How Me and the Hoop Came to BE: part 2

I keep looking at her phone number, taking it out of my wallet and reading her writing. Hoops. Hula hoops. Hmmmm. Part of me wonders if I'd be strong enough to do it. Would it hurt my back? I flash back to those legs. So slim; it must be good for exercise, but I'm guessing at this point. Inhale. Exhale. My instincts are with me on this. I dial her number. I leave a message. I want a hoop.

When my partner comes home I inform him that he's buying me a hula hoop for Christmas. A little raise of the eyebrows. I can tell he's wondering the same thing... Can she do it?

I order my hoop, and I still have no idea what's coming. My mind's eye can't make a picture of this wheel that is somehow going to work for me . I ask for a black and white color scheme, so it can glow a bit under black light. She assures me that she can do it, and promptly calls me back with her street address so I can pick it up after she's made it.. already! It's in her mud room, and she's leaving, so I can just leave the cash inside the door or something.

Each day that passes adds more longing and intrigue. I watch some hoop dance videos online, and wish and wish for a ride or someone to pick it up for me on their way back from the little city to our village. A loyal friend tramps through a blizzard with a cell phone in hand, searching along that dark stretch of highway for the house where my hoop is waiting; kids and husband watching from the car....she could hear my fretted wanting of this item and understood like a true girlfriend would. I could hear her traversing over snowbanks and tramping through people's properties, and still she can't find the place.

It's now December 24th, 2008, Christmas Eve day. The tree is decorated. Everything and everyone is calm, except for me. There's another snowstorm, and all I can think about is my hoop, in its respective mud room, all alone. We have no other reason to make the somewhat dangerous drive down the lake other than this.
"Well..looks like we'll have to wait till after Christmas to get that hoop..." This is my partner talking, not me.

But I want to start sculpting my body now.

I wait, I say nothing. Wait a little longer...
"Can we just go get it?"

An hour later we find the house, I throw open the door and there it is, leaning up against the freezer; a fabulous, sexy looking thing with black fabrics wrapping and weaving with white, bubbly yarn, and five sections of white, pure, fun-fur, expertly and evenly spaced around its circumferance. I hold it up as we walk back to the truck. It's BEAUTIFUL! And it's so huge....

How Me and the Hoop Came To BE: part 1

Sometime in November, 2008.

I never pick up hitch-hikers, unless they are young, desperate females who could be at the mercy of the guy driving behind me, so when I saw this girl standing in the snow on the side of the highway I put on my signal and pulled over. She climbed into the truck, thanking me as we accellerated toward town.
We exchanged names. I'm always so curious about people, so I said, "What do you do for work?"
"I manage a spa and give treatments," and I happen to know who she works for. Nice. Smile.
She was quite beautiful. Her hair was in a funky up-do and her make-up was skillfully applied; and she had a great figure and the kind of legs that make me think she must just not eat. Eyes on the road. It's not polite to stare.
"What about you?"
"Right now I'm teaching poi classes at the school..."
"Oh really? I make indoor hula hoops." (Poi and hooping are cousins related through the rave scene.)
"You make them??" (Indoor? Outdoor? What?!)
"Yeah..." like I've just come out of the last century, "from irrigation pipe, and I fill them with water and they're covered with fabric and fur and yarn," and described how she used sealant so the water didn't leak out.
I tried to conjure up some kind of image. A hula hoop with FUR? Now I'm really curious. "Do you sell them?"
"Yup. They're thirty bucks." So matter-of-fact.
I had a lot more questions for this girl, but we were now in front of her workplace.
"Can I have your phone number?"
She wrote hers down for me and said she was going away for Christmas, but if I wanted a custom hoop she could make me one. A custom hoop....

Hooping- First Contact

Turning. This big, black, heavy hoop keeps turning with me inside it. When it comes around again I push against it, with my belly, with my back. This is wierd. This actually feels good. Outside of the hoop is a blur and the room's contents melt away and I feel like I'm disappearing into this rhythm. What's happening? Where am I? That rhythm keeps spiralling me inward.

I've arrived somewhere. I like this place. It's peaceful. My mind has become silent. Any thoughts travel outward from their origin, like little ripples moving across the surface and then dissolving into this nothingness. Thoughts suddenly have no consequence. They can't cling when the hoop keeps coming back and sluffing off layer after layer...of what?

What is going on here??