The Shift: How I Finally Lost Weight and Discovered a Happier Life by Johnson Tory

Author:Johnson, Tory [Johnson, Tory]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Itzy, Kickass.to
ISBN: 9781401305932
Amazon: B00C0ZP48Q
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 2013-09-10T04:00:00+00:00

MONTH 8

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

We never intended to buy a country house. But by chance Peter met a woman named Judy who was walking her Lab near our apartment. “Nice dog,” he said, and they became fast friends. About a year later she told him that her house in the Catskills had become too much for her to handle and she was selling it.

“Big place?” Peter asked, assuming it was.

“No, just a little cottage,” Judy said.

Intrigued, especially when she told him the two-bedroom place overlooked an apple orchard, had a thirty-mile view of the valley, and sat on a private lake, Peter arranged for us to see it that weekend. On the seventy-two-mile drive, I thought Peter had lost his mind.

“Why are we doing this?” I asked.

“Hey, if it’s a dump at least we had a day in the country,” he replied.

As we turned onto Altamont Road in Bloomingburg, there was a small, pristine white house surrounded by beautiful maple trees. Judy was playing with Oliver on the front lawn, and an elderly man was sitting on the screened-in porch.

“We’re buying this,” we both said in unison, and we did about a month later. Not only did we fall in love with the rustic house that weekend, but Peter got a bonus. Judy introduced us to her friend who was visiting: actor Abe Vigoda, who played Tessio in The Godfather (Peter’s favorite movie) and Fish on TV’s Barney Miller. In the past sixteen years we’ve renovated the kitchen; added bathrooms and bedrooms; and knocked down walls to make an open living space where everyone hangs out. It’s our little piece of heaven away from the hectic city.

On this August day, I find myself in unfamiliar territory, facing Peter across the threadbare and drooping net on one of the two tennis courts at the town park down the hill from our house. The courts have seen better days: the green surface has cracked in many places, allowing weeds to sprout. I’m only here because nobody else is and because of some arm-twisting by Peter, who has brought a large plastic bucket filled with a few dozen yellow tennis balls. A good thing too, since many of them end up sailing over the fence and attracting burrs in the tall grass. But to Peter’s (and my) amazement, I manage plenty of decent volleys.

“Hey, you know you’re not bad,” he says, genuinely impressed that I can hit a tennis ball across the net, let alone return a shot—a skill I learned in summer camp as a kid. We find ourselves back here a handful of times throughout the summer, alternately laughing and taking our competition seriously—I more than Peter. It’s a good thing we don’t keep score: he really knows how to play.

A few years earlier we had put in a sleek pool at the house, our smartest investment, but I’ve never done anything more than spend hours floating in it. Now I make a point of moving around. I do laps and tread water in the deep end while Peter and I talk.

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