I forgot that I once was a gymhead.
No. I truly forgot 😁!
It was a lifetime ago, really. & it’s very possible that I would’ve never used that terminology… but at it’s core, that’s really what it was.
It was always very fluid. & on top or alongside being a daemon for walking, meditation-wise. Back then, God would just factor it into proceedings, carrot vs the stick-style.
I was curious about modeling in NYC in my late 20s, early 30s. I had fun collaborating with out there photographers on tests and used it to get over phobic learnings and leanings in certain areas … but you know how God got me to go for it?
The commercial agency that wanted me? Their models got great deals on Equinox memberships …so I became one 😬.
& Yes, I was all about the saunas & steam rooms (egad, the saunas & steam rooms Everywhere). But I was also like the 3rd person there, after staff & trainers, pretty much every day. Because 3 or 4x a week there was a PHENOMENAL yogi who held the 1st class of the day & I liked to sauna before it. & on the days there was no class I worked out. On the days there was one? I worked out after. My main was in Soho. But even when I moved uptown I would make the trek.
In Miami I kept it active for those same perks first time I was there, agency-wise. New Orleans? After my 9 months of pure decadence I’d roll out of bed & onto the streetcar, dropped at the gym in under ten minutes. First thing, unless I was out of town for research. Second time in Miami, when I was based in downtown & trekking to work in south beach, God orchestrated it so I was basecamped in condos with resort-level gym & spa amenities open to me in-haus. & I used it.
Never in LA, though. I did check out the Equinox in Santa Monica. &There was one in dtla that I reactivated my whathaveyous at at the top of 2020 because a coworking place I frequented writerhead-wise was right there and if I had decided to put down roots after grievechronic 2020 it was going to be necessary. But covfeefee put the kibosh on all of that.
It was the rhythm. That’s what I’d forgotten.
I’ve had that realization during a resurgence or resurrection of sorts in regards to all that.
& enjoyment of the aesthetics. Of course. But it’s not what you’d think it is at first glance.
There was one instance of attempted snobbery in NYC, at the Soho branch. & it was so out of pocket, so bizarrely coked-up & gauche that everyone just looked at the chick trying to be highhanded like she had a second head so hard that she literally cracked and slunk out the lockerroom.
& that ? That I Loved about Equinox. Nobody gave a fuck about what you were doing or there for. No matter what the state of your chassis was at that moment. Motherfuckers whose bills are paid For real by polishing those fucking ships they’re piloting are not looking at you or anybody else with envy, mockery or competition. They’re looking at the motherfucking image of themselves they’d held in their heads- the them that achieved the xyz In the future they were gunning for that equaled bank. & everybody present was paying something to make that investment.
It just overrode the bullshit on the east coast.
Out here, I am moving through my body clicking back onto that rail solely due to accessibility.
& for myself, with the 75Hard challenge being Physical therapy-focused, adding in circuit training sweatlessly has just …really cracked me open.
& I know what it’s speaking to, too.
Which is a wonderful thing to be aware of in my bones on this day of the 47th circle coming to a close.
s a trip.