Mary Carillo Won't Ask About Nails or Hemlines

I saw Mary Carillo speak at a WISE breakfast. No TV weather bunny, she defines smart, straight talking. Listening to her speak is like standing in a brisk breeze--refreshing and invigorating. Two things she talked about particularly struck me.

One--she's lived her life very much following the first rule of improv--always say "yes." (A rule I learned recently in an acting class I decided to take on a whim.) When asked why she had done such an incredibly wide range of broadcasting, Mary answered, "Because I say yes!"

Note to self--the right answer is "yes."

The second thing I loved was her attitude on women's sports. She detests, for example, that women tennis players, but not men, are now allowed to be coached mid-game. Worse still, a lot of those coaches are the players' "daddy." "The men don't do that," Mary says. (And can you even imagine some male tennis player's mother getting in on his game?) "A lot of the women tennis players need to take their sport more seriously. We only have our athletic bodies for so long. We ought to use them to the fullest while we can. I am not going ask Serena about her nails or hemlines. I want her to play more tennis!"

Oh yes.

If we don't take ourselves seriously, why should others?

Olympic Equality--the fight continues

Ski jumping is the only discipline in the Summer and Winter Games in which the International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not allow women to compete.

The rationales?
1) The field isn't deep enough. Lame--the field will get deeper once it's an olympic sport. Opportunities to engage in a sport are necessary to build it's base (as I'm sure most of the other sports in the Olympics have proven).
2) Ski jumping might shake up our delicate "woman parts." Whatever--because men don't have any delicate parts? No need to say more.
3) Because women, being naturally lighter, might actually give men a run for their money in the sport. True--but not a reason the IOC gives, of course.

What can we do to change this situation?

Well, for starters we can attend the Join the Journey benefit next Thursday night, October 21, in New York to raise money and awareness for the campaign to get ski jumping into the Olympics.

Cool--a thing we can actually do to advance women's sports.

espnW and Walt Whitman

It's all over women's sports news, and that's the point of course--why do we need a women-dedicated sports media outlet? I'll let Laura Gentile (of espnW) answer with her opening remarks from the recent retreat espnW hosted with for a star studded group of women who love sports.

And, in case you don't have time to read her remarks, I just had to pull out this stanza she quoted from Walt Whitman's, Leaves of Grass, predicting the coming of a race of "fierce and athletic girls," who:

"Are not one jot less than I am,
They are tann'd in the face by suns and blowing winds,
Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength,
They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle,
Shoot, run, strike,
Retreat, advance, resist,
Defend themselves,
They are ultimate in their own right -
They are calm, clear, well-possess'd of themselves."

We are ultimate in our own right--indeed!

Why do we workout?

I've been feeling burned out--long summer of training for a long race.

I need a change, probably temporary, but a break from the usual running, biking etc. regime.

Looking for the fresh, I tried a new workout yesterday morning. It's called the Nalini method--but elsewhere in NYC (and, I gather, LA and other like locales) a similar workout is variously called Physique 57 (which I tried this morning) or Core Fusion. The workout is billed as a combination of yoga, pilates, barre work (i.e. ballet), strength and resistance training, with, it seems to me, some boot camp thrown in. All this will make me longer and leaner--I wish.

Or do I really? Is that even why I workout?

I'm not usually a class person (so is it really the change I'm resisting?), except for yoga, but somehow that doesn't feel like a "class" in the same way. The yoga I traditionally take focuses on alignment and calming the mind. For me, yoga is simultaneously energizing and soothing. So is running, and biking, and hiking, and swimming, and cross country skiing and so on.

So is that why I workout? To soothe and calm?

Or is it to be outside, rain, snow or shine? Or maybe to be strong, to test my mental and physical endurance? To forestall aging? So I can eat chocolate cake?

Or maybe it's to do something special, that I think other people can't do?

Then I get knotted up worrying that some of those reasons are vain, or arrogant, or delusional.

Until I remember the reason of reasons--joy. Too much thinking is going on, and not enough feeling. I need to stop wondering "why" and feel the answer. Do my Eckhart Tolle, Power of Now, scan of my physical-emotional being and ask, am I happy? Do I feel pleasure in my very fibers?

Then I have my answer--for me, the joys of owning this body are in all the things we do together (my body and I, that is), the places we can go together--to the little red lighthouse on a morning run, to ride over a mountain pass, to swim in a lake, to explore a new city. The sheer pleasure of propelling my body through space is what I want from my sports in the end. The other night coming home alone, after dinner with a friend, I was overtaken by a rush of profound happiness, the air was heavy,pre-rainstorm air, and the damp sidewalks shimmered, I started running--I'm sure I looked silly in my platform boots and velvet pants, handbag gripped awkwardly to my shoulder, but it felt oh so good, I didn't care.

So will I stick with these classes? I don't know yet. But I know that answer is connected to whether they will be of benefit in my sports. Will my hamstring attachments stop their constant complaints? Will I run more easily? Will I feel stronger on my bike or my skis?

I'll give it a Tolle feel, while I nurse my sore muscles.

Define Old...

The best definition of "old" I've seen in a long while, from Mavis Hutchinson: "You don’t grow old; when you stop growing you are old."

Indeed!

We Are Heiresses

Here's a great article I came across about our sportive predecessors, whose legacy we enjoy every time we engage in our athletics. Being an heiress isn't always about money, sometimes it's about freedom (in this case the freedom to do sports, which we inherited from these hip chicks): Great Women Athletes Who Paved the Way for Women in Sports.

The Density of Dreams

Coming home tonight I was drawn into the spiraling suction of the partially lit high rises, disappearing into the horizon, around the curves in streets, ad infinitum, the overly brightened sky a black, starless dome. So many of us, cheek by jowl, the sheer density of all the dreams in such a small space. It's a wonder we can each hold on to what we want, within the swirl of energetic desire jostling for attention.