Pushups

Mr. Betlach, uncharacteristically, ran out of things to do in the last class Thursday. He glanced at the clock and said, "I have an idea. I want each of you to do one hundred pushups."

We all stared at him, but nobody said, "Surely you jest, sir."

"Pair up. Do push ups until your arms give out. Tag off. When your partner's arms give out, tag out and start again. Keep tagging off until you reach one hundred." He waved a hand airily. "Get started."

Before I started karate, I did from-the-knees pushups, and I had to struggle to get through the twelve or so done with each rep on my weight-lifting tapes. Once I started karate, I switched to toe pushups, out of sheer determination not to look like a wimp, but we generally do only ten pushups during the warmup session.

One hundred pushups? Was he insane?

Well, how many pushups could I do, anyway?

Standing right beside me and ready to pair off with me, wouldn't you know, was Jeba, godly of body and generally silent of speech--partly because, I think, he is a bit shy, and partly because his command of English is perhaps a tad uncertain. Jeba, unlike me, has respectable pecs, and abs that won't quit. Mine couldn't wait to quit, before I even started. "I'll start," I said, smiling through gritted teeth and got down and assumed the position. On the toes. Might as well get the humiliation over with. I lowered myself, and pumped up, blowing out. I always exhale pretty noisily during pushups, and it embarrasses me, but I don't think I could do them without doing so. I fear I don't go down quite far enough, but nobody has ever reprimanded me about it, so I keep doing them that way and feeling guilty.

I finally tagged out at fifteen and got up and watched Jeba as he went down. He lowered himself down all the way and pumped fast. Damn testosterone.

I managed fifteen on the next round, too, but not the next. I got up and watched Jeba and wished he would keep lowering himself up and down like a piston so I wouldn't have to get back down there right away, but no, Jeba was tiring, too.

But he was still way ahead of me. I collapsed at forty-seven and thought, I'm not going to be able to do this. I got up and tagged off and tried stretching out my triceps. When we tagged off again, I realized that it hadn't helped. Not enough.

My last round, I collapsed, and lay there for a minute, and then got back up on my hands and toes, furious. I'm not going to make it to one hundred, but dammit, I'm not quitting, either. I risked a glance over to my left, where two women were paired up. They were quite red in the face. They were doing their pushups faster than me, but then, they were doing them from their knees.

I collapsed again. Jeba, I could see, was expecting me to tag out, but I clenched my jaw and assumed the position again.

I managed five more, up to sixty-five. I screamed as I pushed up the last one, and then my belly hit the floor again. I put my head down on the mat, dazedly, and hoped I wasn't drooling.

"Line up for the end of class," Mr. Betlach called, mercifully, and the torture was over. We bowed out, and I caught Jeba's grin toward me in the mirror.

My triceps are still burning, two whole days later, as well as my abs and obliques. Still . . . sixty-five pushups. I didn't know I had that many in me.

Maybe I'll reach one hundred next time.

Lighting a candle for mental illness

My church had a simple ceremony today which impressed me quite a bit. When I arrived there this morning, there was a table in the narthex, covered with informational packets and brochures about various mental illnesses. It was staffed by a woman who was, I was told, the congregational representative for mental illness issues. I had a long talk with her; she has a daughter who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and she has been doing this as her mission to the church for nine years.

Then, during the children's message, the pastor talked to the children about mental illness, explaining simply that just as people can become sick with a cold or a flu, they can develop a sickness in their minds, but that God loves and supports us at those times, too. The candle lighting was explained to them. Next, members of the congregation were invited to come up and light a candle for either themselves or someone else they know who is living with mental illness. This is, apparently, done traditionally in this church every year on the first Sunday of October.

( Here are the prayers said during this point in the service )

The girls asked to go up to light candles for Kij. I had planned to light one for her myself, but since both girls asked to go, I told them fine, and stood with them as they lit them. I decided that one candle was for Kij and one was for me. I would say about forty people came up to light candles. I felt moved to tears as I watched them there, flickering before the congregation, when all were seated again. And what a simple, lovely thing to do at this time of year, when the darkness is growing, and it is time to pull out my Seasonal Affective Disorder light box. It comforts me to know that my church is a source of light for me during dark times.

We will be joining the church, finally on October 30. There is no doubt in my mind that we have found our true new church home.

Ripping out the gardens

My gardens have mostly been a failure this year. Many of my perennials failed to come back this at all in the spring: the echinachea, the dianthus, the speedwell. The bed of irises I planted with such hope in the alley behind the garage (a bed of forty roots) never came up at all. The only thing that thrived were the impatiens in the front, and the basil in the vegetable garden. The geraniums in the white planters were fair (better, certainly, than the petunias I tried there last year). I didn't get a single tomato this year. Not sure whether this was because of the heat, because I eventually gave up watering and fertilizing them or because neighborhood boys stole them off the vines for green tomato fights. Could be all of the above.

By July, I had truly given up. I had planted violas in little aluminum tubs on the front porch, which looked lovely for awhile, but died once the heat set in. I did try for awhile, but eventually stopped trying to keep up with watering the hanging pots, leaving the lobelia to perish miserably. I gave up weeding. Today, I started trying to wrestle back the ground for our team, which meant ripping out tons of really muscular weeds, weeds on steroids, weeds brandishing Kalishnakovs, weeds that have claimed that this patch of ground is theirs and sneer at me don't even think of setting foot here, babe. This here is our turf now.

I emerged victorious in the strip by the garage. I had attempted to plant a wildflower garden; nothing came up but weeds. Now it is stripped bare, tilled with a hand rake, and covered with mulch.

The vegetable garden was more of a total rout, alas. I discovered dozens of slugs under the weeds, and got only about a third of the unauthorized greenery ripped out. I executed a strategic retreat and limited myself for awhile to ripping weeds out of the cracks of the concrete area behind the house. This gave me the illusion for awhile that I was accomplishing something.

I took a break for a couple of hours, and then geared up again and attempted to ambush the enemy in the pink garden at the south side of the house. Yes, there is an elm tree growing right smack in the astilbe, and it has gotten so big that I am not sure I can get it out. I feel like a fool for letting it get so large. What was I thinking? Purple loosestrife has been waging a stealth campaign there, and even though I ripped great quantities of it up, little purple berries are scattered all over the soil now, like landmines.

I feel like sheepish and ashamed of the state of my yard, like I have exhibited a failure of character. I had planted seedlings in the basement with such eagerness this spring, setting up grow lights to make them grow--such ambition! Such hubris! The mice got the lion's share before I even got them into the ground. And now this is all I have to show for it: black garbage bags bulging with weeds, and slugs rampaging all over the pitiful remnants of the stunted beets and strawberry bed.

There is lots more to do, and I am quite depressed about the whole thing. When I am at my gloomiest, it feels like a metaphor the state of my life. I had such plans, but I didn't keep up with the weeding, and now there is nothing to do but clean up the mess, with no hope that things will be better next year.