Bella Bends

Our babysitter, who was born in the Philippines and has had her hormonal clocked cleaned by two bouts with breast cancer, recently told me my hot flashes were all in my head. Gee. Thanks. I think this stung more coming from her because my current obsession is the impact of culture on the experience of menopause. Take my current nemesis, hot flashes, to suffer from them is not a universal phenomenon. Women in Japan rarely, if ever, do -- this is the origins of the whole myth about soy as an antidote to hot flashes. So here she was, a woman from Asia, telling me my hot flashes were psychosomatic. I was already worried they were, and that I was weak or deficient in some way for giving into them. Plus, the fact she had both radiation and chemotherapy, leaving her insides ravaged and her natural hormone balances destroyed, yet never suffered from a hot flash. Well, she got me where it hurts. Ouch.

To fight against the dreaded, I-get-hot-flashes-because-it's-my-fault-syndrome, otherwise known as, IGHFBIMFS (or in some medical textbooks as, you sweat like a pig because you are weak and fat and made of coffee and lard you western woman, you) I went to Yoga today. Me. Yoga. Try not to smirk.

All the things I loath about yoga were there: creepy new age sitar music, the smell of patchouli and lavender, people talking in low voices even though no one was asleep or dying, the obligatory bald guy in pretty good shape for a dude in his late 50s and me; the stereotypical long curly brown haired (it won't make you look younger), slightly over-weight (face it, you will never be thin again) gal in her late 40s. We made bookends him and me. It was a beginner class, but it was an hour-and-half long, and it hurt me to do it. I didn't need a hot flash, though of course I had one, to have sweat gushing from every pore. The teacher was very nice, despite being physically perfect and having the most lovely Australian accent -- who knew they all weren't Crocodile Dundees? I tried for five seconds not to hate her, but I gave into it after the first downward dog. She was exotic (yes, Australia counts), very pretty, seemingly kind hearted and she could do things with her back that were freaky. Why like a person like this? But I hung in there and finished the class weak kneed and quivering.

Afterwards I limped to my car, went home and made a fresh pot of strong coffee to wash my spoonful of lard down with.