When I think about being a woman, sure, I think that I have breasts and the other lady bits, but that doesn’t create an unshakeable bond with other women. However, the moment a woman tells me that her doctor, Chat GBT, her physical therapist, a random stranger, a writer in some conspiracy rag, anyone really, has suggested that she ‘kegel’, I’m right there….
Dr. Arnold Kegel, I call him Arnie, featured in the photo to the left, is the man we have to thank. I’ll bet you didn’t know it was Arnie Kegel who got us all kegeling in the check out line at the supermarket. More than girdles or pantyhose, more than the Kotex explanation of menstruation, more than being groped by strangers, it was Arnie who defined womanhood.
So….Next time you are in line (not the Express line, that goes too quickly) at the grocery, or you are crowded into an elevator, or stuck in your car in traffic and you look around the room, across lanes of traffic, over some man’s shoulder, and meet another woman’s eyes, I want you to give her a big, genuine, knowing smile because she has also failed at adequate kegeling and is suffering the consequences.
Here's another lovely blurb for Not The Trip We Planned.
“Through the characters of lifelong friends Chickie and Maddy, co-authors Edelstein and Kerr toggle brilliantly between past and present….The friends revisit a city that formed them in their youth, where, over the course of the story, they take the melancholy of years past and mold it into a present and future that is not encumbered, but enriched, by lived experience. …
Not The Trip We Planned is a much-needed reminder that passion and relevance have nothing to do with age, but rather our internal selves, the choices we make, and Chickie and Maddy have chosen to live life on their terms, in a fullness and engagement this reader admires. Come for the plot twists, stay for the musings on life and time.” Alfredo Botello, novelist and screenwriter, author of Spin Cycle, 180 Days.
Hi Chickie In defense of Dr. Kegel (Arnie to you) I'd like to say that we do owe him some credit for thinking up something that helps women have alternatives to 19th century pessaries (google that if you're curious). My yoga teacher (a male) is all about Kegels for All and says they are important for men's prostate health. I think the photo of Dr. Kegel you chose is terrific because it looks like he is actually a man trying to figure out how his kegels' work. I do not picture him in this photo being in a grocery store though. Maybe its the tie. You rarely see those in grocery stores these days.
Kegel away, M