Tags
aquafit, cancellations, closures, depression, Dickens, friends, Holidays, pool, Scrooge, swimming, The Christmas Carol, weather
I am amazingly disappointed this morning. I got a call at a quarter to 8 from the Magnificent, Outstanding — Albeit Tough — Aquafit Instructor, Sue, telling me that the pool was closed! Closed! Closed? Obviously there would be no class. Usually if this happens it’s because one of the little kids has accidentally pooped in the pool. But, hey, on Sunday morning there are no kids. So who knows what the story is. I only know that we didn’t have our class. I’m sure you think I am a little wonky to feel sad for missing an 8:20 am Sunday-morning, Shouldn’t-I-Be-Sleeping-In class. But, hey, it’s how I have begun my Sundays for years now. And I don’t like not having it one bit. I mean I already had to abstain for six weeks while Harriet healed enough not to have to worry about an infection from self-same pool. Now I’ve been back in the groove for a month or so and I don’t want my schedule messed up over a closed pool!
And also, besides the amazing workout I would have had in this aquafit class, it’s just a great group of people who are there. They are kind, generous, funny as anything and very, very interesting. I like hanging out with them for an hour or so on a Sunday morning. Some of them are the same folks who took care of Harriet and me when we were house-bound and couldn’t move beyond a half-block distance from Margaret’s on Major Street. It seemed that whenever Harriet’s and my spirits had sunk to the lowest possible point, when we stopped believing that this recovery would ever happen, one of these folks or a pair of them would show up at the door with food and candy and conversation and friendship and little gifts to keep us going. These are outstanding women and human beings and I like meeting up with them on Sunday mornings since it’s the only time I’ll see many of them. Phooey.
I blame this whole closed-pool kerfuffel on The Holidays. I can’t blame it on the weather since we are having spring like temperatures and not a smidgen of snow or ice on the streets to bollox things up. Actually that’s not true. I could blame the grey overcast days. (Or should I say gray? One is English spelling and the other American. I use them interchangeably much to the chagrin of my editor.) Whatever spelling you like, the meaning is the same — dull, dreary, drab, depression-provoking days. Last week, we had a whole day of sun — not just the two hours we had this morning. It was magnificent. People stopped one another on the street just to say, “Isn’t this sun wonderful?” I felt healthier, happier and even Harriet didn’t hurt so much. But then the grey dropped in once again and hasn’t left us with another whole day of sun since.
So maybe what’s going on is a combination of the blahness from the grey days mixed with the enforced joyfulness of the impending holiday when everyone but everyone is supposed to be cheerful, happy, loving and, of course, generously giving to others. I understand Scrooge’s Bah Humbugs on days like this. Maybe in his smoggy, coal-burning London of the 1800s, he was just in a blue funk and irritated by all those carol-singing, cheerful people. He wasn’t a bad sort — just down from all that grayness. After all, in all the versions of The Christmas Carol that I’ve seen, the sun is always shining on Christmas morning after his ghostly visitors have left. Maybe all Scrooge needed was some sunshine to make him all cheerful and generous all year long.
Well, in reality, the pool closure most certainly had nothing to do with any of the above. It was probably something mundane like a life guard partying too hard last night and not showing up and doing the water tests required for the likes of us to have our class. So instead of just complaining about it, I guess I’ll just hunker down in this grey/gray day, turn on a lot of lights and play cheerful music and hope for the best.
Annie's Odyssey 