Fat Tuesday

Dear Tony,

Every time I think of you, that smile lights up the dimmest shelf in my heart. Doubtless that heart-breaking countenance of yours will take you places for which we mere upright-walkers are obliged to struggle.

Just so you know; while the obverse of that coin may not be as obvious to you, it is painfully obvious for the rest of us. Please. I don’t want you to change; far from it. But know that while you are skipping along a flower-strewn path lined with mortals anxious to do your bidding, your humble relatives may only sigh and marvel how God’s love is so fervently and excessively applied.

Which leads me to the one and lonely thing I have learned about a pilgrimage to fitness: We may get there but we may not remain. Perseverance is the only virtue to be admired and the only pearl to be prized. See? If we actually get to the point where we can claim to be fit, the only thing to do is persevere in the fitness. And, if that perseverance in fitness leads to longer life, we get to persevere in that fitness ever longer.

My present workout routine is appallingly simple. As anyone will tell you, my idea of perseverance was always an apology for a case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. I haven’t wanted things to be simple. For me, order was achieved by defeating complexity.

Wrong. Lately, I’ve come to believe that a circumstance of any kind is inherently orderly. Our job is to discover how that circumstance came to be. Circumstances cry out to be accepted and reconciled within a larger context and set of circumstances.

That’s why perseverance is so important generally and important specifically to fitness. Fitness may be the ultimate metaphor for reconciliation. We are obliged to be the best version of what we are – simple, complete and reconciled to the order that is around us; keeping us.

Anyhow, I’m doing an hour of cardiovascular exercise; usually the treadmill set at 3mph and the incline tuned to maintain a heart rate of 120bpm. That’s just shy of 80% of the maximum for my age.

Then there’s a series of Nautilus machines as follows: leg press 165lbs.; multi-triceps 60lbs.; biceps 70lbs.; rowing back 140lbs.; bench press 60lbs.; incline press 70lbs. and pullover 100lbs. The forgoing is done two times with 20 repetitions each. Then I do 30 repetitions times two of both the lower back and the abdominal machines at 110lbs.

That routine gets me about halfway through the Gospel discography of Elvis Presley.

Much Love,

Poppy