Exercise: A Journey

“When I’m writing I know I’m doing the thing I was born to do.” –Anne Sexton

When I started in a new private school in tenth grade, a really bad time to start a new school, the one thing I achieved that felt good was being on the girls’ soccer team. It was the first girls’ soccer team in New Jersey and we were a feisty, if not a highly skilled group. But we got better. One day my mother came back from the grocery store and said some strange woman had accosted her at the checkout line and went into raptures about how fast I was.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were playing soccer?”
“You wouldn’t have come to any games,” I said.
“Well, maybe not but she said you were very good.”

photo by Donny Cocacola

I’m not sure that was true but I am sure that playing soccer made me feel powerful and happy. I loved to sweat and found relief from the constant feelings I had of dread and anger. When I worked out my mind cleared. I climbed the White Mountains with my best friend and when we descended during a thunderstorm we found ourselves in a valley with a group of drunk Hell’s Angels, eager to share their whiskey. Climbing out the next day with a hangover and too little to eat or water caused us both to hallucinate but we made it to our next hut. While I was an addict, I was also an athlete. How that manifests in a teenage alcoholic who adds drugs to the mix is something I find baffling yet a source of pride. I was the girl at the house party who rose at seven to run through the suburbs. The fact that I got totally lost was besides the point. When I went to Trinity College Dublin I enrolled in a modern dance class which required my attendance after a wild night with poteen provided by my Irish boyfriend. I rose on time, rode my bike to the studio, and only felt the effects of the previous evening when I saw myself doubled in the mirror and wondered whether I had been poisoned.

Living in New York City after graduation I cycled through the madness of 1980’s era aerobics. I had teachers that screamed at you when you missed a step or, in one studio, got too far from your assigned part of the floor. As my depression deepened I ran more, finding that movement was the only thing that made it possible to survive. After I got sober, I started to race in Central Park and hike with a group called Outdoor Singles that was meant to be a chance to meet someone but all I wanted to do was hike. I was training for a half-marathon with a friend when he told me he’d forgotten to enter us into the race. That meant I could keep my running below ten miles which was a relief. We ran through Central Park at midnight on New Year’s Eve, celebrating with water while others drank champagnes.

When I lived in a Buddhist monastery I fell into the clutches of an Iyengar yoga teacher who told me I had “fat feet” and tried to introduce straps, blocks, and other things into my routine. When he tried to kiss me, I pushed him out of my car. I was commuting to the Buddhist monastery and told my Buddhist mentor he was a creep. He didn’t seem surprised but was irritated that his yoga teacher was on the side of the road somewhere.

Fast forward to baby, mommy yoga, swimming, walking, and then moving with then husband to Dallas, Texas where I joined a gym and one day walking on the treadmill next to Anthony Hopkins we watched a tornado, like a cartoon, scuttle across a distant plain. He was unimpressed.

In Chicago where I moved with then husband I joined a gym with a class that was so hard I always wanted to throw up. I was older, fatter, and slower than the others but I didn’t care. Endorphins were my reward. I tried CrossFit briefly, but after a few classes the joy of flipping massive tires and being yelled at faded. I began taking six-day bike trips, starting on a bicycle I borrowed that was a Lance Armstrong prototype which I had no business riding. After a few years I was able to do seventy to eighty-five miles a day without dying.

Injuries? I broke my shoulder, my elbow and in a non-athletic accident I broke my leg very badly, forcing me to refrain from walking for three months. That was awful. Oh, I also cracked my kneecap.

And now? Swimming. I attend Masters three mornings a week, rising at five-thirty to drive into the gym where my lane mate is eighty-two and has already been swimming for an hour. She is remarkable and inspiring. I am slow and probably would cause other less charitable Masters swimmers to feel I lack talent, but this morning I clocked one point three miles and took a weight class after that. I heard on the radio this morning that exercise helps keep dementia at bay and is also essential.

Like writing, I am able to accept my limitations and keep going. This is the secret to both. Unlike writing, I don’t feel any pressure to be the best. Both of these parts of my life have profoundly affected my ability to live. Do I love the effort required? Not always. At times I feel victimized by my own self-discipline and recognize that I am, even now, a competitive and driven person, like the fifteen-year-old girl running down the field with a soccer ball at her feet.

—Molly Moynahan