It is easy to get too cloistered as a writer.

You have to be alone a lot.

You have to make time to think.

You have to notice things, notice people, watch carefully, imagine, create, devise, edit, expand and follow the stories in your head until their natural, organic ending. This can all be very tricky, and often above my brain’s capabilities, but I do know that I have to do it alone, without chaos or carnage.

I also know I gotta get my tail outside, for health, and to clear my head of my literary puzzles and troublesome characters, so I force myself to exercise.

I have been obsessively charting my exercise since I was fifteen.  It has not helped me lose one single pound, ever, but I believe in the other health benefits and I know when I die God will look at my Exercise Regiman and give me a gold star. I think that’s written somewhere in the Bible.

I plan the week before what I’m going to do. In the right hand corner of my calendar I write a W – for walking, or an R for running, or an X 12:00, for my Wednesday step class which kills me every time, or a W/X when I walk to the club and exercise on a bench there by myself. I write a Z for Zumba.

Zumba, for those of you daredevils who have not tried it, seems to me like  a mix of salsa, Latin, hip hop, rap, and rock. There’s a lot of hip shaking, butt bouncing, arms swaying, and shoulders shaking, with the rhythm beating and bopping.

I am terrible at it. I am sure I look like a weasel stuck on a stick that some kid is shaking in the air.

It’s quite possible I may also look like I’m having a seizure or am auditioning to be the scary monster in a horror flick.

The first time I went I watched the teacher. I could have sworn she was made out of the same rubbery stuff Gumby was made out of. I could not (still can’t) move my hips like she can. Even when she was only supposed to do one swing, and boom – boom, she was fitting in a second or third boom – boom.

My bones actually creaked. They were stiff, rigid. They were not used to making rotating hip circles or even slightly improper hip thrusts in front of a whole group of people.  I stood there, like a rigid pencil, not knowing what to do.

I was raised a proper Catholic girl and this kind of in – and – out wiggling, and swirling about with the hips, would not have been tolerated unless I was in my bedroom with my long married husband and the door was shut, locked, and hopefully there was a rope to keep the handles together just in case. Lights would have to be off.

A Hail Mary would be suggested for later, hands on a rosary chain.

For Zumba I was supposed to do all that wriggling, thumping, twirling in a gym in front of other people?

I snuck a peek around during class, sure that all the other women would be awesome, perfect zumba dancers, every beat in place, each hip click – clocking to the right rhythm.

Now, I am not criticizing anyone’s zumba – ing, but I will say this: There were a lot of women in there who clearly had been raised as I had: Bedroom door locked. All lights off. Keep your hips straight.

They did not care how they looked. They were off and groovin’.

So, I muttered to myself, what the heck?

Shake it, baby.

I shook it.

Exercise to me, except for walking, isn’t really what I’d call “fun.”  But, I am telling you, Zumba is pretty darn fun. It makes me shake my tail feathers so I can get the energy to sit in my chair into the late, dark hours of the night, fix my literary puzzles and troublesome characters, and write through until morning.

Plus, it gives me an excuse to eat more cookies.