Racconto YEG

September 30-2019 The school year is underway and my role in it has shifted. It is frightening to think about the permanence of illness, of weakness, of changes of heart. But the truth is, I am not the same person I was and this journey of changing my mindset to understand, to accept, nay to embrace this change is underway as well,. Part of this acceptance lies in the daily undoing of expectation. That things once were  is not an option because of pain and fog and hurt, Most of all, I feel the depth of my hurt as this catalyst for knowing that the old skin I was in, the one that felt too tight, too loose, too itchy, too unsuitable... shedding that skin is a process in which I reject the reluctant acceptance of the way things were.

I slip on my shoes and wonder what I am doing here at the gym, having missed my cardio class. My trainer is confused since I had texted saying that I wouldn’t make it. But when I sent that text I was eating eggs and thinking about losing a promise I had made myself to be more consistent about going to the gym. So I came anyway. They say the hardest thing at the gym is just to get in the door and I guess that is a big part of it.  Until I sit on the spin bike. Then I change my mind. I could get to the gym but could I really do this thing? On this hard seat? And pedalling? But I try it and want to give up right away. I mean, spin bikes aren’t for everyone, right? I could do something else, anything else. But I watch the speedometer climb—30,40, 50, 55. The music is going and I watch my feet as they work, I smooth my hand on my thighs, the muscles contracting and relaxing in turn. And, as I work, I forget about my discomfort, I forget to watch the seconds tick by, I forget...

“ The word  racconto , with its Latin root, is etymologically connected to the English “recount”: a telling again. A  racconto aims  to communicate a story, personally and purposefully, to a listener... a  racconto  is something born from  intuizione , intuition.” Thus, we begin. A place to tell a story—vignettes, really—intuitively embedded in the world of YEG.