Cape Town - Around this time of year, I usually find myself in a large sports shop, fondling hockey sticks and trying to avoid the sales assistants.
I don’t want to explain myself, or be a beginner, or be guided to a treadmill so they can evaluate my running gait. I would be expected to jog for at least a minute without so much as a second or water table. Such cruelty. Such humiliation.
For some reason known only to the second toe on my left foot, I am very good at exercising regularly from January to September, but come October I run out of steam, I run out of willpower, I run out of running socks and then I run out of excuses. And spend the next three months languishing with my burgeoning belly on the couch reading books by alcoholic poets. It’s quite pleasant – and my belly is a wonderful companion. It never gets bored, or restless, or demands long conversations about its feelings. It just lies quietly beside me, staring into space.
However, by January, I’ve usually had enough. My belly and I have a fall-out. I call it a big fat cow. It goes and sulks in the bath. I go and sulk in the bath, and then we agree to renegotiate our friendship: it can stay as long as it’s prepared to stick by me, in less idle fashion, while I try to straighten out my life.
And then I go to the sports shop and I fondle hockey sticks and swallow my pride as I tell the assistant that I need new running shoes and I won’t last a minute on the treadmill and please could I also have a very large pair of leggings and an enormous swimming costume and a pair of goggles and whatever else one needs to become an active human being.
This year, however, I have decided to go about this sporty business on my own terms. I initially considered taking up an exotic sport – fencing, boxing, slack-lining – but I’m not wild about getting poked or punched and I’d probably need freighter-strength rope for tight-roping. I also knew my desire for a funky sport was just extreme compensation for months of inactivity – kind of like vowing on New Year’s Eve, after drinking 15 glasses of bubbly, that from now on you will drink only kale.
So I took my belly aside and asked it what it wanted. “Please, not gym, gym, gym every day. And not running at 5am every morning. And definitely not swimming lengths in an indoor pool where you have to share lanes with strangers and their feet sometimes touch you and you can see their Speedos underwater and they smell a bit like babies. And no Zumba. I have no rhythm.”
After a surprisingly short discussion, we agreed on a more flexible, bohemian approach to exercise: at least an hour a day doing an activity that makes us both sweaty and happy, preferably in nature.
Then my belly puffed out its cheeks and declared: “And no more sporty gear and no more wearing old race T-shirts. No one will believe us.
“We need Wonder Woman. I have a gut feeling about this. And a swimming costume that doesn’t strangle me. If we’re going to be free, we must be free.”
I bought the last three Wonder Woman T-shirts from Pick n Pay. They were half-price. I’m sure that’s a sign. I discovered an old swimming costume at the back of my cupboard. It’s printed with tiny marlin and can accommodate a pair of basking sharks. I also dug out my yoga mat. It smells of feet and China – nothing a wash won’t fix.
And then my belly and I wrote down a selection of our favourite things: doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzels with noodles. We started again: swimming in dams, swimming in the ocean, walking on the mountain, running on the mountain, doing yoga, being upside down and riding bicycles.
For the past week, my belly and I have convened over breakfast to choose the day’s activity. We assess the weather conditions and our emotional needs. Sometimes, between spoonfuls of cereal, my belly begs for the day off. I tell it to stop talking with its mouth full. And then we go: swimming lengths in Silvermine Dam, puffing up hiking trails, cycling towards shade, standing on our heads.
So if you see a red woman staggering towards you in a Wonder Woman T-shirt, do stop and say “hello”. Or shout encouraging words. Or sing a Wham! song. Maybe even prod my belly (actually, no, that’s just weird). If you’re at the beach and spot someone flailing around in the swells, there’s no need for heroics. That’s just me arguing with my belly about the merits of breaststroke over freestyle.
And if you still see us around at the end of the year, hopefully looking less flaily and, well, just less, please congratulate us. Remind us of how good this is. Threaten us with the spectre of sports shops and treadmillsand resembling a schnitzel with a pool noodle. And then send us, gently and encouragingly, on our way.
Cape Argus
* Helen Walne is an award-winning columnist and writer based in Cape Town.