Our guest room closet has three built-in drawers where we stash empty picture frames, old safari hats, computer cables, whatever. Feeling a need for a bit of relaxation the other evening, I searched there for some old meditation tapes.  (You remember tapes. They slide into a Walkman.) 

I found the meditation tapes, but more important, I discovered my old “Jane Fonda Workout” tape.  Years ago, my neighbors Val and Reggie and I had our own little Jane Fonda group.  Twice a week, we went to Val’s basement and worked out.  We bought leotards and tights to be authentic.  We exercised until we “felt the burn”.  We also did a lot of talking.  Back then, we thought we had invented the exercise-age version of the coffee klatsch. 

When Val moved away twenty-four years ago, Reggie and I didn’t have the heart to exercise without her, but I kept the tape, just in case.  I couldn’t resist checking to see if it still worked.  I slipped it into an old boom box. With the first notes of the theme music blasting, those exercises, those conversations, those leotards—it was like yesterday.