One of these things is not like the others

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
"To tell you the truth, I don't plan on outliving this one!"
I overhead this in the sauna after water aerobics.  A group of older ladies were soaking up the heat and chatting about going to the casino last Friday and the cost of movies these days.  One of them tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Excuse me, the spot you're in, that belongs to the lady out there with the walker."  She pointed to the pool, and I saw an elderly woman slowly walking up the stairs out of the shallow end.  "Oh, of course, I'll move," I offered back.

The sauna at Evans Pool, Green Lake.

I fumbled my way up to the second tier of benches and did my best at both joining in the occasional bursts of laughter and seeming aloof, like I was busy with my own thoughts and wasn't desperate to be a part of their group.  When the woman with the walker came in she sat in her spot and and the other ladies began complementing her.  They talked to her in a voice that people use when talking to small children, kinda higher pitched and sing-songy.  I thought this meant they knew she was at another level of old compared to themselves.

"Is that a new bathing suit you have on?  It looks so nice on you."

"Oh, this?  No, Joanie gave me this when she gave me all those other suits.  It's a good thing too, I don't want to go shopping for these things.  To tell you the truth, I don't plan on outliving this one!"  She said to them all, and gave a short huff of laughter at the end.

I waited to see the reaction.  Was it going to be sympathetic?  Would they tell her, no, of course you'll outlive it?  What?

Everyone burst out laughing again.  I was relieved.  I laughed too, but with some reserve.  I am, while not young anymore, still younger than my sauna cohorts were.  I wasn't sure how appropriate it was to be laughing at someone talking about dying sooner than she would be shopping again.  But after this, they included me more.  The red haired woman next to me started tilting her head back and to the right, toward me, when she laughed.  And I felt included.

"Got more energy than me."

Today at my Hydro-fit class, my favorite one at Green Lake and the one with the previously mentioned sauna, I was giving it my all.  We were well into our warm up and at the part where you are getting your heart rate up.  The class was doing a cross country skiing motion while raising our arms up and out of the water in an alternating pattern.  I was just beginning to get all rosy-cheeked, as the instructor likes to say.

There was a man and woman to my right, chatting and participating.  As I huffed by, I heard the woman look over to the gentleman and say, "Got more energy than me," and pointed at me with a nod of her head.

To be completely honest, I was a little deflated when I heard that.  I want these old people to like me, cause I like them.  I mean, I don't know them, but I inherently like them and want to know them better.  But I also want to get a good workout.  I don't want them to out me from the cool crowd just cause I am younger.  And faster.

Maybe it will just take time.  Maybe I'll have to keep going longer than the woman's swimsuit lasts.  And then I think to myself, "Who cares, Melissa?  Just be yourself.  These ladies don't seem to give a shit, and that's exactly what you like about them."

I think I can learn a lot from these classes, a lot more than how to do ab crunches in the water and what casino has the best slot machines.  "Look for the flaming 7's, baby!  The flaming 7's!  Those slot machines were the best, I won a lot of money on those.  They just don't make 'em like they used to."  It was the last thing I heard as I shut the sauna door and headed into the shower.

-Melissa

How can water do all that?

Posted by Melissa Baumgart

The Ballard Pool

As I drove away from the Ballard Pool today, I was filled with total peace.  I breathed in and out with mental and physical contentment.  I carried this state of mind with me for a few hours afterwards.  It was not unlike the feeling I used to have after Bikram yoga.  I didn't think I would find anything else that brought me to that place.  A place where the physical meets the mental, and transcends them both to place of pure bliss.  I know, seriously.  It is that good.

I think it is something about the water.  In these deep-water classes we get to wear a buoyancy belt, so you are floating in the deep water.  While I was waiting for the class to start, I floated around a bit, looking down to see the blue water continue deep down below my feet.  I felt like a kid again.

I always like pools.  When we go on vacations, I love playing the the pool with my kids.  We swim races against each other, we see how many flips we can do without taking a breath and splash and play.  In water aerobics, I get to exercise and get a little bit of that vacation feeling all at once.

And better than that, the water just plain old feels good.  Good in a way that words cannot express.  Believe me, I have been sitting here for way too long, putting off my kids bedtime trying to figure out some damn words.  It feels good on my skin.  It feels good to be weightless.  It feels good to be massaged by the water.  It feels good to be held by the water.

I guess it was a lot of things that gave me that euphoric, yet calm sense of being when I left the class today.  After searching the internet for some study to prove what I experienced, I found nothing noteworthy or peer-reviewed for that matter.  So,  I'll just have to be OK with it being a mystery.  One that I intend on repeating tomorrow.

Anyone else getting to the pool these days?
 

Who goes to Water Aerobics?

Before the sparsely attended class at Medgar Evers pool.

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
Why isn't there a documentary about water aerobics?  I was at near-threshold for crying almost the entire class, moved by the beauty of the moment.  Moment after moment continued to hit me filled with pure human experience.  Why is it that the elderly always bring that out in me?  I think back to tai-chi in the strip mall and my night out in Snohomish with Glory.  All of a sudden, there I am in an everyday experience having an odd clarity about my priorities and what really matters in life.

My emotional water aerobics experience happened at a Friday morning Hydro-fit class at Green Lake's Evan pool.  After my first class at Medgar Evens pool, I was not prepared for the age of the crowd that gathered to change in the locker room.  My first class never reached any high capacity at only six participants.  And we were all somewhere between 30-50 years old.  Mostly hovering around the 40 year old mean, you know, I bet the standard deviation would have only been about 2 at the most.  Sorry, statistics class is really infecting my life.  And I love it!

So, the Thursday night class, Water Exercise, was intense.  There was nothing magical about it, aside from the Miami Beach pop tunes to keep us pumped up and the entertainment of the instructor showing us what to do in the water from the cement above.  But no life clarity occurred for me in that pool.  I did, however, get an amazing workout.  The kind of workout that leaves you sore for a couple days.  And I like that.  I left that class liking my first experience, and a little confused about the population.  I really had braced myself to be the youngest person there.

Then Friday morning, Amy and I showed up early to the Hydro-fit class.  It was packed.  There were two classes; one shallow end, one deep end.  And there must have been at least 20 people in each class.  Some people were clearly there to get fit, and others were there for the social party like atmosphere.  I wondered if some guys were there in hopes of a pick-up.  I wondered what it would be like to be 80 and single.

I can't wait to get back.  I want to be a part of that "in-crowd."

-Melissa