It's the winning that counts

Exercise and I have never seen eye-to-eye. Actually, I don't see eye-to-eye with very much at all, because 1) I'm 4 foot 11 (150cm, metric fans) and 2) I can only use one eye at a time. And those are two reasons why I'm not a sporty type. I can't play racquet sports, as it's a distinct advantage to have depth perception. I'm not keen on team games because I'll get crushed in the scrum and can't get very far very quickly on my miniature legs.

There are plenty of other reasons why I'm not a sporty type: lack of time, too academic and, here's the clincher, I can't be bothered. Not when there are books to read and blogs to write and the web to explore. Not when I see so little of my husband and daughter. Not when it's raining or cold or hot or windy. It's not that I'm lazy - it's just that there are better things to do.

And then there's the legacy of horror from school. I'm sure these days there are no winners or losers, teams are chosen randomly and all participants are praised equally. I'm sure it's not at all as it was 20 years ago, when PE teachers had their favourite team captains and ignored the less physically gifted, except to shout how useless you were across a wind-blown hockey pitch and then make you take a communal shower (we often showered wearing our full sports kit rather than strip off and display our pubescent bodies to our peers). My friends and I were clever but not cool, so we were chosen last for teams and had no reason to be motivated other than for the opportunity for the four of us to wear our matching "disco" socks to our Wednesday PE lesson as some sort of anti-sports solidarity movement. It got a bit better as we got older, when the PE teachers left us pretty much to ourselves so that they could concentrate on the ones who had been nurtured, so we would pretend to play table tennis and sneak off to do our homework early (yes, I really was that studious). 

None of which helped to build any sort of interest in, or appreciation for, physical exercise. My family, by contrast, were all pretty sporty, but that was something they did - it didn't apply to me.

But then, for reasons I can't quite recall, in the third year of university I discovered jogging. I would get up at 7 each morning, do a lap or two of Christ Church Meadow, shower, breakfast and be at the library for opening time (yes, I really was that studious; talk about a mispent youth). It was fabulous. I was fit, I was energised and I could pack away an extra biscuit or two without it going on my hips. For a year or so, I revised my view of physical exercise, if not PE, and embraced it.

And then I started work, abruptly ran out of leisure time and, for the past 15 years, have sporadically done a little yoga, a little dancing, gone for the occasional very slow run. It was OK. I could have been a little fitter, a little thinner, but I was hardly stationary and obese.

But when you (one, I, we) enter our 30s, a switch flicks somewhere inside us. Suddenly that pint, that cake, that delicious greasy pile of fish and chips start to haunt you. They linger, ghostlike at first but increasingly tangibly, until one day you look in the mirror and see a flabby body that isn't as young as it used to be. And ahead of you stretches a tedious lifetime of the cursed PE.

When I see people with good figures, male or female, my first thought is, "Lucky them". My second thought is, "They've cheated. I bet they have to do lots of exercise to look like that." And then I glare at them for a while, or maybe eat a piece of cake to make myself feel better.

About 18 months ago, I took my extra tummy and me down to the gym for a class or two. I did some step aerobics but co-ordination is not my storng point and I couldn't get the hang of staying upright. As it turned out, the class that I've been going to ever since is the class that, given a long list of options and a slight knowledge of my personality, you (and I) would have put on the bottom of that list. It involves lifting weights to music and is called BodyPump. It is fantastic - definitely one for the checklist of inspirational things that I haven't got round to compiling for this site. To paraphrase Kate Bush, I love it and I hate it too. I now look like this - Wonderwoman with a barbell. 

Well, actually, I don't, and I'm very surprised she looks like that either, lifting pathetic 1.25s, by the look of it - you'll never get decent biceps that way. Mine are looking pretty good under the flab. But you need to do a lot more than an hour's intensive weightlifting every week to get truly fit and toned. So now, at last, I've cheated too - I've joined the gym itself and will, from now on, be found most mornings running up imaginary hills while watching Jeremy Kyle berate truculant layabouts via subtitles on the big screen.

And my point is? There are several - take your pick. The glib one is that you have to put effort into anything for it to pay off. The stern one is that you have to get over your childhood hangups once you're old enough to make your own decisions. The realistic one is that it's hard to do what needs to be done, but do it anyway. And the inspiration for the cynical? Try something new. You never know, you might find you enjoy heaving a good proportion of your own body weight around on a stick to cover versions of beat-heavy hits. And even if you don't enjoy it, try things until you do: it means you can fit a few more slices of cake into your accommodating body.

You are on your own. Just do it. Better

If someone lends you a book, they're also lending you a little piece of themselves. Not just because there might be a hair or a fingernail trapped between the pages but because they're bridging a gap for you: they're saying, "Here, I have something that I think you need". I'm touched as much by the act of lending as by the item itself, the fact that the lender has rummaged through boxes and bookshelves with me in mind.

So Suzanne at work lent me a little manual with a big title. I've reproduced the cover here (Ju's Reviews-style), partly because I haven't put enough pictures in this blog, and partly because it sums up the book - audacious, clever, subversive. The self-consciously retro style continues throughout, so that I was surprised to find the book was first published in 2003 rather than the 1973 that the typeface and page layout suggests.

But that's just it - that and the outrageous subtitle, "The world's best-selling book" combine to summarise its contents - how to get ahead in advertising (yourself). Be different ("It's wrong to be right"), be generous ("Do not covet your own ideas"), be creative ("If you get stuck, draw with a different pen"), be brave ("Getting fired can be a positive career move" - that's good to hear). Yes, it is a book of platitudes but they are presented with such an arrogant self-confidence that becomes the epitomy of inspiration for the cynical - use that cynicism to make a difference by being different. That's my sort of advice... now, how can I put it into practice?

Inspiration for the cynical

Hey there, little speedyheads. Join me in the river flow - come on in, it's warm in here.

Let's start with the basics. This blog's name is adapted from the REM song, "Find the River" (the last, glorious track on 1992's Automatic for the People, and therefore the last decent song they recorded). Google the lyrics and interpret them as you will, but I see it as a call to freedom, to escape from self-imposed rules , from the restrictions imposed by work or by society, to find your own way, to go with your own flow. 

Incidentally, my first choice of name for this blog was "Find the River" but it was claimed in 2003 by someone who made two entries in a language I can't read and never updated it again. Which turned out to be a fitting opportunity for me, not being blessed with any particular creative powers, to think a little laterally and find what turns out to be a far more inspirational name. 

And that's what I'll try to share. Calls to freedom are not my speciality. I'm pretty straight-laced, down-the-line, more train track than meandering stream. Cute husband (Mr B), cute daughter (Monkeyrina), house, car, job, blah. As my occasional C of E tendencies suggest, I'm not particularly spiritual, and I'm not inclined to warble on about chakras. I am cursed - blessed - cursed with an enquiring mind - I'm the sort of person who can't relax during a massage because I'm wondering why salons always assume you want to listen to pan-pipes while a stranger rubs your back. My idea of spontaneous is going to Morrisons instead of Tesco. My idea of daring is not typing an apostrophe before the S in Morrisons even though the omission is their brand style. My idea of a fun Saturday night is sitting beside Mr B, each with our laptops, as I write my blog.

So when the opportunity presented itself to look for new challenges (that's LinkedIn speak for being at risk of redundancy) I surprised myself with my enthusiasm for seizing them. The redundancy process is long and torturous, and I may not even manage to escape, but life is suddenly full of possibility, of painting and writing and dancing and being somewhere other than a badly lit office for 8 hours a day while the world spins on. 

More prosaically, I also have to pay the mortgage, so self-employment as a freelance proofreader / copy editor / copywriter / enquiring minder seems to be an option for at least some of my time.

So where does the inspiration come in? Once you start to look,  it is there in every imaginable form (remember, my imagination is a little, well, little). Sometimes it comes to you, as song, a phrase, a person. Sometimes it is brought to you, by a friend with a book or a blog. And sometimes you have to go out and find it.

So share the journey with me. Let's find the river and cast our dreams into the flowing water.

This is where I should insert an arty photo of a rising moon. But that would be too predictable. And I don't have one. So here's another wonder of nature - the inside of a tulip. It's included not just a shameless excuse for showing a photo I'm proud of taking (it's in focus and everything) but, close up, tulips don't look quite as you'd expect them to, do they? Rawer, more exposed. Hmm, I feel a metaphor coming on.