Too Fat For My French Horn

Note: Photo added after Dive's comment. This is GF Handel's monument at Westminster Abbey.

I used this phrase yesterday, “Too fat for my French horn,” and it made me laugh out loud. I know it’s rude to laugh at your own jokes, but I was surprised when the words came out as if someone else had typed them, and I couldn’t help my reaction.

I was thinking about how physically sluggish I have become and how I probably need a little exercise. Plus, I have noticed that when playing my French horn, I need to take breaths more often than I used to. My lung capacity doesn’t seem to be what it once was, so I suggested I might be too fat for my French horn. See, even repeating it here makes me giggle. I like the alliteration, and I think the phrase is almost poetic.

So, in the interest of poetry:

I am too fat for my French horn,
too burdened on the lungs
to inhale and exhale enough.
I breathe just enough
but want more, to breathe more.
I am too fat for the swings at the park
where I whirled with my girls
when they were younger.
I am too fat for my wedding dress
I wore when I was younger, too.
There were jeans I slid on day after day
but I am too fat for my old jeans.
They hung in my closet until dust caked the fold
and I gave them away,
bagged them with size eights
and tossed them straight in the bin.
I don’t ride the swings or wear the dress,
and the jeans went away with good will.
And I shrug.
I sit tight with my French horn
and breathe and breathe just enough.
I am too fat for my French horn,
and I want more, to breathe more.