Walking Holiday

(Internet photo)

I have nurtured, for many years, a fascination with walking. And not just walking, but long-distance walking, like, to another town. This is the woman who will just come back tomorrow if there isn’t an empty parking spot right in front of our Main Street drug store.

My fascination with long-distance walking is specifically centered on taking a walking holiday in England. That’s what they call it there - a walking holiday – which figures largely in my fascination, frankly.  Unlike the U.S., where walking is for fitness and for getting from the parking lot to the mall, the English have long embraced walking for the sake of walking and there are miles and miles of public paths across the country. I long to traipse across the countryside over English stiles, through English gates and across English pastures past English cows. I imagine walking through little villages, past thatched cottages and cathedrals, stopping at pubs and inns that have catered to walkers for decades. A walking holiday in England has been on my bucket list since it was just called a “Things I Would Like to Do Someday” list.

Besides the obvious challenges of expense and vacation time from work, there are the tiny little snags of being in ridiculously bad shape and being pretty much accustomed to avoiding walking whenever possible.

A friend invited me to join her group of friends for a day hike into the Salmon River mountains. I was all set and planning my lunch until I started thinking of all the walking a hikes entails. Lots of it. In fact, it’s practically all walking. I imagined the merry group of hikers stepping gingerly over my unconscious body on their way back down the trail. I bowed out of that excursion with promises to join them when I turn into a new person. I mean, when I’m in better shape.

So I decided to get back into walking every day and get this couch potato business behind me. The first day out, I came back home feeling all winded, successful and sort of athletic with flushed face. Then I realized I’d been gone exactly 17 minutes.

I have a little ways to go before I can tackle 10 miles a day across England unless I plan to be buried on foreign soil. That’s OK, though, because it will also take me a while to build up a travel fund and some vacation time. Let the training and saving and building up begin!

(Internet photo)

Exquisite Power of Belly Dancing

I came upon a little woven bag while cleaning out my closet, and poured the contents out onto my bed: a chiffon hip scarf covered with “gold” beads and coins, and brass finger cymbals. Ah, yes. The belly dancing adventure.

When I saw a notice of an upcoming beginning belly dancing class, I was excited. I had not been divorced long and my children were all away at college. It was certainly my “Who Am I Now?” phase. Perhaps, under my conservative librarian mom exterior, I was a belly dancer. A richly veiled, seductive belly dancer with heavy eyeliner and wearing gold slippers.

My friend Sue and I walked into the elementary school gym/cafeteria on the first night of class, checked in with the instructor and selected a hip scarf from a pile of bright chiffon. The earlier arrivals had claimed the scarves dripping with crocheted fringe, beads and fake gold coins, and we late arrivals got the unadorned leftovers. Sue eyed the fancy scarves and decided to find some online, ASAP.  

After the warm-up with our arms and hands doing all sorts of cool belly dancer things, such as “snake arms,” we learned to sway, shifting our weight gently from side to side. Ooo, that felt good! I was using muscles I’d never met.

During that next week, I swayed while waiting for the microwave. I did hip circles at the copy machine at work. I even did a sort of shimmy while driving.

Sue ordered hip scarves, as promised, and they arrived before our next class. Mine had three rows of jangling coins and beads that accentuated every move. (Side note: I selected dark brown. Was that my last grasp for librarian/mom?) How satisfying to hear my hips jingle with every hip drop. The more I moved, the better I felt. The gentle awakening of all those forgotten muscles sent a message to my brain: Wake up, you sexy goddess!

I was a belly dancer. I was bursting with feminine power and ancient female wisdom. I was a part of the great Circle of Women.

I loved the shimmy. I loved how it felt, loved that my hips were capable of that behavior and loved the absurdly satisfying sound my hip scarf made when it was fully in action. Our instructor kept us shimmying as she went around to check our technique. I was shimmying like mad and starting to break a sweat when Sue called from behind me, “Don’t stop, Krista. I’m starting to get kinda turned on back here.” Oh my. I had to stop and hold my legs together to keep from wetting my hip scarf.

We were putting on our shoes after class when a woman beside me said, “I like your hips.”

She liked my hips. At first I was stunned.  Then I reasoned, “Of course she likes my hips. I’m an Exquisite and Voluptuous Goddess, apparently irresistible to men AND women. I must learn to use my power wisely.”

I carried the Exquisite and Voluptuous Goddess magic with me the rest of the week. It influenced every action. I spoke and moved with confidence and grace. I was a delicious and powerful dollop of womanhood. I suddenly wanted to eat more vegetables and eliminate sugar from my diet. I wanted to throw out every crew neck t-shirt in my closet. From now on, it was V-necks only, baby, and the deeper the better. Andy why did I not own anything slinky? This had to be remedied.

I’m not into women, but I will admit I was also pretty proud that a younger and very nice-looking woman liked my hips.  How exciting was that?? I practiced my figure eights in front of the mirror, watching my hips with new appreciation.

On the last night of class, I strode my Exquisite and Voluptuous Belly Dancer Goddess self into the gym, shoulders back and head held high, my regal exterior just managing to conceal the raw sexuality smoldering within.

As I was taking off my shoes, the gal with a crush on me said, “I seriously do love your hip scarf, Krista. Where did you find it?”

She liked my hip SCARF. Oh, OK. I wasn’t altogether comfortable with that other, anyway.

We learned a new traveling step that last night. It was a hip lift-and-drop and we practiced by moving around the circle in single file.  Gosh, I was getting good at this. I dropped my hip with an extra flair that set my coins in motion. Maybe this would be my signature move.

As I moved around the circle, I felt my heavy hip scarf shifting lower and lower on my hips, searching for a place to rest. Hip drop, step, scarf slip. Hip drop, step, scarf slip. It wasn’t long before my hip scarf found a place to rest. Five pounds of beads and fake gold coins slipped down my legs and onto the gym floor with a clatter.

Everyone turned at the sound and stared at the puddle of glamourous chiffon and glittering gold puddled at my feet. I’m sure I saw several Exquisite and Voluptuous Goddess endorphins scurrying away from the scarf like rats from a ship.

I have not done any belly dancing since that series of classes. I’m a little afraid, to be honest. I came dangerously close to letting my new-found taste of feminine power rule my existence and make over my wardrobe. Who knows what might have happened if I’d actually learned to use the finger cymbals?

I slipped the lovely hip scarf and cymbals back into the bag and put it on the closet self - not hidden in the back where I’d found it, but right out in front where I’ll see it and acknowledge the power of the Exquisite and Voluptuous Goddess every day.

And when I’m ready and think I can handle the power responsibly, watch out world!