Summersalts

If you look up the word flexible in the dictionary, you will find the following:

Flexible

Function: adjective

1 : capable of being flexed : pliant

2 : yielding to influence : tractable

3 : characterized by a ready capability to adapt to new, different, or changing requirements <a flexible foreign policy> <a flexible schedule>

I can't touch my toes without bending my knees.  I never could.  In my younger days this may have filled me with mild angst, but I've forgotten all about it as of late.  In fact, I haven't thought of it in years...

The summer before college I got a phone call from my future roommate, Amy.  Since we were both in the musical theater program, somewhere in our conversation the topic of dancing arose.  "Are you a good dancer?"  she asked.  "No, not really," I answered, going on to add "I can't even do a cartwheel or touch my toes!"

Amy later told me at that moment she pictured her future roomie to be...extremely obese.  Why else wouldn't I be able to touch my toes?  She was surprised when she finally did meet me, all 103 scrawny pounds of me.  (I was wiry at seventeen.  Just not very flexible.)

It's not that I didn't try, for I did.  I stretched rigorously, desperately willing my limbs to be, well, limber.  I longed to be malleable, lithe!  One summer afternoon my cousin Hannah tried in vain to teach me how to cartwheel.  I was fifteen at the time so that would make Hannah about five.  I can still see the exasperation on her adorable baby face as she'd turn another perfectly executed cartwheel: "no, no, NO!  Do it like this!"

That summer I'd been cast in a dinner theater production of Carousel, as the part of Louise.  Now, if you happen to be a theater nerd then you're already aware that Louise is a non-singing role.  She dances.  She performs a dream sequence ballet, for cripe's sake!  Oh dear.

The director announced to the cast that she'd chosen an actress rather than a dancer, and Carl, one of the choreographers, was none too pleased.  On top of being a short, surly little man, his stout, surly dancer sister had been overlooked for the part.  But such is life and I've always felt comfortable being the underdog.  Nobody really thought I could do it, which proved to be strangely empowering.  I'm backwards like that.

Things really came to a boiling point one rehearsal when I was asked to perform...a cartwheel.  Sweet Jesus, no!  Anything but that! 

This was serious.  As it was, they'd already toned down the dancing for me quite a bit.  I swallowed and took a deep breath before shamefully admitting, "Actually, I can't do cartwheels."

Whatever emotions they were inwardly feeling, on the outside the two choreographers took the cartwheel information in stride.  I immediately pictured Carl telling his spandex clad sister.  She could certainly perform a cartwheel!  In the end we compromised: I would try and learn to cartwheel and in the meantime a summersalt would have to suffice.

Which brings us to Hannah and I, together on my front lawn.  For a kid who'd just turned five, she was a real taskmaster.  Over and over I attempted to cartwheel, all to no avail.  In the end, scarcely able to conceal her disgust, Hannah gave up on me. 

A summersalt it would have to be.  I worked that frigging summersalt, though.  For reals.

These days I don't define myself by my lack of ability to cartwheel or touch my toes.  It baffles me how these things once held any power over me.  But the other night I got to thinking...I'm twenty-nine, and if I can't touch my toes at twenty-nine, when will I be able to?  It's now or never, baby!

Here's what I've decided: I will touch my fingers to my toes.  (Without bending at the knee.)  As God as my witness, I will never be inflexible again! 

I've had a nasty headache for the past two days which prompted me to take Excedrin, Allegra, Sudafed, and copious applications of Head On.  (No, not all at the same time.)  To say that I'm feeling loopy would be an extreme understatement.  While I was washing my hands in the work bathroom, inspiration hit me:  I would try to touch my toes.  Right that very instant, there in the bathroom.  Every time I went for a pee, in fact!  Yes, that was it!  Surely, little by little I would get there!

There was nobody around.  I took a deep breath, bent over, and tried like hell to reach my Kenneth Coles.  I didn't actually do it, but miracles don't always happen instantly, do they?  With each pee I would be closer to my goal.  With each release of bodily fluid, I myself would become more fluid.  It was all so...profound.

I'm doing it in the elevator, too.

This is the effect allergy meds have upon me.  You should see me when I'm drunk.

xoxo

Comments

[The Odd Broad]

Be it known my husband just suggested that perhaps I have very short arms, like a T-Rex. Or maybe I am freakishly disproportionate, on top of being webbed toed. He also told me I need to stretch my hamstrings.

[Weinerdog]

I can not believe that you still can't touch your toes!!!

After all the PMT and Erica Batdorf classes we took?
Not to mention you focused in movement senior year!

Are you for real?

Hubby is right, you probably suffer from tight hamstrings.

[The Odd Broad]

He got nervous last night because I kept trying to touch my toes. He made me stop because he was afraid I was going to make myself pass out from all the blood rushing to my head!

For reals, I can't do it.

[Amy]

You may not be flexible, but your jazz hands are fabulous and I've always thought you were incredibly graceful during Musical Theater with Bob Ingari.

[The Odd Broad]

Thanks Winky.

It's Lilly Garland, Lilly Garland!!!!