My body, my identity

If a Wisconsin-size snowstorm weren't in the forecast, I'd insist that Jay and I go out to eat tonight to celebrate a major milestone in my journey to health. Two years ago today was a Wednesday. The Columbia County Board met in the morning, and by mid-afternoon, my story was written for the next day's paper. Just as I'd hit all the computer keys to send my story to "first edit," my phone rang. It was the company's human resources director. He'd received my doctor's report on the condition of my osteoarthritic knee, including Dr. Hampton's opinion that it could take as much as three months to restore something like full mobility. Therefore, the HR director said, I was to go home immediately and stay home until my doctor cleared me to go back to work. I was not to work from home. I was not to work at all. Disability leave, he called it, and it was mandatory. My editor hadn't been told about this, much less consulted. My absence would...

Suddenly I feel old. Actually old. It seems like it happened overnight. And it happened well after I had that old-people's surgery to replace a worn-out knee. The AFib episode on Sept. 5 -- exactly two years after my mother's death, and exactly six months after my knee surgery -- might have been when this accelerated sense of aging started. Or maybe it was getting the CPAP machine two days after Christmas. I have to admit, it's helped me fall asleep faster and sleep more deeply (not to mention that I don't stop breathing in my sleep anymore). But the thought of hauling the thing with me on vacations, and hooking it up before bedding down in a resort hotel bed, makes me feel...well, old. Also, would I take the CPAP with me if I were to anticipate being snowed in overnight at Portage? I already carry an emergency suitcase in my car trunk for that purpose -- including a supply of the rapidly-increasing number of pills I have to take every day. Then there was the day-af...

"Decluttering" maven Marie Kondo has created -- unintentionally, I'm sure -- a clutter of Facebook memes. Her famous advice, to get rid of things that don't "spark joy," has given rise to sarcastic vows to dispose of things like diets, vegetables, shapewear, gym memberships and exercise equipment. Yeah, I get the joke. Watching your weight, moving and otherwise holding onto health are joyless things. At least they can't compare to other joys, like eating a dozen cupcakes at one sitting or binge-watching "Property Brothers" while vegged out in a recliner. And then there's the concept of "comfort food." When most people use the term, they're thinking of heavy, cheesy or creamy foods, like pizza, mucus-y casseroles or soups, ice cream or French fries. Well...any hope I have for long-term success maintaining my weight (135 pounds less than it was two years ago) depends on rethinking what I mean by "comfort" and...

I don't make New Year's resolutions, much less keep them. Well, once I did both. At the close of 2016, I resolved that, in 2017, I would learn to walk again. In recent days, when my FitBit counts my steps and documents my exercise, it's hard for me to fathom that, two years ago at this time, I was crippled. Every step hurt. Even walking from the bed to the bathroom in our hotel room; even taking a shower; even getting into the passenger seat of our rental car in Phoenix -- everything was effort and agony. Now, I'm looking toward another New Year. And I'm approaching it not with a resolution, but with a watchword. Three words, actually: "Because I Can." I swear, I thought of these words, and chose them for 2019, long before I saw (while watching "Beach Life" on HGTV on the gym's stationary recumbent bike) a commercial for the new Diet Coke campaign. Hey! They stole my slogan: "Because I Can." And as much as I like Diet Coke (th...

My husband Jay and I share a deeply-held wish, that this Christmas, and however many more Christmases we may have, may be transcendent. By "transcendent," we mean we seek a deeper connection with the awe-filled mystery of a Creator who is so much greater than ourselves, yet who knows what it means to inhabit a body of flesh, blood, nerves and bone. We seek to know better the First Cause, who set stars light-years apart in a universe more vast than we can fathom, yet who knows the number of hairs on the bodies of every creature the Creator made and loved. We crave paradox. We seek mystery. And miraculously, at times, we find it in ordinary life. Let me name the ways I have experienced transcendency in this holy Advent season. By participating in my church's Advent focus on eradicating hunger, I have food-shopped for struggling families and bought them foods that are more healthful and wholesome than many so-called "poverty foods" -- foods like apple sa...

Our church's Advent meditations on hunger will inevitably turn toward the topic of gluttony. I hope the discussion of this deadly sin includes more depth and nuance than simply asserting that some people starve because other people eat too much. And I hope it's clear that not all overweight people are gluttons, and not all gluttons are fat. If all that were true, then I would have, in my many years of living with extra weight, have been singularly responsible for the starvation of people who could have consumed all my excess calories, if only I'd said "no, thank you" to them. That kind of guilt-focused thinking doesn't feed the hungry, and it rarely changes behavior. Nor does it address the perception that is a day-to-day reality for the majority of people in this nation who carry excess weight. Large people tend to be perceived, even by health-care professionals who should know better, as waddling, indulgent, undisciplined images of their own greed and g...