As a junior in high school, I stood over six feet tall and weighed 145 pounds. The juxtaposition of what I looked like compared to these gigantic men of mass and muscular symmetry presented a chasm of such great distance, any personal possibility of attaining their physical stature was pure phantasmagoria. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I would sit in my bedroom, flipping through the pages of various bodybuilding magazines like Muscle and Fitnessand Flex.
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These professional athletes, whose bodies were near-perfect in musculature proportion, were my ideal vision of the male persona. I only wish I could have recalled that moment and its impact when I was fifty-two years old.Īfter a relatively brief dating period primarily spent on the East Coast, where I was finishing my degree in health science, Sarah and I were married and subsequently moved back to the Bay Area to begin a new life together.Īs a young boy, I had envied and aspired to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger and other bodybuilders of his era. Instantly, I reflected back to that project so long ago, barely remembering the calculus for my involvement.
Without any self-regard, she responded, “I am so glad you don’t do that now-I’ve never liked that bodybuilder look.” Slightly embarrassed, I replied, “I was a pretty skinny kid, so I got involved with bodybuilding in my early twenties.” “What were you like when you were young?” she asked. I remember thinking, “Finally, here is a woman with whom I would love to be involved.”Īs we discussed our lives and families, I recall one of our conversations: She rarely was interested in what others thought of her and would explicitly announce her intentions in whatever manner appropriate. Most notably, her true gift and allure for me was her natural ability in being grounded without any distraction of self-delusion. Intelligent, charming, and self-assured, Sarah radiated an eloquence of beauty and wholesomeness that was neither contrived nor trendy. It was a perfect day and one of the best dates I ever remembered having. From this perch, one could see the bright-blue, endless ocean in front and the peaceful estuary off to the right. Here, scattered among tiny purple wildflowers, sprouted gray and brown rock formations and long green grasses beaten down by the continuous ocean gusts. I was thirty-four years old and remember sitting with her upon one of the flanking vertiginous hillsides. The scenic route graciously became a small, sandy beach nestled in between towering, rocky bluffs. Tracks of dirt and gravel eventually opened up alongside a natural estuary, accented with large winged birds surfing the occasional flurry of ocean winds and the slowly disappearing late-morning fog. The early-afternoon air was cool and crisp. Each path gracefully outlined with blue and yellow wildflowers, tall, green shrubbery, and freshwater streams seemed to engage all of the senses. This stunning location has several walking trails through an expansive two-mile meadow. We went to an area north of San Francisco, just over the Golden Gate Bridge, to a place called Tennessee Valley. Our first date was simply effortless-the interactions with each other were natural and unassuming.
After making a few inquisitions around the hospital, I discovered we had a mutual friend, through whom we were eventually introduced. She was completing her internship to become a registered dietitian, and I remember being just stunned by her natural beauty.
Tall and slender with long, curly, dark-brown hair, donning horn-rimmed glasses and a white lab coat, she stared intensely at a collection of papers in her hands while performing dietary calculations. About fifteen feet from me stood this beautiful woman. I was working for the Department of Physical Therapy in the intensive care unit (ICU) at the county hospital in San Francisco.