Maybe This Weight Was a Gift

I taught my final spinning class at Gold’s Gym this morning. A 6 AM class, surrounded by some of the coolest, nicest, hard-workingest rooster rock stars you could ever hope to meet. I taught the first group exercise class ever at the Pawtucket, RI Gold’s—seventeen years ago (clutch the pearls!)—and one of the first cycle classes fourteen years ago. These folks have seen me through some highs (they got my class named “Best Class for a Music Lover” by Rhode Island Monthly magazine) and some lows (Jay’s cancer, my mom’s death, my dad’s lengthy rehab, my brother’s cancer). I will certainly miss them.

Perhaps nothing (healthy) has defined me as much in my adult life (other than my marriage) than being a fitness instructor. Weird, right? That I should identify with something so frivolous? I, who claim to value intellectual rigor so deeply? But, at the end of the day, I don’t think about my education, or the hours I spend tinkering in the kitchen, or the finish lines I’ve run across. I consider myself a success or a failure to a great degree by whether or not I’ve given a kick-ass class. Were my participants smiling and sweaty? Did anyone complain about the volume or choice of music? The lumination or the temperature of the room? Did they simultaneously love and hate the time we spent together? This all matters to me.

And now, this huge chapter of my life has come to an end. I would lie if I didn’t admit I grieve over this.

According to my husband, my particular Five Stages of Grief are

1. Anger
2. Denial
3. The one he can’t remember
4. Shopping
5. Drinking

I have a new Prada skirt and several half-empty bottles of wine as evidence that I am fully exploring all these stages as my Gold’s tenure comes to a close.

My final playlist consisted of songs, some old and some new, I love and find meaningful. One that made the 65-minute list, but not the 45-minute class, is Nada Surf’s delightful “Do It Again,” from their 2005 album The Weight is a Gift. The song is full of boyish sincerity, jangly guitars, and swoon-worthy harmonies, and I’ve always been enchanted by the lyric, “When I accelerate, I remember why it’s good to be alive.” It captures, to me, the moment on the bike when the shackles of the day fall away: it’s just me, the bike, the music, the breath, the sweat, the magic. As I put this playlist together, however, I was drawn to the line, “Maybe this weight was a gift.” I started to think about the weight we all bear as human beings and how our responsibilities to one another—our encumbrances with one another—bring us our greatest gifts—our most wonderful, horrible, soul-crushing and life-affirming gifts. To paraphrase Coach Eric Taylor, having other people depend on us isn’t a burden, it’s a blessing.

So, to my Gold’s Gym riders: It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to ride with you, even though the early hour sometimes clouded my view of it. Thank you for all the gifts.  

Here’s the playlist:

And the song that made me think: