The Sting
I am not afraid of bugs.
Sometimes I find a spider in my home or in my classroom and I'll grab a tissue, pick it up gently, and put it outside. I swat at mosquitoes and horseflies biting me, but I'm always surprised when I see somebody happen upon an insect minding its own business, shriek with fear or disgust, and then squash it, dead.
The insect was just doing its insect thing. Even the pesky mosquito is just being himself.
So I wonder what the wasp that climbed up my pants leg last Friday was thinking.
Certainly, she did not intend to get trapped inside my pants. Had I threatened her nest? Had she intended to defend it, only to get trapped in a labyrinth of denim?
I twisted and swatted at myself as she stung me over and over again. I tore my pants off and threw them inside out on the ground.
By the time I made it to the ER the next day, my leg was hot, all of the bites swollen together in a giant red lump. I couldn't even bend my knee.
Maybe it was the shot of steroids, maybe it was the Benadryl fog, but I found myself thinking about the wasp all weekend.
Wouldn't you have done the same? I thought. If you were trapped, wouldn't you fight?
Day 17 Kickboxing 6 pm
It's a funny thing to look at my YMCA schedule now. It's marked with checks for classes completed, circles for things left undone. It's wrinkled and ripped and covered in green highlighter and black pen.
Lots of these classes are different names for the same thing. There isn't always something new to write about. But after taking almost every one, I know more about exercising than I ever did before.
I don't know what to expect tonight, though. Kickboxing has had a big green circle around it for a few weeks.
I make my way downstairs and my classmates are waiting at the studio doors. If ever there was a motley bunch this is it.
Standing on one side is a mother with two waifish teens.
Standing on the other side are a Bikini Body girl with long blonde hair who brought her own pink boxing gloves. Near her are two men- the Boxers. Our instructor is nowhere to be found but these two guys are already bobbing and weaving and jabbing and hooking and kind of growling around the Weight Area.
What on Earth did I just crawl up into, I think.
Our instructor, Jessie, arrives. Noticing that some of us don't seem to belong here, she starts by asking us where we are from, if we are vacationing, for how long, and if this is the first time we've ever tried kickboxing.
Waifish Teens try to look confident as they say no, never but I know better than to fake it.
Oh no, I say, I have never done this before and I have no idea what I'm doing.
Jessie smiles and tells me it's going to be fun. She sets up a circuit around the room and explains that we will rotate through it and work with her one-on-one when we get to her station.
I don't really know what to do at each station, so I choose an obvious one where I can watch what the others are doing.
We change stations 2 times before it is my turn with Jessie.
She slides boxing gloves onto my hands and shows me how to do a jab and a cross. She puts the training mitts on her hands and instructs me to punch them as hard as I can. She's laughing and yelling Good, Good, Good, Good as my punches hit the mitts.
She sends me to the punching bag to continue the routine. I'm jabbing and jabbing at the bag. My hands even hurt a little inside the gloves but I don't care because it feels so good.
Goals are fascinating. I started this whole project to learn how to relax in Maine. I wanted to wear myself out by exercising. I wanted to focus my brain through writing. But somewhere between the Total Body Challenge and the Mermaid Yoga and the Cycling and the TRX and now punching this bag I figured out I don't want to relax. I want to fight. I want to be stronger and better. I want to sting my way out of every situation that is trapping me in mediocrity.
I barely hear Jessie when she tells me it's time to take off my boxing gloves and move on. I crush each station: squats with a ten pound medicine ball- I got this, alternate row push ups with 5 lb weights- no problem. I even jump rope for two straight minutes.
Class ends, I thank Jessie, and I leave thinking about the wasp. I never found her, after all. It seems impossible that she escaped, but maybe after all those stings, all my flailing about, the jeans tossed inside out and backwards into the air, she flew away home ready to sting again.
Sometimes I find a spider in my home or in my classroom and I'll grab a tissue, pick it up gently, and put it outside. I swat at mosquitoes and horseflies biting me, but I'm always surprised when I see somebody happen upon an insect minding its own business, shriek with fear or disgust, and then squash it, dead.
The insect was just doing its insect thing. Even the pesky mosquito is just being himself.
So I wonder what the wasp that climbed up my pants leg last Friday was thinking.
Certainly, she did not intend to get trapped inside my pants. Had I threatened her nest? Had she intended to defend it, only to get trapped in a labyrinth of denim?
I twisted and swatted at myself as she stung me over and over again. I tore my pants off and threw them inside out on the ground.
By the time I made it to the ER the next day, my leg was hot, all of the bites swollen together in a giant red lump. I couldn't even bend my knee.
Maybe it was the shot of steroids, maybe it was the Benadryl fog, but I found myself thinking about the wasp all weekend.
Wouldn't you have done the same? I thought. If you were trapped, wouldn't you fight?
Day 17 Kickboxing 6 pm
It's a funny thing to look at my YMCA schedule now. It's marked with checks for classes completed, circles for things left undone. It's wrinkled and ripped and covered in green highlighter and black pen.
Lots of these classes are different names for the same thing. There isn't always something new to write about. But after taking almost every one, I know more about exercising than I ever did before.
I don't know what to expect tonight, though. Kickboxing has had a big green circle around it for a few weeks.
I make my way downstairs and my classmates are waiting at the studio doors. If ever there was a motley bunch this is it.
Standing on one side is a mother with two waifish teens.
Standing on the other side are a Bikini Body girl with long blonde hair who brought her own pink boxing gloves. Near her are two men- the Boxers. Our instructor is nowhere to be found but these two guys are already bobbing and weaving and jabbing and hooking and kind of growling around the Weight Area.
What on Earth did I just crawl up into, I think.
Our instructor, Jessie, arrives. Noticing that some of us don't seem to belong here, she starts by asking us where we are from, if we are vacationing, for how long, and if this is the first time we've ever tried kickboxing.
Waifish Teens try to look confident as they say no, never but I know better than to fake it.
Oh no, I say, I have never done this before and I have no idea what I'm doing.
Jessie smiles and tells me it's going to be fun. She sets up a circuit around the room and explains that we will rotate through it and work with her one-on-one when we get to her station.
I don't really know what to do at each station, so I choose an obvious one where I can watch what the others are doing.
We change stations 2 times before it is my turn with Jessie.
She slides boxing gloves onto my hands and shows me how to do a jab and a cross. She puts the training mitts on her hands and instructs me to punch them as hard as I can. She's laughing and yelling Good, Good, Good, Good as my punches hit the mitts.
She sends me to the punching bag to continue the routine. I'm jabbing and jabbing at the bag. My hands even hurt a little inside the gloves but I don't care because it feels so good.
Goals are fascinating. I started this whole project to learn how to relax in Maine. I wanted to wear myself out by exercising. I wanted to focus my brain through writing. But somewhere between the Total Body Challenge and the Mermaid Yoga and the Cycling and the TRX and now punching this bag I figured out I don't want to relax. I want to fight. I want to be stronger and better. I want to sting my way out of every situation that is trapping me in mediocrity.
I barely hear Jessie when she tells me it's time to take off my boxing gloves and move on. I crush each station: squats with a ten pound medicine ball- I got this, alternate row push ups with 5 lb weights- no problem. I even jump rope for two straight minutes.
Class ends, I thank Jessie, and I leave thinking about the wasp. I never found her, after all. It seems impossible that she escaped, but maybe after all those stings, all my flailing about, the jeans tossed inside out and backwards into the air, she flew away home ready to sting again.
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