The Right to Bare – and Aching – Arms

You won’t be mad, will you, if I write clad entirely in clothing that may or not bear labels that say “One Size Fit All”? The elastic is so much easier for me to deal with...

The last few days have been a whirlwind of visiting, drinking, and, so help me, an attempt at 108 Sun Salutations.

A Sun Salutation, to the uninitiated, is a series of yogic postures. It mimics the sun during the course of a day and is often done at the start of a season.


In other words, there’s a lot of up and down in doing 108 Sun Salutations.

It took just under two hours to approach the limits of my abilities to fold forward, to perform chaturanga pose (the yoga push-up), to keep my Monkey Mind on what I was doing and not on, say, my grocery list.

I finished 82 of the 108 Sun Salutations that I set out to do, which is about what I had hoped for.

But in the end, I got more than that.

As a result of two hours of exercise in a heated room – and in addition to the appetite I developed and the opening of every pore I possess – it appears that I’ve lost the use of my arms.

Arms! Who needs ‘em, huh?

Luckily, I’ve discovered a number of “work-arounds” to the situation. For example, the two heavy appendages now hanging at my sides – I see them in my mind’s eye as salamis – while useless, have brought forth a previously undiscovered talent, i.e., the ability to type with my forehead.

I’ll pause while you visualize this.

I was also forced to brush my teeth today by laying my face on the toothbrush and shaking my head vigorously from side to side.

It worked pretty well, but you should see my lipstick…

So here we are, the first Monday of the new year; and I’m ready: same attitude, new date. Out of the “aughts” and into the – what? “Teens”? Do we have a name for this next decade? Do we need one?

“Start as you mean to finish”, the Brits say, and I, so far, am digging how it’s begun – although it appears I will not be doing any of said digging with my arms.