Resist, He Said

I’m sitting on our Willowdale balcony with its smell of dog piss, shit, and liquid Lysol. I’d use the back yard, but the retaining wall has given way. The Tridel lawyer pitched questions like curve balls at me, questions about dates, expectations, and documents signed. I was wearing a black and red knee-length wool dress and black heels. (I still wore dresses in those days.) “Not my area,” I said. “I’m an artist and mother. That’s what I do.” Abie said I frustrated the lawyer during the discoveries. “Tough cookie, your wife,” the Tridel laywer had said.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said. “I don’t remember dates and details. That’s what you do.”
“I know,” Abie said, “But they couldn’t believe anyone could be so clueless, so they figured you were smart enough to outwit them.”
“They’ve never met an artist,” I said. I flinched at his “clueless” comment, the way a horse’s coat twitches when a fly explores it, but you have to pick your battles and I had been in too many already. I was weary and ready for furlough. Deserting was not an option.
“It’s got its pluses and minuses,” he said.

On this balcony facing the Leslie ravine, I sit on my grandmother’s ladder back chair and read D. H., and I think ahh like sipping and appreciating fine wine, noting its name and year, and picturing the farm and wide feet and sweat dripping from the churning effort. He is like that D.H., all finery and sweat. I wander into the kitchen; there are, in the mornings, cereal stuck to bowls, magic markers on and under the table, lunch boxes, vitamin bottles, papers scattered, and I think I cannot clean this, I am too old and go to the bathroom to search my face for lines and at the same time survey my muscles against the thin straps of my T-shirt and the collage of the muscles, sun tan, and t-shirt. I shall do this, I think, I shall have the muscles and the flesh held tautly across, and I shall be my own jungle even though I cannot clean this house or intoxicate like D.H. or eat to the heart of the apple.

“Resist, resist,” says the skinny man with adult acne.The last thing I want to do is resist. Wednesday is my easy day. I suffer with Bernie on Monday and Friday. Bernie wholeheartedly embraces no pain, no gain. The weights bombard me. Muscles buckle and thrust. “One more,” Bernie says, “show me how much you’re made of, show me how much you want it. One more inch, don’t stop, I’m with you. Last one.”

Except he’s never with me. It’s my war. Sometimes as I groan─I swore I’d never groan─there’s a man with a powerful upper torso and slight legs encased in silver spandex who groans. The first time I heard the spandex man, I laughed wildly to myself and grinned out loud. But once when I thought the weights would crush me, I made that same sound, a vocal thrust, a muted roar─sometimes as I groan I wonder, which is like the plague for bodybuilders, asking ancient questions like who am I and why am I here? And then Bernie says, “Bonus reps.” “What you mean bonus reps?” I say. “Quiet,” he growls, “growth reps, bonus, give me two, just two and you’re finished.”

Why do I do it? Because I love muscles. I adore strength. Power. Abie thinks I’m an attention seeker. I used to follow the sun around the yard. I thought the sun would make me beautiful. I sat with my head thrown back, chest up, one leg bent and poised. The gym demands more work. Muscles emerge and make their claims inward and outward and lend me direction.

Three months ago I stopped writing. There was a choice. Words or muscles. I chose muscles. Sometimes I talk in the gym. Before and after. I throw out words four times a week in analysis with a balding rowing/cycling therapist. He sits quite still while he’s working. But now here I am writing, taking up with my old flame. Who said choices have to be permanent or have any meaning? Besides, I resist.



Copyright Janice Colman 2009