Next week, I’ll be granted a great honour; my local Y, Toronto’s Metro Central YMCA, is celebrating its fortieth anniversary with a ceremony and sit-down lunch, and has asked me to be the M.C.
Me! Asked to represent the Y members, although surely one of the least fit people in the room. Well, no, in comparison with some friends my age — 74 — I guess I’m pretty fit, thanks to the Y. But in comparison with the greyhounds and whippets in the Runfit classes I’ve attended for nearly thirty-five years, I’m at the back of the line. I’m not competitive, glad never to have been injured and to get through without pushing myself too much.
But I’m there. What’s miraculous is that regularly, I am there.
For many years, what has anchored and given structure to my freelance writing life, besides a teaching schedule and an occasional deadline, are those lunchtime classes at the Y. If possible, I try to be there Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, though Wednesdays at 12.30 is the one class I try never to miss. It’s Carole’s class. She’s been the volunteer teacher there for nearly all the years I’ve been attending, this phenomenal grandmother with the spirit of a 30-year-old. Seeing her lithe body and cheerful face as she leads us through our paces is inspiring. The other Runfit teachers, Tony, John, Margot, are inspiring too.
I’ve made many friendships in that gym, because the same people, like me, have been coming for years. My Y friendships matter deeply to me. The routine of getting on my bicycle by 11.50 to be in the gym by 12.30, once, twice, or three times a week, matters deeply to me.
And though I couldn’t be further from a marathon runner like Carole, my legs and lungs and soul are grateful for this regular workout. The Y has often felt like a lifesaver: friendships, contact, routine, and a bit of sweat, all from one friendly spot.
So I will be glad to M.C., to speak for the members and try to express how much the place means to us all.
Here is one of the concluding chapters of my textbook about creative writing, True to Life: 50 steps to help you tell your story. It was written before the news about the dangers of too much sitting came to light — so keeping yourself moving is even more urgent now.
Chapter 49: Cherish your body
What is this chapter doing here? Who am I to tell you how to care for the physical plant that envelops your brain? I’ll tell you who—once a cerebral, bookish kid whose only sport was ping-pong, then an adult who has never downhill skied. And yet not long ago I won the Senior Women’s division of my neighbourhood’s fundraising Mini-Marathon. Okay, the key word is “mini”—one mile—and my category was so slow that I stopped to tie my shoelace and still won. But the point is that a buzzing mind on feeble legs claimed a brief moment of sporty victory.
Writers are by definition not only solitary but immobile. Unless you are one of those rare writers—Dickens was one—who write standing up and pacing, your job is to sit, sometimes for hours a day. Your fingers are racing and your brain is overheated, but you are planted on a chair. One of the first rules of writing is BOC: bum on chair. That’s how the work gets done. But what happens to the bum?
And when the writer does take a break and rise, it is natural to eat, and, yes, to drink and smoke. We ink-stained wretches tend to lack restraint when it comes to addicting, mind-altering substances. Why is that? Perhaps the solitary, sedentary, and emotionally demanding nature of the profession, not to mention our financial vulnerability. And the fact that most of us begin to write because we are inordinately sensitive and sometimes even deranged to start with. We all know about great talents like Dylan Thomas, Dorothy Parker, and F. Scott Fitzgerald—brilliant creatures of excess who died far too young.
I have nothing to say about your alcohol or drug consumption (she said, downing her ubiquitous glass of wine). But here is a piece of advice about your lifestyle: Move. Move your body. Exercise is good not only for your heart, lungs, and blood, your muscles and your mood, but also for your brain. It keeps your mind fresh. It keeps your body alive, rather than just a husk under the head that the hands grow from.
For many years I have attended the same fitness class at the YMCA, where someone tells me what to do so I can waddle behind like a duckling. Sometimes I chat with the others, enjoying a moment of contact in a solitary day. But other times, as I jog around in silence, I’m hit by some of my most interesting ideas. Things fall into place; new takes on the work fly down from the Y’s brightly lit ceiling. I don’t even notice that I’m sweating and my hamstrings hurt. I am thinking, yes, but on the move.
Keeping fit also means that when the time comes to do a reading or embark on a speaking tour or, God forbid, appear on television, all of which successful writers have to do, you will look perky and not wheeze.
Exercise is my medicine.
david suzuki
A great message Beth, and congrats on the award.
What a lovely honour.
I’ll think of you when I head to my
Local YMCA tomorrow am.