Rec Center Fauna

I love the fauna at my community rec center. They’re all sizes, but I like the small ones best. They hold their parents’ hands, wear chunky sneakers, and exude a daydreamy panache. They're what draws me to exercise lately.

I took a break from the gym during Covid, when the place took staggered appointments and got lonely. I walked outside with the rest of the people around here instead. But arms will get noodley and legs shaky after a while, so I hauled my gym bag back over there recently and found a nice surprise. The place was alive.

The big brick building once again inhaled and exhaled interaction among the small, large, young, and older. Now when I show up to work on my noodle arms, a parade of amusement passes in front of me. I stare or spy, and I never know what treat is in store.

I mostly take this people-watching in from the drudgery of the rotating steps of the Stairmaster. By the time I finish my workout, I’ve been entertained and accomplished a fitness goal. The rec center is a comedy, drama, a curiosity, and accountability partner rolled into one.

This is what I mean:

First, the best entertainment comes from the kids.

The solitary Stairmaster machine at my rec center faces a big wall of windows which look out onto a circular common area. This busy spot links classrooms, exercise studios, and racquetball courts. The elevators are here, and vending machines. You can imagine the action in such a space. Sometimes it’s even more than that.

The rec center has a summer program called ‘Jr. ROCS’, which stands for Rec Centers Offer Cool Stuff. I don’t know about all the cool stuff, but the participants I can vouch for. They are incredibly cool, and they are found in abundance in full view of my tedious cardio machine.

The kids arrive to the program in a variety of moods. One girl is extremely bouncy in her dress which in adult clothing would be sold as funny pajamas, but in kids’ attire—as I’m learning through the window—anything goes. I watch as she hops and skips alongside her mom while holding hands, the trinkets flying every which way from the zipper on her backpack. Her hair is flopping around. Her face is ready for anything. She’s a peppy song in a kid body. I love her madly.

On the other hand, the boy arriving shortly after her with his dad is subdued, or maybe gearing up for the tasks ahead with seriousness. Or maybe still a bit asleep? It’s hard to tell, but the closeness is palpable between father and son, and this grabs my heart.

This boy, too, is weighted down with a big backpack, as all the kids are. They make me feel good about myself. When I go somewhere, I also carry the same size backpack that these kids cart around, having packed it with what I call my ‘diva necessities’, but I’m twice their size. Does that mean I’m only half the diva I fear I am? I will take that.

Other kids arrive. One boy is walking just fine, but as he reaches the wide-open door of his classroom, he instantly squats low, tucks his hands into his armpits, starts flapping his elbows like chicken wings, and then proceeds to hop on his folded legs and feet like a frog: a chicken-frog. In this manner he enters the classroom with a huge grin on his face, while his mom lugs his backpack in behind him.

Why would I ever stop going to the gym if I can see this kind of thing?

If I’m lucky, as kids need a bathroom break, a program instructor will lead a handful through the common area. This is when the kids will stop dead in their tracks to stare through the window at those of us in the gym. They’re six or seven years old, and whisper to each other while looking straight into my eyes, so I’ll do a little friendly wave. I assume they want to be friends with me as much as I want to be friends with them.

But they just keep whispering and staring. It’s as if the glass wall that separates us is a buffer to acting with manners. That’s what I think at first, but then it dawns on me that in truth I’m an animal in a zoo cage to them. So, I’m forced to ask: who is observing whom?

While the kids are my favorite show at the rec center, there are other indulgences. For example, the scene at the pool is robust and will distract any monotony my lap swimming always produces. There’s Bob who takes his time walking with great care and effort from his car to the locker room to the pool, and then mostly hangs out at the end of his lap lane to chat with whoever pauses at the ends of the neighboring lanes during their laps.

Depending on how you view him, Bob’s either an inconvenience or a cheer-maker of the utmost.

Then there are the sleek high school divers. They bunch together in the dive area, waiting in line for their turn on the springboard, from which they dive again and again, because practice makes perfect. They don’t offer too much in the way of entertainment other than they do repeats of a feat I can’t wrap my mind around. So, I push through the water and gawk at their acrobatics.

The divers are in stark contrast to the older folks far on the other side of the pool who stand together in the shallow area to move through their water calisthenics. While age and fitness would seem to be the thing of great difference between these two groups, it’s more about how they socialize. I don’t know why the divers are so reticent, but I’m guessing it has something to do with concentration. The water exercisers, though: chatty.

Their chattiness continues into the locker room afterwards. This is one of my favorite happenings at the rec center. I crane my ears to eavesdrop on their conversations while I dress and shower. I learn about unknown grandkids, husbands, and friends. It pushes vibes of companionship into the air and helps to make the center what it is: an important meeting spot.

But anything can happen at the rec center, and the other day it did. Right in the middle of the common area a woman fell onto the floor and then didn’t get up. Folks started to circle around her as she lay grounded. They got down on hands and knees. They held her hand or placed a hand on her shoulder. Eventually the center’s staff came down with medical kits and were able to move her to a more comfortable area. All the while, children weaved past the commotion trailing their parents, eyes glued to the unusual event before them.

You would see this kind of concerned response anywhere, to be sure, but it fleshes out the kind of space a county rec center is—a communal building that houses the stages of life.

You will see babies in the kiddie pool. You will see the munchkins I especially love to watch, with their tie dye dresses and Minecraft shirts. You will see the teens congregate around the barbells, swapping memes on their phones in between sets. You’ll see folks like me, trying to keep healthy. You’ll see some folks make such a huge effort to traverse the parking lot, from car to front door, that you know how special this one building is to them.

On a recent visit to the gym, I labored on the Stairmaster as usual, and watched the day’s show. A pack of kids were led by an instructor past the gym's bank of windows. The little fellow in the front of the pack stopped at the windows, then started to walk in slow-mo, trailing the tip of his one index finger along the wall, as if etching a painstaking line the way the Colorado River did for the Grand Canyon.

Meanwhile, the girl coming along behind him had the good sense to start hopping on the tiled floor with such precision as to not step on any lines. This one simple act became a behavioral virus which those behind her caught. Within moments, there was a swarm of drunken grasshoppers hopping between the lines. Amidst this chaos here was the first fellow still carving his line into the wall, step by step, staring hypnotized at me.

I stared back in my own hypnotic state, feeling a well of gratitude build inside me. So many beautiful creatures to behold, here and anywhere. All I could think was, “I love you, World.”