Eshtine

chair dancing

Around about this time last year I was in the observer program--aka "So You Wanna Be a Nun?"--in a cloistered order affectionately known as the Pink Sisters for their bubblegum-colored habits. This piece is taken from the notes I kept during the experience and is about one of the recreation activities I engaged in while there.
----
Today recreation is Chair Dancing Time, as it is every Tuesday and Thursday. I have a choice--I can go to Chair Dancing or watch a documentary on the end of the Inquisition. Actually what Sister says is "Do you want to go the Inquisition?" which, when put that way, has no appeal. Besides, she's been talking up Chair Dancing so much, I want to find out what the fuss is.
So five of us are in Marian Hall, the basement meeting room, doing aerobics while sitting in plastic chairs. These aerobics are done to the exhortations of a perky videotaped instructor. I've been given paper plates--Perky Instructor has us wave these around, pretending they're cymbals, top hats, paddles, etc. as we kick our legs and flail our arms. At some point I realize, "I'm sitting in a plastic chair hoisting paper plates over my head pretending they're a top hat and doing can-can kicks. Everyone around me is a nun dressed in pink and they're hoisting make-believe top hats over their heads and doing can-can kicks too. And I'm having a great time!"
Maybe you'd disagree, but I think these women are about the coolest I've ever met, because they can dance the can-can in their chairs wearing pink habits and be utterly unselfconscious about it. Some of the exercise class on the videotape are going at it with less enthusiasm than these nuns, and a.) presumably they're being paid to act perky and b.) they don't have to wear habits, which aren't ideal aerobics gear.
So mine is a fabulous evening. Chair dancing is serious exercise, too--I'm well worn out before Compline, night prayer. I'm imagining the Pink Sisters recruitment poster: "They work hard. They pray hard. They play hard."