The sky hangs low over the parking lot of Frazier’s Exercise Emporium. I sit gripping the steering wheel, feeling every stiff joint stage a quiet mutiny. The building ahead flickers under its half-hearted strip-mall lights. I can’t tell whether they’re tired or I am.
This is how most gym mornings begin: a standoff between my aging enthusiasm and my equally aging knees. Obligation sits in the front seat, tapping its foot. Inertia sits smugly in the back. I shut my eyes and wait for some version of resolve to arrive.
***
Northville Downs was the place for Michigan harness racing in the late 1950s. Sitting beside Dad on the groom’s bench, I felt the thunder of hooves shake my ribcage before I heard it. Drivers on sulkies sliced through the purple dusk around the racetrack’s backstretch. Leather harnesses creaked.
Loretta, owner-trainer of a locally owned family barn who worked for Dad, sat at our kitchen table on Saturdays, legs sprawled, language unfiltered, and wondered, “Why pay good money to haul your ass around a gym when you can muck out a horse stall for free?” My mother’s eyebrow twitched; Loretta’s grin widened. I watched her, spellbound. She carried a fearless wildness I craved but couldn’t imitate, not as the shy, obedient girl I was then. Those nights and that woman imprinted on me like fingerprints on glass, smudged, undeniable.
***
Cold air slices through me when I open the car door. Knees stiffen. Back locks. Shoulders grumble. Every step toward the gym feels like slogging through wet cement.
Inside, the familiar tribe has gathered.
The Lutheran ladies convene in their pastel corner.
The night-shift nurses stretch stiff limbs along the mirrored wall.
The martial arts studio owner bows politely as she unrolls her mat.
A wiry woman vibrates with enough kinetic energy to power the lights.
The lone man smiles his quiet smile.
My own mat sits in its usual spot, right beside the thundering speaker, too loud for most but perfect for someone who prefers enthusiasm over subtlety. I drop my mat with a soft thwomp. The bass vibrates up through the floor into my bones.
***
High school gym class. The reek of varnished floors. Fluorescent lights hum like angry insects.
A softball arcs through the air, too fast, too perfect, before slamming into my mouth with a sickening thud. Pain erupts hot and metallic. Blood pools on my tongue. Laughter echoes through the cavernous space, ricocheting off the walls.
The moment becomes an internal bruise that never entirely fades.
From then on, exercise isn’t freedom or exhilaration. It is endurance. Survival. Something to grit through, not celebrate.
My body learns caution.
My confidence learns retreat.
My daughters, thankfully, don’t listen to fear as obediently as I did. They grow up as warriors, rugby players with bruises like medals, Ironman finishers who run headlong toward challenge. They belong to a generation of girls taught to take up space, to push back, to run into what scares them.
***
Frazier enters the room with a theatrical flourish, part drill sergeant, part circus ringleader. His sneakers squeak across the floor. He claps once, sharp as a starter pistol.
“All right, people! Let’s get this show on the road.”
We groan in unison, a chorus of resistance and ritual.
“You’re not old,” he insists. “You’re young and vibrant.”
Without thinking, my middle finger rises in salute. The room erupts in laughter, our own communal spark of rebellion and camaraderie.
Frazier grins. “You guys love me.”
“Debatable,” I mutter as I lower myself carefully to my mat.
But the truth hums beneath the jokes and the joint pain: this unlikely troupe, these routines, this noise, this showing up. Somewhere in the middle of all of it, a small ember of strength glows.
I walk out of class lighter, steadier. Almost strong, almost vibrant.
Edie Williams is a retired university professor who enjoys telling her grandchildren mostly true stories about things that might have happened.
Image Credit: Flickr Creative Commons/Marco Verch
This is wonderful, Edie! I still display the lap quilt you made me so many years ago. Sally
Sally, hello. I remember that quilt and I remember you. So very very nice to hear from you. Do you still exercise with Frazier?
Absolutely delightful!