Get Me Bodied: The Middle-Aged Adventures of Sasha Fat (Thanks Beyonce and David P.)

Today is my 49th birthday, and for reasons you'll understand later, I'd like to dedicate it to Beyonce and my friend David P.

Forty-nine is supposedly the last hurrah before the official onset of middle age. But time and its ravages don't pay attention to the calendar any more than the seasons wait for the solstices to announce their arrival. I'm already middle-aged and I didn't need a birthday or a calendar to tell me that.

But aging isn't about numbers.  It's about vitality, or the loss thereof.  I fervently believe that I've lost a great deal of vitality not due solely to age, but due to a sedentary lifestyle and bad diet.  Sure, we all slow down with age, we are more prone to injury with age, but we don't have to race the calendar to our own mortality and be miserable in the process.  My feeling of middle age is not due solely to the calendar; it's due to lifestyle choices that have helped result in a loss of vitality.  Those lifestyle choices, in turn, arise out of complacency and a lack of gratitude for what I have.  If I were as grateful as I should be for what I have and what I'm about to have, I'd do more to make sure that I'm healthy enough and feeling good enough to enjoy it all.

I've always taken it as a given that I would predecease my husband.  So many of my aunts, uncles and other elders, including my mom, died of cancer, heart disease or Alzheimer's in their 60's and 70's that I just assumed that my relatively early demise was a foregone conclusion.  What's the point of living a croissant-free life if you're going to die, anyway?

Vitality, that's the point.  I want to have the energy and good health to enjoy whatever time I have for as long as I can.  It's even arrogant of me to assume my early demise.  No one knows the hour but God, and I guess as far as He's concerned, the time of my demise is none of my business because He sure hasn't seen fit to give me a target date.

Getting older doesn't necessarily have to mean getting fat and sedentary or having greatly diminished mental capacity.  You only need look at Jane Fonda on the red carpet at Cannes to see that.    Dr. Gary Small, director of UCLA's Longevity Center, argues that it is possible to stave off Alzheimer's, even though we don't have the proof from longitudinal studies to  prove him right. In the January 2012 issue of O Magazine, Small was asked if he had to pick one tip as the most important thing to do to prevent Alzheimer's, what it would be. He said physical exercise, like a daily brisk walk.

Not Pilates, not Hot Yoga; a brisk walk.  Who can't do that?

The bigger point is that you have to accept that your body is changing and change accordingly.  Even one small healthy change -- like walking or eating more vegetables -- can set in order other healthy changes.  They talked about this on NPR this morning, calling it a "domino effect."  I had already started making some small healthy changes, like making sure to eat fish at least once a week (not an easy feat for me -- I've hated fish almost all my life), cutting down on the red meat (although I'm a sucker for a barbecued hamburger with Memphis Minnie's rib rub mixed in), increasing my water intake by simply remembering to grab a glass of water every time I have a hot flash (that would be several times a day), and having mixed berry and pomegranate juice smoothies as recommend by Dr. Oz as an "antioxidant cocktail" (very easy -- frozen mixed berries, pomegranate juice -- I used 20% juice cocktail because I couldn't find pure pomegranate juice at the Winco -- ice, some Truvia if you need it sweeter, throw in blender, done).

After I dropped my great-nephew off at school this morning, I decided to go for a walk with a spirit of gratitude for what I have -- relatively good health, a great husband, great family, great friends, great kids to come, great career changes on the horizon.  Call it a victory lap for middle age.  I cued up what used to be my exercise playlist --mostly songs by Beyonce -- and when "Get Me Bodied" came on, something happened that hasn't happened in a long, long time.

I ran.

No, I wasn't being chased.  The beat and the melody of that song are so infectious, it just makes you want to move.  So instead of dancing on the sidewalk and looking like an idiot, I ran.  I ran for the sheer joy of feeling my heart race, the joy of moving to music, the joy of working up a sweat.

I was, for a brief moment in time, Sasha Fat, with all 180 pounds and 47.5% fat on my 5' 6" frame barreling down the walking paths near my house.  I wasn't running to reach a particular point or to last a particular amount of time.  I ran until I couldn't run any more.  Mind you, it didn't last long, but it was more than I'd done in a long, long time, simply because a catchy female empowerment/dance tune came on my iPhone.  You know what they say about the journey of a thousand miles. . . .

Thanks, Beyonce, for making the music that made me move.

And thanks to my friend David P.  I rarely name folks by name in my blog, but it was at a dinner a while back that David warned me that my high cholesterol was no joke and that I needed to do something about it -- exercise, statins, whatever.  I've been pussyfooting around for a long time about it, and my penchant for soy raspberry mochas and almond croissants at Peet's hasn't been helping.  But I'm making changes.  Although consistency isn't my strong suit, getting back up on the horse, so to speak, is.  I can't guarantee that I'll run every day or that I won't ever have another almond croissant, but what I can guarantee is that I'll keep trying because I'm not in this for longevity; I'm in this for vitality.

Thanks, David.

With that, let's move. 

Affectionately,

BWB  (AKA "Sasha Fat")

Give Perfection The Finger

I can't make gravy. And I don't care.

I'm not fond of sweet potato pie, either, and I don't make any at all. Way too much competition and way too many critics in black families for that, which is why I don't make gumbo, either.

Chitlins? As if.

But I do make some mean dinner rolls from scratch, if I do say so myself. In fact, there's not much in the way of baked goods with yeast that I can't do if I put my mind to it. If there's yeast involved, I'm your girl.

Wait. That didn't come out right. But you get my drift.

In other words, I'm not your quintessential Martha Stewart or Patti Labelle -- women who seemed to be blessed with a multitude of talents they perform with equal excellence. Some things I'm good at; others, not so much. And I no longer care. I've given perfection the finger, and so should you.

You see, I haven't lead the typical female life in America. I didn't settle down with some guy right after college and start having kids. There are many skills I would have been forced to acquire had my life taken that turn, like making gravy and soothing colicky babies. But it didn't. Instead, I traveled, worked hard, and dated for, oh, about twenty or so years. I have no regrets.

And I'm not alone. My best friend can kick butt at trial, get your company's diversity and inclusion program up and running from scratch, produce plays, and organize fundraisers that will take a non-profit's balance sheet from red to black. But cook? Not on your life. She's proud of it, and so am I. She is the daughter of a caterer. Why learn to cook when you've got professional grade food at the ready? She focused her energies on her talents and developed them well -- extremely well. Cooking just wasn't one of them. To this day, she refers to me as "one of them cookin' bitches" (because I actually attempt to cook) and says about holiday meals, "That's what caterers are for." I agree.

Look, life doesn't give everybody everything. There are things I can do that not a lot of people can do, like write an appellate brief that can make your dog of a case sound compelling, or run a winning political campaign. Conversely, there are things a lot of people can do that I can't, like make gravy. And at this stage in my life, especially as the holiday season approaches, I'm at peace with this. I've given perfection the finger, and so should you.

Mind you, your imperfections are manna from heaven for your haters. They will publicize and celebrate them. "Do you know the girl can't even make gravy?" I can already hear it. But I don't care. I'm giving perfection, and them, the finger. And so should you.

So if you burn the turkey this year, guess what? Flip that bird the bird. And keep steppin'. That's what caterers, or rather, Boston Market, is for. They make gravy, too.

If you're still beating yourself up and trying to pursue perfection, remember this: Beyonce can't cook. Clearly, she's given perfection the finger, too, and I adore her for it. She's put her life's energies into her true talents. That's something we should encourage all of our daughters to do, no matter where that leads them, because in the end, they'll be happy, even if they aren't perfect or can't make gravy.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Little Girls: Put A Leotard On It

I've been following the dust-up in the news about the 7 year-olds dancing to Beyonce's "Single Ladies" during a dance competition clothed in, well, "costumes," to put it politely. First, everyone was disgusted at the inappropriate clothing and too-adult dance moves. Then, the dance moms fired back and, with an assist from Whoopi Goldberg on "The View," took viewers to task to question themselves if they saw something that was inappropriate -- this was a dance competition, after all, so if they read more into it, well, shame on them.

Hmmm. So, in the interest of trying to inform myself, I viewed the video on YouTube as well as Beyonce's video for "Single Ladies." I think the little girls' dance moves were better than Beyonce's -- I don't think Beyonce can do a pirouette. But I don't think this was age-appropriate dancing for girls their age.

Therein lies the problem. Little girls shouldn't be dancing like grown women, or dressing like them for that matter, even in a dance competition. Here's why, or at least one man's take on this.

I spoke to a trusted male friend of mine, Trevor, who just shook his head when discussing the video of the little girls dancing. Trevor is absolutely certain that the choreographer of the girls' dance had to be a woman. No man, especially a man with daughters, would have allowed his little girls to dress and dance in that matter, in his opinion.

Now, what I'm going to paraphrase from Trevor's remarks is controversial, so don't blame the messenger.

"Women don't understand how men think, otherwise they wouldn't let their daughters dress and act in certain ways." Trevor went on to state that men are "hard wired" to think sexually and are visual beings. "A normal guy can look at those little girls and take a step back, remember they're little girls, and treat them accordingly. The problem is that a lot of guys aren't normal. For them, if you act like a grown and sexy woman, they're going to treat you like a grown and sexy woman -- like an equally sexual being. And that's okay if you're a grown woman and you make that choice knowing there's a chance that someone will treat you in that manner. Little girls don't understand that and don't understand the consequences of dressing and acting in a sexually suggestive manner. That's why parents have to step in and draw the boundaries for what's age appropriate for their young girls." Trevor's concern was for how those little girls might be treated off the dance floor for what they did on the dance floor.

Now, Trevor isn't one of those guys who think that women "deserve what they get" when the dress and act in a sexually suggestive manner. He believes that ""no" means "no"." But, he cautions, "That's the way it should be. That's not the way it always is. And grown women understand that and understand the risk they take when they dress and act in a sexually suggestive manner. It's unfair to little girls to make them think that dancing in that manner is just "dancing" and is without consequences. It's unfair to sexualize them without them being able to understand the consequences."

So there you have it. One guy's opinion.

Quite frankly, I thought the girls could have demonstrated their excellent dance abilities in a dance that was age-appropriate. And, if you compare what they were wearing -- bikini tops, short shorts, and knee-high stockings -- to what Beyonce wore in her video -- a one-sleeved leotard and panty hose -- it's Beyonce who actually looks more like she's dressed like a dancer. And more modest, too.

Maybe I'm just getting old. I thought little girls still danced in leotards.

And therein lies the problem. They should.