I find my bike in the crowd and climb on. I knew this guy had a following because when I signed up there were only two bikes left- though the people on the bikes nearest to me never showed up. SoulCycle is an embarrassing relic left over from the optimism of the early aughts: think high-strung housewives of the Upper West Side, feverishly pedaling away their existential dread. Unfortunately I, too, maintain an unusually high level of existential dread and stubborn depression that only relents after strenuous exercise and properly taking my crumbs of Zoloft. When the sadness is extra sticky- I’ll pay any amount to have a professional hype man exorcise it for me. This is how I found Lamar.
A SoulCycle instructor is a modern invention: part fitness coach, part DJ, part positivity shaman. Their job is to curate the perfect playlist and instruct you in imagining you are climbing all these hills in the dark. The ones who build a following are the ones who believe in what they’re saying: if you give 100% in here, there’s no reason you can’t give 100% out there. In here being the womb-like safety of an artificial night: pushing your pedals in the red light of an exit sign to a thumping bass, next to a bunch of bitchy girls in pony tails whooping like they’re at a Taylor Swift concert. Out there is the real world, where if you try hard enough, all of this will translate. I can’t think about the bitchy girls or the artificial dark; there’s no time. I need to “turn the wheel”- manage my resistance so that I’m sweating as much as I possibly can. I need this experience to be as good as the absolute obliteration of a 12-hour rave, a total solar eclipse packed into a tidy 45 minutes.
Lamar cuts the lights. Lock in, he says. I buy it. He tells us to show love to the people next to us- I turn my head slightly to take the temperature of how mean the girl is next to me, she keeps her eyes straight ahead. Ah, yes. I laugh. We’re not here for that. I haven’t exercised in days and days and feel the cold of winter has returned to personally drag me back down under my skin. I can feel last night’s single puff of weed tugging at my eyes, begging me to keep them shut. I feel like I failed to accomplish anything this week. I’m trying to write a book. I just wish it would write itself. I wish it would just walk itself into the ocean. I am tired of forcing myself to be the most vulnerable version of me I can be. I thought I could just build an exoskeleton that would keep the lights on for me, so I could remain hidden for the rest of time. Unfortunately, I keep finding that this doesn’t work out quite so neatly. I keep finding myself holding the bag.
In the dark I go climbing. The music is mostly thumping house beats with a few recognizable bangers mixed in; it used to be different, it used to be a non-stop dance party- but I suspect there was some licensing argument and we ended up with this wordless shit. I can barely breathe but, determined to out bike the catty Karen next to me, I keep tempo. I recognize all my failings: I am mad petty, deeply lazy. I close my eyes. Lamar continues to espouse positivity and I try to let the sound of his confidence drive out my own despair. If you keep pushing, you will ascend. If you put your energy somewhere, you will get it back. I want to shrink the whole world down into a room like this- a synthetic drive, a positive man, pure effort in a singular battle of my own will- but how can you ignore a never-ending barrage of information at the gates? New stories, with their own bad actors, villains with their absolutely nefarious plans? No heroes in sight. I try to draw the world back to the boundaries of my own mind, my own sovereignty. I try to tell myself that if I just vanquish my own demons, I can have anything I want. I want to believe it.
I push through all 45 minutes and find myself somewhere closer to where I need to be which is calmer, wrung out, having scaled my own personal mountaintop. My face is red; I look like I’m about to drop dead. The crazy ladies beg Lamar to add one extra song, because it’s Friday. Wouldn’t it be great if we ended on Survivor? They chirp and holler like baby chicks. He demurs, saying he’ll ask corporate. I respect his time. I know this is, after all, just his job. The women are sad, their 45 minutes is up. I recognize, in this moment, that we will all pay practically any price for the guarantee of something as ephemeral as this specific feeling: absolute optimism, embodied, bordering on an endorphin-induced euphoria. The women here want to extend this feeling as long as possible: the feeling that if they just try hard enough, they can have anything they want.
***
Staring at myself in the endless mirrors before class I lamented my midsection, and then lamented my lamenting. I wondered how it is possible that even at my age I have been so sufficiently brainwashed to wish for a kind of ultimate slimness and smoothness- to wish every curve away so I could perfectly occupy the feminine ideal- this age-old, imaginary aesthetic that keeps me from being grateful and worshipping this vessel that has survived so much and even made a human one time- instead, just wishing it would disappear.
***
I looked up a photographer I used to work for to see how he’s been doing. He was always kind to me. His website embodies effortless cool, absolute sophistication and style. His work is with huge brands, with models, on location, in the streets- I’m not surprised at all, because he always seemed to know exactly where he was going and how to simply keep pushing himself in that single direction, until his paid work finally reflected what he’d envisioned for himself in his head. I don’t know exactly why but it’s never been that simple for me. I am, perhaps, too sentimental. Maybe I get caught up in all this needless philosophizing.
As much as I see his work and wish it were mine somehow, I also know that if it were me making that work and expending my energy in that direction, no matter how gorgeous or good or immaculate those images would be- I would be too close to it, dressing myself up in those frames like each was my costume and every day was Halloween. The costume would be full body and as opaque as a faceless harlequin. I don’t know why harlequin comes to mind: some kind of sixteenth century clown, dressed in an elaborate patchwork of fabric scraps. Do you understand now? I’m not balanced enough, in the head, to make that kind of work. I worked in film for a decade: we are a different breed. To me it is all so pretty and yet still emotionless and flat and alien. It is truly aspirational and still so far from the truth that I could never hold it in my hands. Wanting that work to be mine is tantamount to wishing my whole life, my family, my history- the force of my existence- entirely away. Weddings make me feel alive.
When we worked together, it was 2012; Jake and I sat at his tiny dining table eating our $12 Thai lunch specials. I tried to give him the briefest overview of my sob story: childhood cancer, dead dad- he hadn’t the slightest idea what to say. I don’t blame him- I was just trying to get it over with, coolly, I was trying to make it all a semi-tragic joke? But it ended up coming out forced and strange. Like an ugly, absurd sweater I was begging him to put on for no reason at all. We hailed from separate kingdoms, that might never intersect- but I was too young to totally understand that. The truth is, for many people, sad shit just doesn’t resonate with them. Well, they say with a shrug, that sucks! And then go on their merry way. They’re not wrong. But then again, neither am I.
I am still turning the wheel. I believe there’s room for all of us in here. This prismatic theatre of the living.
***
Quick TV Recaps:
The White Lotus - let’s be real guys, this season sucked! Not even Parker Posey could save this mess. It’s ok, I think Mike White will bring it back around. I will say that having a loose grip on the tenets of Buddhism doesn’t help anyone write a well-structured story: it typically works as an escape hatch, since you can always blame a lack of satisfying conclusions on theories of non-attachment. But that’s not really art, baby.
Common Side Effects - DON’T SLEEP ON THIS SHOW; talk about social commentary, high stakes, real action and very relevant ethical dilemmas.
The Pitt - Ok we got sucked in: the gore and the realness of this medical drama make for good TV, even if it’s in a throwback to the magical land of the Good Doctors versus the chaos of society and the Evil Business Hospital. I’m too young to remember if ER made this a central part of its plot lines. I wonder if Noah Wyle has played a doctor for so long he could, in fact, diagnose someone or perform CPR adequately. I truly respected the episode when he really had to pee, and no one would let him. Honestly, just like being a wedding photographer!
***
Thank you, as always for reading. I have a lot of stuff in the works that is lifting me up and dragging me down at the same time. I’ve been in Jordan Carlos’ sitcom writing class since the end of February and honestly it is more work than I meant for it to be. It’s all good though: spring is coming- it’s for real this time!! I really believe it.
xoxo