Of Hope, Belly Fat, And Battered Cross Trainers

Summer swoops down on us like a murderous flock of sparrows, and the heat assaults us in a blitzkrieg. It drives away most of our lucid thoughts except the constantly pressing need to seek shade and pursue any stray flurries of cool air.

The heat finally melts away the thick blanket of doom and gloom surrounding me, and suddenly everything seems bathed in light. Never mind that our very young and very pregnant landlord & landlady have raised our rent by a thousand pesos. Never mind that the global economic chokehold has strangled dead any hope of our building a house this year. Still, the sun is so very bright and the future practically dazzles us. We will prevail.

For self-professed creatures of the summer, Atch and I are woefully out of shape. Beach season is upon us, and each morning we force ourselves to get up an hour earlier in the hopes of getting some exercise, only to fall back into delicious sleep like rancid Jurassic pork.

I unearth the elastic binder I used to wear after each of my sons' births, and it keeps my prodigious gut in so my office uniforms still fit - in a manner of speaking. But, Wonder of wonders, the binder curtails my voracious appetite. In two weeks, I trim an inch off my middle.

Encouraged, I offer the binder to Atch, but he shakes his head disdainfully and turns it into a running joke (look at my Aifee, so desperate she's wearing body armor), all the while sucking his breath in as much as his tummy will allow. I am still wearing my old maternity dresses on the weekends, so much so that my sister-in-law's husband takes to asking, sotto voce, if I am pregnant again.

By some stroke of luck, and the siren call of an empty refrigerator, we finally get to lace on our ancient walking shoes and pound the pavement for the 20 minutes it takes to get to the nearest market. We stock up on fresh vegetables and a newly murdered chicken before making our sweaty breathless way back on foot.

We are exhilarated. Already, I feel the surge of energy burning the calories, melting the fat, and incinerating the thick cobwebs from my mind.

Summer is here, I whisper to my battered cross trainers, same time tomorrow?