was Easter Sunday. I was at my youngest sister’s house, with my other sister. The adults were sitting at the kitchen table eating chips and salsa and yammering about our lives. My 5 year old niece asked me to come and play bubbles with her. I listened. We went outside did bubbles, then walked to the park. I brought a skipping rope. We jumped a bit and climbed and I pushed her on the swing and we did some running. And I remembered why it’s important to listen when the fresh air calls.

Happy spring. What’s motivating you?

Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede-Desmarais, who is very happy that spring is finally almost here.

Back in March 2025, I wrote a post called “Why the conversation about trans women in sports isn’t about sports.” The TLDR version is that the “fairness in sports” angle is actually a wedge issue — a way for people to feel comfortable with one form of “justifiable” discrimination, so that the wider discrimination that follows is tolerable.

Kansas is the first US state to move into the next phase of active assault on trans rights. Read the story in the Guardian here.

The TLDR version of that is that anyone with a driver’s license with a gender marker different from the marker they were assigned at birth no longer has a valid driver’s license. People are also banned from using bathrooms that don’t match their birth assignments, and — here’s the kicker — gives people the right to sue trans people for $1000 for being “in the wrong washroom.” For “damages.” To their purity, I guess?

The language of the notification from the state is chilling to anyone with the slightest acquaintance with the language of authoritarianism: “Pursuant to the new law, if the gender/sex indication on the face of your current credential does not match your sex assigned at birth, you are directed to surrender your current credential to the Kansas Division of Vehicles.”

In other words, a subset of citizens are having their basic rights revoked.

So yeah, getting everyone all riled up about the very very very few trans people competing in sports? That’s not about sports. And if you truly believe your beliefs are “only about sports”? Speak out about what’s happening in Kansas. Because it won’t stay in Kansas.

And everyone? Your trans friends are not okay. Be present, be gentle with them. And be loud with your politicians. And if you think “oh, I’m Canadian, that’s the US” — well, have a look at what’s happening in Alberta.

Now is not the time to waffle.

Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede-Desmarais, who hasn’t crossed the border to the US since 2016.

Photo by Raphael Renter | @raphi_rawr on Unsplash

I turned 61 on Sunday.

According to my math-y friend Jim, 61 is “3D in hexadecimal.” He explained the math, but it meant nothing to me. (Jim is really smart as well as being a lovely human, but that’s not the point).

But the idea of “becoming 3D” captivated me.

I mean, obviously, I have been occupying the world as a multi-dimensional human most of my life. (Well, maybe not when I’m flattened on the couch with a cat on my chest). But 61 is some serious aging math. I got a free “seniors” bank account the other day. I’m deeply conscious of that secondary wave of rapid aging that study pointed to last year, and — like Sam and Mina and others on the blog — I’ve had some new physical depreciations show up in the past year that make me anxious about being able to move the way I want, inhabit my body with the freedom I take for granted.

So 3D. I started to play with what it might mean to twist the kaleidoscope a couple of turns to explore what life could be in if I bring new parts of me into focus, gently let others shift to the sides. Let the things that have been at my centre shed light on the middle, but not glow so much that I can’t see the edges.

Last year on my birthday, I woke up in a nunnery in Bhutan. I had been there briefly in 2018, and the sensation of it kept coming back, like the memorytaste of the best sushi I’d ever had. So I arranged my life to take six weeks off (one week for every decade), worked with Chador, my guide-friend, to make a plan to sleep in a place that doesn’t host westerners, and, the day before my birthday, rode a bike 30 kilometres up a mountain, climbing nearly two kilometres at Himalayan altitude.

It was sublime. I slept on the floor of the nuns’ little receiving room. I woke at dawn and watched the sun creep alive over the himalayas, watched one of the nuns build a fire and fan scented smoke up to the sky in a morning offering. Walked down the mountain with an ancient nun who was as fit as a goat, even though she came down with me so we could take her to the hospital for some ailment or other.

That moment epitomized some of the core dimensions I’ve lived my life with — yearning to be in something bigger, persistence (stubbornness?), a kind of fearlessness, independence, forging connections all over the globe, imagining something and pursuing it, a boundless (sometimes misplaced) trust that I could push my body into anything I want it to do.

When I think about some of the places I’ve woken up on my birthday, this Cate is the one I’ve centred. Puerto Natalas, Patagonia, after hiking the W trek (and losing all my toenails). Sarajevo, where I did 108 sun salutations and wandered gloomy, smoky streets feeling the trauma of civil war in the roses painted in the mortar shell scars on the sidewalks. Costa Rica, where I hiked in a rainforest and looked for tiny bats and frolicking monkeys.

That Cate is the same Cate that took me across dozens of countries on my bike, most often alone, into a two decade project in Uganda, into work that generates complex and challenging emotions. Life lived with a constant question of “what else is there to know and be with?”

The mountain in Bhutan was sublime. But I also skidded on the ice at the top of my ride and hurt my quad, and I got mild pulmonary edema. After I came down, I had the feeling that I wanted to come home, be in a less outward dimension, turn into myself in a new way.

The year that followed had a lot of moments that felt like the slow toil of climbing that mountain, the destabilizing seconds when I skidded on the ice, the searing ache of trying to squat over a latrine to pee when my glute was in spasm. Many people I love have been flung into wounding, unexpected situations. My own relationship ended in a painful slide that was disorienting, made me look at my centre and touch it gently, like a bruise. The world around us slid into chaos and a revelling in brutality, an exposure of craven selfishness.

I let my kaleidoscope drift, then actively shift. I went into a different centre, reaching back into history and my creative self. I started writing a novel inspired by one of my ancestors, who was the first woman in New France to be hanged — after she murdered her abusive son-in-law. (A lesson for our times). I discovered that turning my physical persistence toward imagining, shaping, sitting down and actually just being with the act of creation was much harder than anything physical I’ve ever done. Discipline without the dopamine reward of a hard ride or lifting something heavy.

In that space, I found a community. I’m not a joiner, but somehow, magically, my persistence in writing found five other women who are doing the same, and we meet every morning on zoom for an hour and write together. A new dimension, where I’m one of a group, not navigating the edge or facilitating it. I let myself receive.

In this pursuit of story, the DNA online lottery was benevolent, and I found a lost second cousin. An amazing person I see myself in. The truth of our family story was healing, connecting, openings.

In the edges of loss and upheaval around me, the core people I trust with my life — and who trust me with theirs — were reinforced over and over. And new ones emerged.

In those openings, I let the adventurous, pace-rabbit of a human part of me slide to the edges. Let myself feel what was in the middle. Touched it with my tongue, like a snowflake or mist from the sea. A desire for creativity. Generosity. Reciprocity. Community. Fresh air.

I’ve been idly toying with how I’m going to live the next part of my life for years. I want to work less, be somewhere I can ride and run and walk from my door, be by the sea. Vague ideas, no real plan, held in orbit here by work and my relationship and inertia. Then my friend Stephanie sent me a real estate listing in Lunenburg. “I think this might be your house,” she said.

It was. There’s a loft for writing and art and yoga. It’s five minutes walk to the wharf. A life to live in new colours.

So I’m moving to Nova Scotia. To a little red house that my writing group calls our clubhouse. To a space to create anew. And be with my aging, beautiful physical being in a space where I can breathe.

My very first post for this blog was a reflection on turning 50 and tending to my body so I could still be agile and adventurous when I was old. I read it now and it feels so … active. I’m learning that protecting the old lady inside me does mean movement, does mean stretching and physical balance. And it’s also about connection, and stillness, and community. A kind of movement that also honours sitting down and letting myself find joy from the inside out.

Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede-Desmarais, who is keenly aware and appreciative of the privilege of their life.

Friend of the blog Alex Boross-Harmer was on CP24 on Wednesday morning doing pushups and promoting The Push Up Challenge, an initiative to do 2000 pushups (or alternative movements) between February 5 and 28, to raise money and awareness for mental health.

The mental health of Canadians is worse than before the pandemic, and stats show that only one in three Canadians who need mental health care can receive it. The pushup challenge is raising money for the Canadian Mental Health Association, but is also reminding people that movement, community, fun and purpose are key factors in reducing stress and improving mental health.

Blogger Nicole and I have both signed up for the challenge. Well, Nicole is organized and trained for it. I signed up when Alex reminded us in a group chat on Monday that they were going to be on TV doing pushups.

Here’s Nicole’s description of her intentions and plan:

A gym acquaintance put out a call to join their team for this year’s Push-up Challenge, in support of Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA). I was immediately intrigued for a couple reasons. I am aware of CMHA’s good work through my own work and through friends who work there and I remember when they participated in the challenge last year. I am very happy to support CMHA and any way that we can find resources for better mental health support. I am also pretty good at push-ups. I am not sure I will be able to do 87 full push-ups a day to reach my goal of 2000 for the month, but I am confident I can do a large chunk of them and the challenge allows you to supplement full push-ups with variations (hello eccentric push-ups) or other movements. I can report about my success at the end of the month. For me, posting about a positive challenge is a much-needed distraction in this time of constant, stressful news, for which I feel a bit powerless to respond effectively. I can do push-ups and try to support a worthy mental health agency.

Here is the link to Nicole’s donation page: https://www.thepushupchallenge.ca/fundraiser/nicoleplotkin

As for me, I really don’t think it will be good for me to go from 0 to 90 in the pushup department in one day, so I’m going to mix it up with squats and assisted pushups of various kinds. (One time I did like 80 pushups without warning and cause havoc in my chest muscles to the point I thought I was having a heart attack. Good times!).

I’ve been “training” for two days now (as in, I do 10 pushups every time I think about it) and I’m psyched. You all know how much I love counting things, and I particularly love it when I can poke an app when I’m counting. Apparently there are different goals for every day, relating to stats about mental health and ideas about how to support each other.

Join us, or sponsor us — my fundraising link is here

I’m not a sports watching person, generally, but from the moment the Jays clawed their way into the playoffs, I was on board. I held off paying for Sportsnet for a few games, following live blogs and reddit and googling the replays. But two games into the series with the Yankees, I was all in. And then every moment of October, I had a constant faint buzz — when was the next game? Yesavage is a ROOKIE? Why is Vladdy so darned likable? Will Bo recover? MAD MAX wtf! Oh Ernie, you are the best.

I like a good bandwagon as much as the next person, but usually, I orbit it on the outside, enjoying the buzz in the air, occasionally high fiving someone as I pass a pub with an open patio and a big screen. But this time, I was out in front, watching every game in tandem and constant text with at least two friends. Within two weeks, I was making pronouncements about every player’s readiness, grace, incredible teamwork in chip chip chipping away at other teams’ surges. I developed rituals, nicknaming opposing players and taking myself out for a nervous walk around the neighbourhood if the Jays were behind at the top of the 7th. I started to love these boys. And to like the person I was as a fan.

Partway through this ride, I realized I understood baseball for the first time in my six decades of life. I had a lightbulb moment when I was following the intricacies of a double play, admiring the arc of a throw and quick reflexes. Six months ago, I started medicating my lifelong, late-diagnosed female-brand ADHD. Thanks to Vyvanse, I could focus long enough to see the ballet of it all, the logic behind each pitch, the mastery of my baseball boyfriend Kirky’s catching. I could keep the players straight in my head, admire the loping golden retriever energy of Barger, the grit of Springer who kept getting back up there after he was pummelled with pitches over and over. Agonize as I watched the muscle in Trey’s jaw work as the 22 year old glistened with sweat but otherwise, showed no sign of the crazy pressure of this moment. And when I didn’t get it, I had google and my friend Alistair, who could explain everything.

It all ended on Saturday night, of course, with an unexpected game 7. I watched game 6 at Susan’s with friends, our Halloween costumes gradually peeling off as the game got more intense. But game 7, I was home alone, with the cats and a couple of group chats for company.

Well, friends, I lost my mind. I had so much nervous energy that at one point, I found myself watching the game, decanting turkey stock, and then having to mop the floor. Naked, for some reason I can’t explain. I guess I was hot. When Bo hit his three run homer, I screamed so loudly the cats didn’t come back for an hour.

I tried hiding under the cushions from the outdoor patio that were drying before I could put them away for the winter, and I tried dancing out my yayas in the between innings. Finally, in the tied up 8th, I took myself outside, to one of the pubs with the big screen and the people on the street. (I put clothes on).

Somehow, among this crowd of hosers, I found myself with a Molson Canadian in one hand and a Player’s Light in the other. I don’t think I’ve drunk a molson since 1985, and I know the last time I had a cigarette was pride in 2006. But there I was, full on fan, agonizing as the game slip slip slipped away.

When the tragedy of errors that was the 9th inning ground to an end, I realized I’d gotten what I needed. I loved the team. I loved everyone I was watching with. I loved the cars honking as they went by. I loved the sense of community and shared hope and fucking Canadianness of it all.

Being a Canadian in the era of Trump has been uneasy at best. Pierre Trudeau once said that to the US that “living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” Never has that beast outright snarled at us as much as it has in 2025.

Elbows up is one thing. But elbows linked, around these Jays? That was everything I needed. Everything we needed to remind ourselves who we are.

After I left the pub, I was scooting home to witness what felt inevitable at that point. The streets of my neighbourhood were dark, and away from the pub, quiet. A streetcar rumbled by. I passed a older guy leaning against a wall who asked me the location. He was very drunk. “Queen and Coady,” I said, briskly, continuing on.

A few seconds later, I paused and went back. “Do you need some help?”

“Please,” he said.

I saw that he was talking to someone on the speaker for his phone. I took it from him and asked the person on the other end what the guy needed. The other person was at a shelter and asked me to get the guy a cab, gave me the address.

A cab? Like phoning a taxi? I was clearly time traveling.

I phoned Beck taxi and navigated the phone tree. I asked the guy if he wanted me to wait while the cab came. He nodded. “I just want to go home. You are an angel.” His name was Ralph.

The cab came, and there was a lot of kerfuffle about if the driver could take someone to a shelter without a guarantee of payment. He told me how to phone Beck and talk to a person and I kept messing it up. I had no cash on me. “Oh!” Ralph said, suddenly. “I have money!” He handed me his wallet. “Can I get in now?” He had $25 in his wallet, in fives. I gave four of them to the driver.

The cab driver took over, handing Ralph a bag in case he needed it. “I kinda think he’s used to being this drunk,” I said. The heroic cab driver nodded. I left.

I checked the score on my phone as I walked the rest of the way, but I didn’t care. Winning didn’t matter. It was the community of it all that mattered. Being honest with myself, if I hadn’t felt so connected to the community around me in that moment, I probably would have keep walking after I’d tossed “Queen and Coady” at Ralph.

The Jays lost. But I didn’t. And I don’t think we lost as a community, or as a country. We found each other.

Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede-Desmarais, who keeps remembering the time her dad got fired for one day for skipping out on his teaching job to go to a Detroit Tigers World Series game in 1968.

The recent spectacle in the US of the guy in charge fat-shaming generals and calling for the “the highest male standard” in military fitness made me take a deep breath for about a million reasons — the most significant, of course, being that this is a classic step in solidifying the power of authoritarian regimes by testing military loyalty.

With all the yammer about a supremely outdated notion of “warriors,” I remembered this booklet in my piles of random paper. When my mother died in 2022, I found this little book from 1962, outlining the Royal Canadian Air Force’s fitness plan for girls and women.

My mom played on her university basketball team in the early 60s (despite her 5.2 height), and then taught gym and coached high school girls’ team sports in the first part of her teaching life. She continued to follow women’s basketball until she died, frequently attending University of Windsor “Lancerettes” games. There was one infamous moment where she, two inches shorter from osteoporosis, craned her head to look at two women from the current team, both at least 6 feet, and said, “I used to be you! Take your calcium!”

But I digress.

So after all the fat-shaming and gender-erasure, I dug out this XBX Plan for fitness. It outlines what the Canadian military thought girls and women should be doing for fitness 63 years ago.

And you know, it’s not so terrible.

Well, maybe not so terrible once you get past the Air-Marshal’s initial message.

The whole thing is definitely gendered in a cringey way, and relies pretty heavily on a “calories in, calories out” formula that persists until today. And the “wishing is not good enough” message is pretty shame-y. But overall, the booklet downplays weight and appearance and focuses on what you actually need to do for general health and wellbeing in that transformative 12 minutes a day.

Basically, there are four sets of 10 exercises, and the intention is to start with the less complex set, with fewer reps, and then to work your way up. I wondered — would I meet the target for my age? How would I fare if I were suddenly thrust into some kind of makeshift resistance army?

The charts were incredibly complicated to figure out, but I had to start with the first hard truth: I am too old to even be doing this. Clearly, at nearly 61, I should be putting on my little fur stole and smoking a cigarette and giving unheeded wisdom to the young people.

Fine. I’m too old? It’s 2025. I put my 60 year old blue hair into little space buns and decided my goal was the same as my 21 year old mother’s.

The chart reminded me of every table I’ve ever fudged related to water safety (tide charts, dive tables, etc.). But I stuck my tongue between my teeth and determined that for Level 35, I should start with the exercises on Chart III, with designated reps for each. (The recommended level for people 50-55 to aim for was 12, so I knew I was biting off a lot).

Exercises 1-4, 2 minute sequence: 15 toe touches, 22 knee raises each side, 18 lateral bends each side, and 40 arm circles each side.

These are all movements we still do today. But it’s way too many reps for the time — it takes me more than three minutes, and I kind of collapse on my ankles on the knee raises trying to go too fast. Soundtrack: Cruel Summer.

Exercise 5: 41 sit ups. Weird, curvy sit-ups. The chart gives me 2 minutes.

I do all 41, but it takes me 2.5 minutes. And I feel kind of angry the whole time. Soundtrack: Little Mix’s Power. Who got the power? Not me.

Exercise 6: Chest and Leg Raising. Kind of like a dynamic bow post in yoga. 39 in 1 minute. This should be fun.

Takes me a minute and a half. It actually feels kind of good? Like a back bend? But like my form is a tasteless free-for-all so who knows what I’m dislocating? Soundtrack: MyOhMy, Camila Cabello and DaBaby. Don’t know how this got into my mix but I’ve stopped questioning anything.

Exercise 7: Side Leg Raising, 60 total (30 each side) in one minute. Kind of like a classic Jane Fonda leg lift, judging by the little diagram.

Takes a full two minutes, and I literally stagger to my feet at the end. I should probably engage those hips more. Soundtrack: WAP. Um. Air Vice-Marshall Orr is going to rise from his grave just to shake his finger at me.

This is actually kind of a lot. I push the thought away.

Exercise 8: Elbow Push Ups. 39 in 2 minutes.

Okay, I can hold a plank for 2 minutes, surely this is fine? Hahahaha, no.

This is the first set I finish within the time frame, but I have to use the extra time for a restorative child’s pose. The cats come in demanding dinner and getting in my way. Justifiable break. Soundtrack: Espresso. Whatever.

Exercise 9: Leg-overs, Tuck. The lower level version of this one is just kind of a yoga twist with a straight leg; this one involves a tuck and… something. Twisting with legs tucked together and then straightening in the centre? 20 in one minute, and I THINK that’s 10 each side. All righty.

I lose track of the counts, but I think I’m doing it right? And like the bow things, this is something I should do more often. Also I really need to vacuum the cat litter off the floor of my office. Soundtrack: Not your Barbie Girl, Ava Max. Where did this playlist even come from? The AI-generated music over this low-tech notebook full of my 20 year old mother’s handwriting is causing some serious temporal dislocation.

Exercise 10: Run and Half Knee Bends. 230 in 3 minutes.

It takes me a full minute to even begin to decipher this one. Run in place, and after every 50 steps do 10 half knee bends (squats, I guess, but the lady is kind of on her toes in her little ballet slippers? Maybe she has Barbie feet?). How does this add up to 230?

This one feels very HIIT, though it’s totally impossible to keep track of reps. And how does this combo add up to 230? I don’t hate it, but the tarsal tunnel nerve issues in my right heel are pretty peeved at me. I should have put shoes on. Soundtrack: I like it, Cardi B, Bad Bunny and J Balvin. Seems about right for my obdurate wokeness.

So in the end? Trying to keep up with the reps made me lose the form and breathing that’s been drilled into me over my own fitness history. But the actual movements aren’t terrible.

The final instruction in the book is very uplifting. To lead a balanced life of ironing and tennis, you need to lift those legs. “Wishing is not good enough,” the Air Marshal guy reminds us again, as his final advice.

He’s not wrong. Sigh. So many things we can’t just wish into being, right now. But we CAN perfect the run-in-place-squat combo. Just to, you know, be ready. For whatever.

Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede-Desmarais, who looks very different at 61 than her great-aunts did in the late 50s.

It’s the annual vacances scolaires, which means that everyone in France started the summer holiday pretty much the same day I started a week long solo bike trip from Nantes to La Rochelle.

On the plus side: it’s sunny and everyone is happy and there’s ice cream around every corner. On the less joyful side, a lot of shops and restaurants are closed (they’re on holiday!), it can be hard to find a place to have dinner, and there are people wandering in front of your bike constantly. Often in speedos.

This all started when I was in Lithuania last summer, picking up a bike to ride from Warsaw to Gdansk (why could I not hire a bike in Poland, you ask? Excellent question). My hotel happened to have a channel that was showing the Olympics opening ceremonies in English, and I was totally entranced by the freewheeling insanity of it all (drag queens! a menage a trois! the louvre! a masked mystery man doing parkour on the rooftops! boats! Celine Dion at the top of the Eiffel Tower!) . I texted Susan “We have to go to Paris at xmas!”

I’ve had a somewhat ambivalent relationship with France most of my adult life. It’s the root of most of my genetics, and the older women here all look like they could be my great-aunts — but I was always a little pissed off that the King traded Canada for sugar plantations in the Caribbean in the Treaty of Paris. (Or as comedian Derek Seguin puts it, « when the French left us here to rot»).

My first attempts to make friends with Paris didn’t go well. I came to Paris spontaneously at New Years in 2013, after a spectacular breakup with someone on dive trip in the Philippines when I needed to fill three days before going home. The first morning, I infamously passed out in the Louvre because I had dengue fever. After making my way back to my hotel in a cab whose driver insisted on taking me through the Diana death tunnel and doing a re-enactment for me, I spent the next two days marvelling at my crazy rash and watching Call the Midwife in a fever dream before crawling onto a plane to home (and a diagnosis).

A few years later, I took my niece to Paris, also on a whim, after watching the film Eighth Grade and feeling the pain of being 14. It was a heat wave and our romantic garret of an air bnb had no AC, and we just kind of limply wafted around the city. We ended up booking an overpriced hotel with a room with AC and no windows and both slept for 16 hours straight.

But from Vilnius? Paris enchanted me.

So Susan and I came to Paris last Christmas, and that time was the charm. And it unlocked a wormhole of ancestral memories, and I spent a few winter days deep in a genealogical cave, and discovered an ancestor who spoke directly to me, and since then I’ve been working feverishly (in the good way) on a novel about this ancestor and a contemporary counterpart. I went back to France in February, and then I did an intensive novel writing program in the spring. I was here again (with Susan) in late June. I’m entering the novel revision course in September .

That’s a lot that unfolded just because my Lithuanian hotel happened to have good cable. And because I’m old enough to really appreciate Celine Dion.

So this bike trip is actually my fourth trip to France in 8 months. And the most physical. I booked this self-guided trip back in March, as a kind of physical pilgrimage — and then promptly focused entirely on my book. Meaning: almost no training.

It’s a pretty moderate ride as far as these things go – six days of riding, hotels, they carry my bags for me. Along the Velodysée, and very well designed to keep you out of traffic. Mostly bike lanes, reasonably flat. Longest day about 75 km. Alighting in beautiful little seaside towns with white painted cottages with blue doors and a general air of ease. I’ve been lucky with the weather — in the mid 20s, sunny. Beaches everywhere to hurl myself into after a ride (and one day, mid-ride). And I’m prowling the very marshes (les marais) that my mother’s family name comes from.

And yet. Riding hours every day for six days? When you have let your gym and riding habits drift gently away? When it’s very windy (those marais are VERY open!), a lot of the trail is soft and sandy, and the parts of the trail in seaside towns require negotiating families on bikes with all their camping gear, families on their way to the beach with boogie boards and sunbrellas blocking the path, old men in caps who need to raise their seats bringing their baguettes home. Beautiful, amazing, lovely — but actually riding it, with the body I have right now? Not a picque-nique, mes amis.

Im 60 now. A lot of riding this ride fell more into the trudgery category of “really happy to have done it” rather than the feeling of wellbeing and joy I have when I’m on my bike and actually fit. I woke up every morning tired (and seaside towns usually bring loud drunks at 3 am), and a little anxious about the distance. And I had a horrible cat care crisis on day 2 that meant I almost had to fly home immediately. (Shout out to friends Alex and Marianne who stepped in miraculously. The cat is okay).

But! I made myself be grateful for being able to ride — for my functioning body and soul, for being able to jump into the ocean at the end of a ride, for the privilege of being in this sun-kissed, cheese-replete, friendly place where people are relaxed and very tolerant of my terrible french, for having the money and space to indulge my epigenetic imaginings.

I have to go home early because of the cat issue (cat sitter actually LOST THE CAT OUTSIDE for two days and didn’t know how she got out). But my body feels well worked, and I feel accomplished. And I’m eager to get back to my book and my imaginary people.

How is your summer going?

Cate Creede-Desmarais is grateful to be in La Rochelle, the port where most French Canadians’ ancestors departed in the 17th and early 18th century. This place features in the still-in-progress novel.