I’ve been in physical therapy for six weeks for sciatica, which has been centered on my right hip and glute. I had the same problem in my left hip and glute two years ago, and got physical therapy for it, which helped enormously.
But it came back, this time on the other side. Which brings me to the first lesson from this round of PT:
Lesson one: our physical vulnerabilities don’t ever go away; they’re always there and in need of attention and care.
I knew this, of course, as do we all. But when we devote concentrated attention to some problem, we tend to hope and believe that it’ll be fixed, once and for all. Well, in the case of our musculoskeletal bodies, this just isn’t true.
Lesson two: slow and steady actually works.
Once I got into physical therapy and made a little progress– less pain and more function– I was ready to throw myself into more intense activity. But they counseled me to let pain guide me; if doing something hurt a lot, stop doing it. Sounds simple, but this bears repeating.
Lesson three: more activity brings more discomfort, but it’s okay.
When I was on vacation in Canada, swimming and dog walking and just generally being more active, I had some level of pain every day, for much of the day. Because I’d been prepped for this, I didn’t freak out. I did what I wanted and could do, took Tylenol when needed, and enjoyed the fact that I was able to be more active and out there than the previous month. Yay.
Lesson four: sitting in cars and planes is evil for the body (or at least my body).
Yes, I knew this, but driving from Boston to Ontario and back again (with some detours along the way) showed me once again how my body is vulnerable. And don’t get me started on air travel; that’s what precipitated this flare-up. This doesn’t mean I can no longer drive. But it does mean that 1) I should stop more often and get out and stretch and walk around; 2) I should know that after a very long drive, my body will need attention through stretching, rest, and movement; and 3) If I ignore and push through this, I do so at my peril.
Lesson five: bodies are wonderful things. They take a licking and keep on ticking. And they respond to focused attention and care. This means that I have renewed appreciation and love for my physical self. This time around, both the physical therapists and I are working on a maintenance plan that I can and will follow. I really love what my body can do, and I want to keep doing it for a long time to come.
I board my elderly horse Fancy in a rural part of Ottawa. She lives outdoors and someone else feeds her daily so I don’t get out there very often these days. The exception is haying season, when it’s all hands on deck to get enough hay stored to keep the horses who live inside fed through the winter.
Farm math: over 30 percent of farm workers in Canada are women. The real number may be higher as many women may still be taking on informal roles alongside male operators. But the number is increasing and being documented as more women get operations and bank loans in their own names.
The place where Fancy boards is almost entirely women-run. Ingrid owns the operation. Jen is the manager. It’s a co-op where almost all the boarders are women, so they pitch in every day to do chores.
More farm math: on Saturday we stored the last of the small bales of hay for the season. Ingrid and Jen had to figure out how much to order to keep all the indoor horses fed until next year. They got just shy of 3,600 bales, or six big trailer loads worth. Then they had to figure out the odds it can be cut, baled, delivered and stored before it rains, coordinate all that with the farmers growing hay, and with the people who were going to put it away.
Once it was delivered the team needed to figure out the geometry to get it stacked with no collapses, how many people we needed to get hay off the trailer, up the elevator and into the barn, and how many doing the stacking with minimal waiting around.
Diane in a pink shirt with part of a trailer full of hay to her right. In the background, you can see the elevator leading to the barn. There is a single bale of hay at the top. She looks very hot and is grateful to have a break while the trailer is moved into place for unloading.
I’m glad I only had to do a couple of hours of grunt work. Even if it was hot, sweaty, dusty grunt work.
Saturday’s delivery was two trailers full of hay, so probably a little under 1,200 bales. Each of those bales weight 40-60 pounds. It took 11 of us (8 women and three men) a little under 2 hours to unload both trailers, move it up to the top of the barn using the elevator, then stack it.
I couldn’t lift the bales much higher than my waist. I am in awe of the people who were able to toss them to people working up higher.
A backlit view of team barn after the last bale was in place. If you look closely, you can see just how sweaty the two people in the front are: their shirts are soaked. Photo by Mel Donskov.
In case anyone is wondering, the outdoor horses get those giant round bales that need to be moved by tractor. How many bales, and the cost of a tractor, is a whole other set of farm math.
Many universities have limited space for cars, lots of sidewalks and spaces for students to walk or cycle between classes (and often to residences on or near campus). Generally, students can buy most of what they need at shops on campus or very nearby, and there are lots of third spaces such as parks and plazas where they can simply hang out with friends.
They may be the nearest thing some cities have to walkable communities (sometimes known as 15 minute communities). I have seen arguments that they may be part of what has older adults reflecting back on university as one of the best times of their lives. There may be some truth to this.
This week, I returned to living on campus for the first time since 1980 as I have been at a textile conference out of town. I walked a lot! I’m actually pretty impressed with myself, considering that I spent hours every day hunched over textile equipment.
I’m an analyst at heart, so I checked with Google Maps to estimate how far I would have walked as a first-year student at the University of Western Ontario, when I lived in a residence and walked to the music school every day. I walked a lot then, too: at a minimum, I walked to class, then home for lunch, then back to class and home again. That’s over 50 minutes of walking, even before going out in the evening, or leaving campus, or going to a class in a different building.
This week’s distances were similar, by the time I walked to breakfast, to my classes, home to unload and rest, and then back to the class area for evening activities. There were lots of elevators, and car parking and a shuttle bus for those with disabilities, so there were options for people who don’t walk everywhere.
Obviously, university campuses aren’t a perfect model for walkable communities for whole families or people who don’t work on campus. But wouldn’t it be nice if we could incorporate more active transit, third spaces and housing that is close to where we live and shop?
This third space on campus was quite lovely. It has public art, benches, trees, a pub/restaurant, and a mix of older and very modern buildings. Behind where I am standing to take the picture you will find restaurants, some shops, an art gallery, a church and a hospital, all within a five minute walk.
May is usually a time of transition for me. The school term finishes and I ease into my summer schedule, which often includes travel to see friends and family, occasional conferences, and summer-at-home activity and projects. This May, however, I’ve been running (and driving and flying) around. Last week I was in Vermont with a friend, hanging out, doing some work, and petting the resident cat Kasper. This week I’m in South Carolina, staying with my sister and seeing my mom and other family.
My sister’s kids are out of the house this week on their own travel adventures, so we are taking advantage of the quieter time to hang out together and also knock out some home improvement tasks. Her wish list includes the following:
replace IKEA wardrobe doors
paint IKEA wardrobe sides to go with new doors
buy new bed and mattress
get rid of old bed and mattress to complete transition
paint bathroom one
paint bathroom two
buy and install IKEA standing shelf unit for bathroom two
paint upper kitchen cabinets
miscellaneous car maintenance for her and kids’ cars
My guess is that we will achieve some from her list and some from my list. We have already made some progress, having gone to IKEA right after she picked me up from the Charlotte, NC airport and scoped out possible purchases. And last night we watched several episodes of Hacks.
I like domestic activity, I like visiting my family, and I’m looking forward to this week. I’ll update y’all when I get back (my flight takes me home on May 31). Then my actual summer will begin…
A patch of Rocky shoals spider lilies; hoping to see some later today!
🌿 I lift weights regularly. I walk lots. I ride my bike. And I’ve been doing anti-gravity yoga.
🌿 Still, last weekend Sarah suggested we rake up and bag some leaves, tidying up the garden for spring. Leaf pick up day was Tuesday.
🌿 All good. Except after sitting down to read that evening, I got up and ouch, my back. It’s not just the garden that needs to get in shape for spring. Apparently, it’s me too.
🌿 Gardening is tough work. Instead of the occasional binge, I might try to do some regularly during the week.
It’s been a long, cold winter, and I work a few days a week from home, so I’m inside at my desk a lot right now. When a friend told me she uses a Cubii whenever she works at her desk I went online to see about it (as one does).
The Cubii is one of many (many) under-desk elliptical and cycling trainers, ranging from about $150-$450 (if you don’t count the high-end ones). They claim to be small, silent, and easy enough to be peddled for exercise while one sits doing office work. The Cubii looks simple and convenient, though if I bought one it might join all of my other doo-dads I have bought over the years for simple and convenient exercise…now gathering dust.
Pedal trainers join many (many) other devices that are sold for exercise at one’s desk: isometric standing devices, standing desk mats with ridges for stretching, disc wobble cushions, gyro balls, and smart water bottles. I remember when at one time there was only the stabilizer ball that you sat on instead of a chair. Now you can buy an entire work station that doubles as exercise machinery.
Various people sitting on exercise balls at desks, a google image search
Awhile ago I read an article by Eryk Salvaggio (2024), “Challenging the Myths of Generative AI”, that has stuck with me. The piece focuses on how, based on misunderstandings about how AI works, certain myths are shaping how we justify AI’s importance and reshaping how we think about ourselves and what we do.
For example, AI is widely regarded as useful because it is understood to save time. (Frequent users know this may not be true depending on how complex the task, how good one’s prompting skills are, and how critical one is about the output). The productivity myth underlying this valuation is the automation of work. If is AI is good because it saves time, then automating more of our work with AI is good because it will save more time. In this AI-infused workflow cycle, where saving time with AI is better than working without it, the automation of work itself becomes the preferred norm.
Put another way, has anyone encouraged using AI to help complete a task more slowly because that task is worth spending time on?
I just spent a bunch of time explaining that idea (thanks for sticking with me) because the productivity myth may take a related form in the world of desk exercise equipment. This equipment is sold as a healthy remedy for the harms of sedentary office work, but it also produces a new idea that exercising while working is good. We save time because we are doing both at once, but in doing so our relationships to work and exercise change.
In “optimizing” work time also as exercise time (or using exercise time to work) then neither work nor exercise needs to be (should be?) the single focus of our time. Whether we are effective working while exercising, or exercising in safe form or duration while working, is beside the point.
Of course, no one lives in this purely either/or world: you can use your Cubii at your desk and still go curling later in the day. And, not every minute of our work day is likely to suffer if we were to divide our attention with light exercise once in awhilr. For fidgety people like myself, physical activity of some sort might indeed promote increased focus during certain tasks.
Furthermore, if you want to exercise at work, you can certainly avoid commodifying it by passing on the costly exercise equipment and opting for brief stretching or body weight exercises. Most importantly, I am certainly not refusing the vast evidence that prolonged seated work is bad for one’s health.
But…in reviewing many review pages of Cubiis (and their first and second cousins) I began reflecting on how serving the myth of productivity means we may be more more likely to buy things that will help us to squeeze more out of our time without questioning the squeezing. When it is always better to optimize by going faster or doing two things at once, we may start to care less about what we are actually doing than how long it takes us to get to the next thing.
Image description: Black and white photo of Tracy, short-hair, wearing wide jeans, sneakers, a black jacket and sunglasses, with a camera and a bag slung across her body, walking along a walled pier with a cargo ship in the background. Photo credit: Roben Bellamo
Back in January I wrote a post about how approaching 60 feels different from approaching 50. I breezed into 50 feeling strong, energetic, and at peace. On my 50th birthday, I wrote about beautiful September days where everything felt perfect and effortless. I had pushed myself into my 50s, with what, in retrospect, seems like a punishing training schedule to prepare me for two Olympic distance triathlons that season. But at the time it didn’t feel punishing. It felt invigorating and exhilarating. At that time of life, training hard clearly agreed with me.
Things have changed since then. Today it’s more about sustainable routines that can take me through the next decade(s) without injuries. I’m back to yoga, resistance training, walking, and some very light (read: slow) running. These are all things I still enjoy and that make me feel energized and strong. I almost never sign up for events anymore, though I do succumb to peer pressure once in awhile, especially if I like the t-shirt. Hence an 8K trail race next weekend (The Howling Ghost Trail Run) with my running group.
I’m not really in the mood to have a big decade birthday this year. It’s not that I object to turning 60. I just don’t feel like having a great big party to mark the occasion. And it’s not that I’m doing nothing at all — I have a couple of upcoming celebratory meals at my favourite restaurant. Today it’s lunch with Samantha and our friend Rob, for our annual get-together in honour of our birthdays, all in 1964 within the same 25-day span. Then on my actual birthday early next week I’m going back there to have dinner with a few friends. That day will include cake. Sometime this fall there will probably be a spa getaway to St. Anne’s with another longtime friend whose birthday falls within two weeks of mine.
We don’t get to plan when we’ll be in a mood for a big party and when we won’t. And if I’ve landed anywhere at almost-60, it’s at a place where I do what I want, not necessarily what’s expected. I’m feeling more confident about my choices these days, and deciding not to have a party despite this being a “special” birthday reflects that confidence.
When we first started blogging back in 2012, Sam started a thing where she would post “Six things” about whatever. I revived that on her recent 60th, and I’m going to end my own “60 is coming” post with six things I feel good about as I get really close to 60:
No longer experiencing the need to explain myself or my choices to people.
Physically, I can still push myself but I don’t push terribly hard anymore. I’m happy with my chosen activities and I take lots of rest that I don’t feel guilty about taking.
Instead of acquiring more stuff, I’ve turned my attention to getting rid of stuff.
Great relationships with family, partner, and friends. I’ve got excellent, supportive, loving people in my life and I feel incredibly fortunate about that.
My cats, daily meditation, photography, and my vegan blog.
The future looks bright as I look ahead to retiring in the not-too distant future and building a life in a new city with my partner. We are poised for the next adventure!
All this to say that though I’m not in a party mood, I’m quite chill about the upcoming BIG birthday.
A very large poplar got chewed by beavers and fell across the road at my cottage property, so clearing it became this week’s main fitness activity.
The tree lying across my road, before it got cut into pieces.
Friends with a chainsaw came over to cut up the tree, and then we moved the pieces next to my wood pile.
Many pieces of wood lying beside a tarp-covered woodpile. Each piece is about 16 inches high.
Wood is heavy, and rolling these pieces into place felt a bit like doing one of those sled push exercises at the gym. Not as much weight as this woman was pushing, obviously!
Very strong woman with long blonde hair pushes a sled with heavy weights on it. BOJAN89 //Getty Images
But then we realized the woodpile will need to be moved so that it is out of the way of the construction crews I’m expecting over the next few weeks. So we moved it again; this time up a little hill and tucked in behind some trees.
All the wood stacked in a safer location.
I love camping and historical re-enactment, and often think about how much we now do as “fitness activity” for fun or to keep ourselves mobile after working at a desk job all day. Then I spend a day like this and am grateful I don’t have to rely on my strength and farming/wood clearing skills to live (but also grateful I have the strength to do the work when I need to).
This was about two hours of work, with three of us and a chainsaw. I still need to split all that wood.
It’s spring and Catherine is right, that does mean spring flowers.
However, in my fitness world it also means the seasonal changing of tires and moving of clothes.
Out of season tires live beside the house, in a semi-covered area along with canoes and the snowblower and lawn furniture.
Out of season clothes live in the basement in bins and need carrying up two flights of stairs, emptying, refilling and carrying back down.
There aren’t a lot of household chores that feel like fitness activities to me, but these do.
When I carry the tires from beside the house (carry and not roll because it’s less awkward and because I can and I feel badass doing it) to the car and drive them to the tire changing place, and then empty the car of the out of season tires and stack those, I think, “This is why I go to the gym.”
When you search for images of tires you see lots of pics of people using tires in the gym for fitness but I would feel a bit odd paying for tire-centric fitness activities in the gym and then not moving my own tires around at home.
I know lots of people who not only have someone else change their tires, they also have someone else store their tires, but I’m not there yet. Never say never. But not now.
To be clear, Sarah is the arranger of tires. She’s the Scandinavian architect of tires and their arranging. I’m the meth raccoon.
So far, we’re through the tires. Next up, spring and summer clothes.
(We’ve had this discussion a few times, the debate between those of us on the blog who swap out clothes seasonally and those who don’t. Mostly it comes down to living alone or living in a house full of people and/or storing their stuff.)
Blue and white boat on heap of tires. Photo by Aleksander Des on Scopio And yes we have dogs and boats and tires, but not that many tires, and they’re stacked neatly.
How about you? Do you have chores that feel more like fitness activities?
In today’s post we are getting back to some basics – doing ground-level self care.
As is my new tradition, the chatty part is below the videos.
I chose both of these videos because they are direct, quick, and helpful. The first one is about functional fitness – just getting your body moving in a way that both feels good and will help you loosen up your muscles a little. The second is a breathing exercise – box breathing – that can be useful in all kinds of situations – including developing mindfulness.
The goal here was to think about the low-key things we can do to make our lives a bit easier – some movement now will help us feel a little better overall, a breathing exercise will help us feel calmer as we move through the day.
These are basic and incremental things that we can sometimes overlook as we think about big things we would like to change.
However, small things like this not only help us right now – which is inherently valuable – but, as a bonus, they can help us slowly create space for bigger things we want to do later.
And, if things get overwhelming, we can always return to basics like these.
This video from the naturallybeata YouTube channel is entitled “JUST5 (Tuesday) – 5 minute @home functional fitness” and the still image shows the instructor from the neck down, wearing flowered leggings and a black tank top that says ‘Faster’ on the front. They are standing in front of a couch in a living room.
A short video from The Pocket Mentor App YouTube channel entitled ‘ Box Breathing Technique Guided Mindfulness Meditation’ the still image features a green box with an almost complete darker green outline in the center of the screen, a pink cartoon-style brain in the bottom right hand corner, and text in the center that reads ‘Box Breathing 3 Minute Mindful Meditation.
The Chatty Part
Martha’s advice for this day in 2020 was Take Your Meds , a reminder to ensure your own wellbeing throughout this busy time by taking any medication you require.
That advice is great at any time of the year but it is especially helpful during this busy time when routines are disrupted and things can get overlooked.
A reminder to take your meds is a foundational thing that can make a huge difference in your day and it is worth reminding yourself about.
In an interesting coincidence, my Facebook memories from yesterday included a related reminder. (The relationship may only exist in my mind but let’s roll with it.)
From time to time, I write ‘Go Team’ style posts on my own Facebook profile so I can provide a little support to any friends who might need it at the moment.
In 2018, I was reminding us all that it is ok to make our lives easier by using reminders and support (say, like medications, for example.)
Here’s the text from that post:
These are my favourite mitts.
Description of image below: my right hand dangling a green mitten on a string over a pile of snow on the road.
I don’t wear them every day but they are superwarm and, you will notice, they are on a string.
So, when I do wear them, that string means that I can grab my winter coat to go out and I don’t have to look for my mitts. It means I can take off my mitt to unlock my door and I don’t have to tuck it under my arm and risk losing it.
That string on these mitts was amazingly useful when my kids were small and I always had a lot of things to keep track of.
I know that mittens on a string are kind of a little kid thing and as an adult, perhaps I “shouldn’t” need them but they are useful and they serve my purposes quite well.
We often get caught up in whether we ‘should’ need certain things – reminders, schedules, delivery services, help with everyday tasks – and because we feel we ‘shouldn’t’ need to use them, we don’t. Then we get frustrated because we can’t ‘get a grip’ on the tasks in question.
Today, I’m challenging you to accept the idea of mittens on a string – or at least the equivalent.
What’s something you can do to take one small hassle out of your life?
What can you do to make one routine task a little easier?
Even if you feel that you ‘shouldn’t’ need the help or the reminder, I dare you to use it anyway.
Go ahead and set a weekly reminder to call your mother.
Go on and establish a daily reminder to take your pills or to drink water.
Put a basket by the door for your purse or your keys.
Do the thing you need to do to make your life a little easier.
I dare you!
<- for your efforts today.
There, see what I mean?
Things like taking your meds definitely fall into the sort of self-care that we might experience a little push-back (internal or external) about needing.
I’d like it if we could all find our way past that pushback and be able to: take our meds, set a reminder to take our meds, use a shoehorn, keep a set of reading glasses in multiple places, get the large print book, create a cleaning schedule, get a friend to sit with us when we work…or whatever we need in order to do the thing. I want us to be free to find/give ourselves the accommodations and support that make sense without having to second-guess ourselves.
And this seems like a great season to give ourselves that gift.
Whether you are doing foundational fitness, breathing exercises, or enlisting help to clean your house/ wrap your presents/ finish that year-end report/get to that meeting, I wish you ease.
And I wish you peace of mind around giving yourself permission to get that support.
⭐💚
About Making Space
About Making Space 2022
In December 2020, Fit is a Feminist Issue blogger Martha created a tradition – a series of reminder posts to take good care of ourselves during this last month of the year when it is far too easy to get swept up in your to do list, no matter what you are celebrating or not celebrating. Last year, it was my turn and after an introductory Go Team post called Give Yourself Some Space, I created a series of reminders called ‘Making Space‘ that offered a suggested short exercise video and a suggested meditation in case you needed an easy way to find space for yourself in your schedule.
For 2022, I’ll be doing the same thing but I’ll also be including a link to Martha’s post from the same date in 2020 and I’ll offer a few extra ideas for relaxation, creativity, and self-kindness here and there.
These posts are not about insisting that you do more, more, more during this busy season. Instead, I want to encourage you to remember that there IS a *YOU* who is doing all of the things and you are worth taking good care of.
Perhaps the things I suggest aren’t what you need in the moment. That’s totally ok. Perhaps you can use something else to create some space, something that will help you feel more relaxed or more in charge of your day.
<- for your efforts today.