But, when Oliver died, everything died and my interest in exercise also. Suddenly, the history of the exercise seemed unimportant to me. I put down my half-written book and didn’t even open the file on my computer for years.
Single, lonely, bored, and depressed, I also started hanging out at a neighborhood bar, drinking more than I should have, and, on weekends, smoking more weed than I might justify. He still did some messy exercise, but he had lost his passion for it. The gym, the pool or a yoga class seemed increasingly distant activities. So in early 2018, I was diagnosed with hypertension. It was not unexpected, as three of my five sisters also suffered from it, as did my mother, and my readings had always been a bit high. My doctor prescribed medication, but he also told me the following: “You have to intensify your cardiovascular activity.”
“Sure,” I replied. “I figured he would tell me.”
At 57, exercise went from being something I wanted to do – to look and feel good – to something I had to do to be healthy. Without excuse.
It took time, but it might be said that exercise and I met once more, albeit in a different way. Since Oliver’s death, I had changed. I felt like a different person and exercise had changed for me too. My relationship with him lacked the obsession of youth and was more like a civilized agreement between former lovers who had already reached middle age. I got back to exercising and swimming regularly, my blood pressure returned to normal, I lost weight. By the time I turned 59, in January 2020, I was feeling better than I had in a long time, physically and mentally.
Then came the pandemic. I had no choice but to adjust when my gym closed.
I felt comfortable exercising at home for a while, but when it became clear that the gyms weren’t going to reopen anytime soon, I realized I missed the throbbing you feel when lifting weights or doing supersets and reps to exhaustion, and even sore muscles the next day. She missed swimming and perhaps most of all, she missed the sense of community that she had always found in gyms.
But all this time I had to myself, at home and alone, brought a great advantage: I resumed work on my book on the history of exercise, Sweat, with a renewed perspective. Now I also had my own exercise story.
I waited for the pools to be allowed to reopen, six months following lockdown, before I reactivated my gym subscription, and then went on the first day. I saw only two other men in the locker room, matched in number by the masked janitors busy disinfecting surfaces. The sauna and the spacious steam room were closed indefinitely, perhaps forever, which made me think of the ancient Roman baths, ruins of another time, of another culture. It was all very depressing, but I told myself not to torment myself. I quickly put on my bathing suit and headed to the pool. My swimming reservation (with a maximum duration of 30 minutes) was for 2:10 pm I felt like I was going to a doctor’s appointment.
