Compliment Them

Be awake and alive, I chant as I rise. Sometimes difficult to pull off when the alarm sounds at 0415, but I like the challenge. It is cold again, turning the only heated space in my cabin, my bed, into a cozy fortress of mirth. These frigid mornings sometimes makes being awake and alive seem like a goalpost foo far. But I cowboy-up en route to the bathroom to brush, gargle, shave and medicate. I can hear the rain falling outside in the cold blackness.

Something is wrong again. I have been fatigued to the point of shaking my head while driving to clear cobwebs that hang over my consciousness like a sticky net. I am 90% sure that this mornings class flipped the A-Fib switch back on. My chest is pounding and I need a nap. I feel like I have been KO'ed by pink gloves. It is noon.

The good news is that as I was setting up for the aforementioned spin class this oh-dark-thirty, one of the regulars, and then two and finally three, were conducting a rah-rah session regarding last Wednesday’s class. This NEVER happens.

Yeah it was great.

The best ever.

So much fun.

These kind souls have all been with our core group for ten years. Three times a week for ten years is a lot of classes, 6,240 to put a metric on it. All my effort, planning, choreography, themes, concepts notwithstanding, I probably only have a handful of workouts. Everything else is a variation on a theme. Like playing the piano or baseball. We do it over and over and over because magic lays both in the practice and perfection. Worse, truth be known, it will never be perfect. Close, sometimes very, VERY close, but never truly perfect.

I was a touch dumbfounded by their comments. I wanted to respond politely, but nothing immediately came bubbling to the surface. I had no go-to trite and pithy cliche to offer.

So I said, wow, thanks as cheerfully and sincerely as I could.

And I’ll tell ya what, if you ever want to jump start someone’s day and hand over a ship load of motivation, inspiration and confidence to an audience (who might have heard it all before) try this:

                                              COMPLIMENT THEM.

I still need a nap. But my siesta will be in full-on glow mode.