A few months ago I did something that scared the crap out of me: I joined a gym.
Luckily, my eighth grade PE teacher isn’t there, yelling at me with her megaphone to run the mile. Instead, my gym in Lynnwood is friendly, bright and easy to navigate. It only costs $30 a month which seems like a bargain. Plus, it has a pool, which I’ve never been brave enough to enter, but I like knowing it is there.
The only thing that bothers me is the artwork. All around the facility are inspirational pictures of exceptionally fit people in their 20s. Almost all of them are white.
I’m not sure what the politically-correct reaction to these murals should be. Are they a subtle form of racism? Ageism perhaps? Are they a fictional-bordering-on-mythical representation of health? Are white people in their 20s striking yoga poses supposed to inspire me to sweat more?
As it turns out, young white girls in sports bras do not motivate me. What I find inspirational is that the other people at the gym reflect a wide range of ages, skin colors and ability levels.
Take my favorite Zumba class for example. At 37, I am one of the youngest participants. Many of my fellow classmates are Asian-American women in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, shaking their booties to the beat. Plus there’s a retired Boeing engineer in the group who dances like no one’s watching. Anytime I feel like passing out from exhaustion, I grit my teeth. “I must keep up with the Baby Boomers — especially the gray-haired lady with the barbed-wire arm tattoo,” I think.
I haven’t even described the most hard-core Zumba dancer. There’s one woman of an undetermined older age who completes the entire class dancing with hand weights. I have no idea how she does it, but I am in awe of her stamina.
Sometimes when class is over, I stumble into the cardio area and see a lady hunched over a walker head toward the pool. On mornings when I wake up and consider skipping the gym I feel ashamed. “If she can exercise in spite of her challenges, I can too,” I think.
I am not an artist, an interior decorator, or a corporate executive for a national chain of gyms, but I do have an imagination. If I was in charge of painting gym murals, I would have a difficult time picking models. There would be so many awesome examples to choose from.
I’d definitely paint someone from the Silver Sneakers crowd. They’d be right next to a person with some weight to lose who was working really hard at it. Plus I’d include lots of people who were Asian American. The more diversity the better! And okay, a 20-year-old blond girl could be painted too. After all, everyone deserves a place to sweat.
Jennifer Bardsley lives in Edmonds. Her book “Genesis Girl” comes out September 27, 2016.
Find her online on Instagram @the_ya_gal, Twitter @jennbardsley or at teachingmybabytoread.com.
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