Weight Training

45+15+15 = 75

"That looks a little light for you, don't you think?"

I lower the bar and hinged at the hips, glance up to see Lauren, the blonde, lithe coach leaned against the squat rack, eyebrow cocked as she smiles at me.

I stand up, now looking down to her, "Are...are we not doing warm up sets now?"

"Oh my God," she laughs, an apologetic smile breaking out, "you're so right, I totally forgot."

"I nearly did too, promise I'll go heavier on the working sets." I say, stepping over the rack to grab more weights. The conditioning circuits have changed, fewer exercises encouraging us to go heavier and slower than before in our 50 minute sessions and I'm glad for it.

45+45+45+10+10 =155

Not my heaviest, my grip giving out before my legs do but I smile as the woman next to me laughs saying "Your warm up is my working set! That's so impressive!"

I look at myself in the mirror, bar in hand and I wish for the strength to carry heavy things. I wish for ability, for sturdiness and assuredness. I do not want to be a coward. I pick the bar up, I put the bar down.

New message: "What is WRONG with you!"

"What, com'on it's a beautiful movie!"

New message: "Sure, but the kind you only need to watch once. I couldn't handle watching it again."

I am walking to a showing of Grave of the Fireflies, sneaky tetrapak of sake in tow to the theatre. I sit in the second row, the rest of the crowd in the rows behind me. I love the seats in this old, independent theatre. They rock gently with plenty of legroom and the smell of all the time that has passed. I settle in, my head leaned against the back of the seat so the screen fills my entire field of view and I weep. The beauty of love, the horror of war and mass starvation washing over me in beautifully animated waves. My heart aches the entire walk home.

I knew I would cry going in, this somewhere around my 4th viewing of the movie but that has never stopped me. Crying for myself is difficult, but crying for the world, for humanity and love is second nature to me. I find myself seeking it out: the violence, the beauty, the despair and the ache. I do not want to turn away from the ugliness in the world, I do not want to be a fool. I pick it up and hold it, I set it back down. I pick up heavy things and keep them close to my chest, bit by bit able to handle more.

"I bet she could carry you there."

Laughs ring out across the sun-drenched street that our group is meandering up in the August heat. I glance over at my friend, "I could definitely pick you up but if my shitty knees give out we're both going down," said through a grin.

"You have messed up knees? I don't think I knew that, you squat pretty fuckin' heavy."

"I have floating patellas, and my tendons are a mess. That's why I gotta lift heavy, otherwise I wouldn't even be able to hold myself up."

A chorus of "ew" and "gross" makes its way through the group, smattered with laughs and more stories of degrading joints, the burden of aging in all its painful joy. Almost in confirmation, my knee twinges, seizing only for a moment as a decades old injury seeks to remind me that I will be locked in a battle with it for the rest of my life. An afternoon of loud laughter and patio drinks are enough to push the pain from my mind, if only for a while.

"William, is this book ever about anything other than child abuse?"

New message: "Look man, I told my wife I'd never recommend it to anyone and she's right I shouldn't have. But isn't it great?"

"It's incredible. But holy shit you can't go recommending this book to people."

New message: "I know. But I can recommend it to you."

I am sitting a brewery sometime in the dirty Toronto winter, my skin writhing as the beer in front of me is ignored for long enough that it is nearly room temperature. William is right, we both are drawn to the same kind of weird, the same kind of warped and unsettling art, the things that take your heart and squeeze, claws first. I started reading Earthlings at this bar and I will finish it in the same sitting, smothering gasps, holding back tears and feeling my cheeks flush not with drink but with seething rage. I will not recommend this book to you, but it is a book that lives in you, as passenger in your heart the second you're done. I seek out the heavy things and I carry them with me, a collection of impossible weight, kept like tchotchkes on a shelf in my heart.

Not everyone will lift heavy weights, not everyone wants to read and watch horror but you still need to move your body, to flex your empathy and understanding. I have noticed this shrinking, this avoidance of anything hard, anything slightly uncomfortable that I find alarming. I am not here to convince anyone that these things, be it literal or metaphorical weight is easy, but rather they're both important. I know the world is hard, it moves unbearably fast and violently but I implore you, sometimes seek out difficulty in safe times. If you are never upset or uncomfortable except when something is immediately happening to you, you will be unprepared, your system will be overloaded and shocked. Spending time with things that make you think, make you feel, let you writhe and weep in a time when you have the space to will help you show up for yourself and others when the weight of the world inevitably comes crashing down. It means being brave enough to face the world, face other people and their lives, it means not being so foolish as to think sticking your head in the sand changes the world and your role in it. I am not saying always, all things, the same I'd never insist you abandon all hobbies to go to the gym constantly, but I firmly believe in the importance of both physical and emotional weight training. The world will never get better if we don't bit by tiny, excruciating, bit help one another carry the heavy things.

Hello friends, thank you for still being here. Does your life ever absolutely get the better of you? Life, work, health has been all over the place the last couple months and I fell into a creative rut that I kept telling myself was actually just being busy and traveling and not breaking my promises to myself. This is hardly my favourite piece I've written but I need to stop letting that get in the way of making things, stop giving myself excuses to dismiss my own wants and goals. I don't necessarily want to write more this year, but I do want to write more consistently and I want to thank you for being here during my unplanned hiatus. I have a pile of drafts to work towards, a homebrew DND campaign and whatever else strikes my fancy. This is the year where all writing is good writing simply because it is, simply because it came out of me and I showed up for the work. So, all this to say, I apologise if the quality, genre or anything else is a little all over the place in the coming weeks and months but your support means the world. Quick, someone pick a number between 1 and 7 and that will be the next draft I finish!