My Body Talks Back

I want to tell you about my body. My body and I act like a long-time, unhappily married couple -- too tired, too entangled to get a divorce. What we have between us are mostly confrontations, complaints and painful incidents. There's rarely a moment of tranquility or appreciation. I have gripes: For example, there's a feeling in my chest like a garlic bagel is stuck.

Other times my body behaves like a petulant ex-lover who continues to send annoying e-mails long after the passion has passed -- tart remember-me's, like sinuses stuffed with Elmer's glue, or a food-trap in my molars that aggravates my gums.

The latest is my foot! My foot!

My left foot stepped down funny, collapsed on itself and fractured! "Notice me, notice me, notice me," the body says.

Okay, I get the picture.

Then, after a few days in a big black shoe boot and a noxious mood, I chanced upon a You Tube video that seemed to be talking to me.

It's a black and white undulating odalisque in graceful silhouette. The gist of the copy explains that as long as you're at war with your body you'll never have peace. I realized, "that's it!"

These aren't isolated ailments that plague me. I'm at war with my whole body! A war with

more animosity than Palestine and Israel.

For instance, I want to lose weight. It spots FatWich chocolate brownie samples at Whole Foods market and swallows three.

"Just talk to your body," the video coos. "Ask it what it needs."

So yesterday I invited my body for a sit-down and tried not to complain about the size of my ass.

"So what do you want, body," I asked.

"You're always picking on me," my body said. "Pick, pick, pick. You pick my eyebrows. You bite your lip. You pull at your cuticles. You scratch. Can't you ever just leave me alone?"

I have to say I was taken aback! But, I also have to admit my body is right about the picking.

"And you never, never ever give me compliments! Or green leafy vegetables. You hate exercise!" My body was right about that too.

Me and my body! Decades of disappointment and hurt. Drab hair. Weak eyes. Biceps the texture of brioche. Besides all that, it's painful to look at my body and not be angry that it is no longer 19, perky and taut.

But then again my body has never betrayed me either, with anaphylactic shock, persistent dandruff, or gout. And just look at the amazing job I did with pregnancy -- it was an absolutely perfect delivery with no meds and little gas.

Body! If I can just beg forgiveness and start again. I'll buy a WII. We'll go back to yoga.

Maybe, oh maybe I can make it up to my body, my dear old, lifelong friend.