BH 8: Your body screamed at you to listen
Losing those earbuds + a mini-cleanse might open up your auditory life
I had been unable to replace my ear bud. That’s right, bud singular. My other one disappeared a month prior, and the ensuing run of single-eared monitoring—dual channels playing at once—was a funny transition to deeply listening to LA.
On the way to the gym this Friday afternoon I was super dialed in to Sonic Hollywood: Overlapping conversations aboard the No. 4 bus from Echo Park. Noises of commerce spilling out from a crowded mini-mart and onto the Vine Street sidewalk.
Upon stepping inside the Sunset Boulevard Super Sport 24-Hour Fitness, that this day would be Metal Day became clear. The confrontation screaming from the speakers was a song I knew that I knew. But this remake had twisted the original beyond recognition. Outside the locker room entrance, a bald White guy in just shorts—ripped, covered in tats and possibly 50—didn’t do much to make me stop obsessing over the happenings inside my ears. Life like a music video.
It was early afternoon and the idea was to be out of the locker room by 4:30. My main gym’s got lots of character and, on Friday evenings the place has a little too much… openness in the locker room for my purposes. Aggressive date night vibes. The entire fourth-floor fitness facility gets date night vibes, and the showers are no exception. If you’re queer it must be awesome.
Anyway, I was on the clock in multiple ways, three days out from my birthday.
As I strode out to the elliptical machines, Susan Orleans’ The Library Book in my hand, turning 58 didn’t really feel like anything yet.
Upon sticking my backpack into a locker, Shazam came to mind. With the app popped up the answer to the nagging cover-song question: Omnium Gatherum. The Finnish death metal group was doing “Michael Sembello’s “Maniac.” A workout classic, coincidentally.
Leaning into listening because I lost my fucking earbud wasn’t a stand alone experience. In the run-up to my birthday on Tuesday, I would be doing a physical reset: Lots of water, but no food beyond a lemonade containing cayenne pepper and maple syrup. Turning off the phone for big chunks of time while attempting to lose myself in a book. That was another piece of this reset, as would be starting an assigned story’s draft with long-hand notes.
And no more gym after this. At least, less weight lifting. My masochistic side was learning to live with less recovery-time pain.
As I strode out to the elliptical machines, Susan Orleans’ The Library Book in my hand, turning 58 didn’t really feel like anything yet. But Tuesday was three whole days away. I had plenty of time, unlike my Sunset situation on this Friday afternoon.
One hundred eight-nine pounds by July 30. Down from 220 last year. The birthday goal: One. Eight. Nine.
Even as I closed in on the number, I’d begun to reject it. The figure felt like a relic from that recent past life in which I measured progress in sets and reps of cast-iron weights. Now that my body was less routinely aching, the urge to ask, “What’s in a number” nagged me like a cover song I couldn’t make sense of.
There had been, before the reset started, a beginning men’s yoga class on YouTube that I completely poo-poo’d.
On the recommendation of the much-referenced Men’s Health article “How to Train Hard After 50,” I had begun looking for “easy yoga” classes. The one I dismissed was the first one I tried. Actually, I might have dismissed this men’s yoga class before it began. Taking direction from men can be a struggle for me, and I simply had not been hearing the generic White guy with a beard, yogi-in’.
The days leading up to July 30 gathered profundity like it was momentum.
On Sunday though? Thirty-six hours into my cayenne pepper and maple syrup lemonade? God, did I hear this person. Three-fourths of the way through the half-hour workout came a low-lunge posture that awakened my hamstrings in a way that was mad profound. My hammys were singing, and as anyone who’s experienced lower-back pain will tell you: Happy hamstrings are the secret weapon in defusing problems in that area.
I made the second of my week’s three trips to low resistance machines in Echo Park that morning. Upper-body musculature was the focus while on a device that mimics rowing. I felt the sun come out from behind a pine tree and shine straight down on my head. The lack of serious exertion was making me question whether this new approach was defining my strength potential downward. Were these Greenfield machines the easy way out?
The question felt profound.
Back on Sunset Boulevard, “Spotlight” by Fozzy had been pouring from the speakers above my head. Even at a lower aerobic setting, it was impossible to enjoy Susan Orleans’ elegant sentences and masterful way with narrative.
The days leading up to July 30 had gathered profundity like it was momentum. My reboot was the reason.
Eating can be an escape from really thinking and truly feeling. The McDonald’s and cheap pizza making its way out of me last weekend left something good in its place that I can’t yet categorize. On the morning of my birthday, one of the most important people in my life came out of a terrible and unexpected slumber. The feelings of relief and gratitude continue to be loud.
I did not check my goal weight and I am not sure when I will.
Fun fact:
I’ve committed to this tip ask in part because I find it hard to do. Tipping is something that I feel should be happening, on a labor level. At the same time, the ritual ask is slightly embarrassing and fundamentally something I am not interested in doing. So, this is training, on top of the other exercises... am I done yet?