Sep
20
When Riley was little we bathed him in one of those no-slip baby tubs, which we hovered around nervously because a tub could be formed of superglue and canvas straps and a baby would still slip around it in because wet babies are, in fact, the most slippery substance on earth.
By the time Dylan was born we had a larger tub and I took him in the bath with me, holding his tiny body in my arms and carefully resting his head away from the water.
When he was bigger, I sat in there with both boys, still holding Dylan, who couldn’t be trusted not to slide suddenly beneath the water as soon as my head was turned. Sometimes all four of us would get in together, and for all its discomforts (for instance: someone’s small toe, suddenly rudely intruding in your personal area) it was wonderful. Splashy, ridiculous, a whole family in a bathtub.
We quickly outgrew the ability for four people, and soon it was no longer possible to fit three. The last bath I took with both boys was pure insanity—water everywhere, a soapfight breaking out over my head, shrieks and giggles and sharp bony knees driving into my belly—and I was driven out before I even had a chance to rinse the suds off.
Now they take baths together, just the two of them. I look at these two small boys thrashing around in the tub together and think how we have these different ways of noting the passing of time. How some things hit you in a particular sort of way. Outgrown baby clothes, faded height markers drawn on a wall, an old photo that is all squirrel-fat cheeks and Cupid-bow mouth. The memory of bathtimes, and how they’ve changed.
Sep
19
I’m not sure what the hardest part is. Maybe it’s the pushups, which we start in on right away. There’s very little discussion of modifying these pushups, really, other than a suggestion to rest at the bottom rather than at the top. I peek around at my fellow classmates, who are dutifully balancing on their toes and lowering their bodies, no one’s starting with the knees. Dammit. Once we grunt our way through five or so, the trainers grin like sharks and show us how you can make sure you’re really getting full range of motion: you briefly touch your cheek on the floor each time.
“Let’s do . . . oh, fifteen. Ready?”
After a while I flatten myself like a crushed bug, my cheek resting on the dirty, rubbery floor. “Full! Range! Of motion,” I mumble, in the direction of a trainer’s shoe. He laughs and tells me I can use one knee if necessary, then move to both knees if things really start to suck.
I think about whether things are really starting to suck, then glance at the clock. Ten minutes in. I heave myself back up on my feet for two more.
Or maybe it’s the medicine ball drills, where we practice cleans, over and over and over. Squat down (“Low enough so a marble on your knee would roll to your hip, guys!”), grab the 10-pound ball, heave upwards in a powerful motion I cannot seem to get right no matter how many times I try, quickly drop back down under the ball in another deep squat. We do so many of these I start fantasizing about painting a face on the ball Castaway-style in order to derive more satisfaction from then slowly backing over it with my car, crushing its stupid, plasticky skin under my tires.
The female trainer eyes me critically. “You want to kind of pop up with the hips,” she says, and demonstrates, every single muscle in her enviable collection flexing as she moves around the ball in a liquid motion. I nod and do the same thing I’ve been doing: a flailing kind of jerk, elbows out, ball dominating me as surely as if it were stuffed in my mouth and tied with a leather strap.
“You’ll get there,” she says kindly.
But maybe it’s the actual workout, which is 15 of those beshitted medball cleans, 10 box jumps, and a 250 meter row. Which kind of wipes me out after one round. And then there’s four more rounds to go after that.
It takes me around 19 minutes to finish all 5 rounds. Afterwards, I wiped the rivers of sweat out of my eyes and joke that now I know why there are buckets placed around the gym.
“Well, those are chalk buckets,” says a trainer. “But . . .” He walks over to a trash can, and spins it so I can see the PUKE HERE stickers adorning the other side.
I drive home hissing in pain every time I have to turn the wheel. My arms, chest, and armpits are registering complaints on a level I’m totally unfamiliar with. My butt chimes in and reminds me about all those squats. My sides ache. My eyelashes hurt. I’m pretty sure some critical internal organ has ruptured.
“How was it?” asks JB.
I collapse on the carpet and stare up at the ceiling. I feel as though I’m going into a long, dark tunnel. I see the faint outlines of dead relatives beckoning me to the other side.
“Awesome,” I whimper. And for some reason I mean it.
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