On Saturday afternoon, I bound out of my apartment, anxious to press the reset button. A few seconds later, I inhale the smell of rubber and metal and new carpet as I walk into the gym next door.
I go to my usual spot, the corner on the second floor where there are large views of the parking lot across the street and the Capitol building up the road. There are new elliptical machines today, and I stop short.
I remember the delivery truck a few days ago now, outside my building, the shape of the logo, the name lost in my memory. I was walking home in high heels when I saw it, and the arches of my feet hurt from the recollection.
The new machines are much taller and I step onto one carefully. I press the “Start” button. Nothing happens. I press it again, three, four times. Nothing. I look around me. Everyone else is running and moving and sweating. I push the “Start” button on another machine. No better. I come back to my machine, push all of the buttons, push them sequentially over and over, as if the machine will magically wake up to my prodding. Nothing. Finally, I think to move my feet and the machine lights up with a message. I smile a little.
I’ve come in the middle of the Badger football game, and the score hasn’t changed since I left my apartment. I’m acutely aware that I am watching a dead man walking as the Badgers move across the field, quietly falling from their pedestal.
I notice there are only two guys in the room now. One is on the elliptical two machines over. The other is behind me, diagonally, pounding on a treadmill. They’re both wearing Badger red. The color bounces in and out of the corner of my vision.
After a few minutes my whole body is screaming for me to stop after staying up so late the night before. I want to crawl back into bed, so I push harder, fighting myself. Fighting the Badger’s losing score. I look past the television and out the window. It is cloudy out. Groups of people walk by below. I start to push harder and harder so that there are moments where I am only thinking of my body moving past its limits, where I am only thinking about breathing and nothing else.
After awhile I go into the aerobics room, grab a mat, and sit in front of the huge wall of mirrors, looking at my sweaty face without makeup. My cheeks are flushed the color of raspberries, and I bend my head down towards my knee, watching myself in the mirror. There is a small window in this room that looks onto the charcoal-colored bricks of the building next door, and a triangle of gray sky. I look at it from upside down, and wish it were sunny outside.
I rotate onto my back and watch the fan above me, turning slowly, the emblem “Big Ass Fans” written in large white block letters in the center. I wonder how “Big Ass Fans” exists in today’s world without a swarm of offended protesters. A woman is outside of the room and she is taking longer than necessary to put on a black hood, a pair of black gloves. I watch her in the mirror and don’t allow myself to switch positions until she leaves.
It is quiet, and my shirt is sticking to my back. I am done stretching, and sit on the mat just staring at myself. I wonder if there are cameras behind these mirrors, or if it is a two way mirror, someone watching me watch myself. I stand up, pick up my towel, press next on my iPod. I feel my legs and shoulders preparing to ache later on in the day.
I walk out of the building. I feel good. Like nothing can go wrong again. The kind of good that only comes when you push against yourself, and there’s you and no one else, and you win.