Be My Lady

In no particular order, here are the ladies that inspired me, moved me, and made me smile today, and made me realize that, no matter how certain I am that I will never, in this lifetime, fall in love with any of them, the world would just be a mess without women. This is my way of honoring them.

REMS
Rems is, literally and figuratively, a hard habit to break. She is my in-transit-to-work-on-the-phone companion. We spend about half an hour chatting, to an from work. not collectively. Half an hour to, and half an hour from. She sets the tone of my day and calms me after a long day. It is difficult to break away from her. She is my mother , I am stuck with her forever. And I have no qualms being stuck with her. I am grateful, in fact. There is no other woman I'd rather love for my entire time on earth.

NURSE ANN
Nurse Ann, my Smoking Cessation Counsellor, is to me what a kindergarten teacher is to her pupils. I have always held a tremendous amount of admiration for kindergarten teachers. They are noble matriarchs of great power and authority. How often do we hear a child say he eats veggies because his teacher told him vegges are good for him? A mother can force-feed veggies on her child. But all he needs is to be told by his teacher to eat them. I know for a fact that quitting smoking is one of the most intelligent, most reasonable, most beneficial decisions I have ever, ever made in my life. But to be told by her that I am doing good and that I am on the right track just validates that ten-folds. Her weekly calls have been nothing but delight.

THE GURLS
They are the ones who come to my classes regularly. They are the ones who can--- in terms of stamina, pick-up and strength--- out-dance the other girls who only come to my classes when there are no other instructors and they have no other choice. They can out-crunch them, out-stretch them, out-pas de bouree them. Best of all, they have an understanding of their own bodies. They know what works for them, and what doesn't. They know the importance of wam-up and stretching, and they know that water breaks are not fellowship or gossip hour. They probably don't know it, but they inspire me in so many ways. Every now and then, I still ask myself whether what I am doing now is what I really wanna do. Until now, I still don't know the answer. What I do know (and I know this because of them) is that, in the meantime, I am not wasting my time and energies doing what I'm doing. They are happy, they see results, they enjoy it. And that makes me happy.

ATE CORA
Ate Cora is an empowered woman. She defeated in two hours, the grease buildup in our kitchen that was three years in the making. And she did it with tremendous aplomb and out-of-the-box witty remarks.