Trepidation and Treadmills

The poet John Donne talks about “trepidation of the spheres” and, I was thinking last night after settling Charlie in bed, that there’s been some trepidation in our little corner of the cosmos. This whole business of adolescence combined with an ongoing growth spurt has made our daily routine well, “interesting-er“: A neologism, but maybe that’s the best way to describe the latest chapter of life with Charlie.

Throw in the fact that the holiday season is upon us, with Thanksgiving tomorrow and a half-day of school for Charlie and no school on Friday, a recipe for potential not-so-peaceful-easy-feeling-ness. A distinct air of deep tiredness seemed to haunt my college classes; I watched a couple of students, wearing floppy gray sweats, yanking their suitcases onto the van that shuttles them to the train station. With no classes on Wednesday, all minds seemed fixed on one thing, the upcoming holiday and free time to sleep.

We lowkey holidays and “special events” around here. Past attempts to make elaborate calendars and talk to Charlie about the upcoming disruptions in the usual routine have not always helped and sometimes seemed only to increase his anxiety level. Our Thanksgiving is going to be very quiet—I’m cooking just for the three of us—and the only thing we want to make sure to get in is a good bike ride.

Even though we’re not making a fuss about the holidays, plenty of people, of course, are, and I’m sure the mood, the excitement, and the noise level have been up at Charlie’s school. He’s been more sensitive to noise these past two days (and has been doing more stomping himself). As it’s been colder, his teachers have been taking him for walks in the hallways rather than outside and I’m wondering if that’s enough of a release for all of his energy.

Keeping which in mind, I mentioned going swimming Tuesday afternoon to Charlie. He hurried off to get his swimsuit; I checked the YMCA schedule just to make sure and found that, due to swim practice, none of the big pools are open during the weekday for Charlie to swim in until February. They are open on the weekends but it’s during the weekdays, when Charlie’s in school, that the calming effects of swimming are particularly important. As the woman at the YMCA desk noted about Charlie when I sighed about the pool’s new hours, “He really needs it, doesn’t he?” “Oh yes,” I said, and thanked her.

And had an idea.

We’re fortunate that our YMCA has more than one location and Charlie and I went to the one which has only a 3 1/2 foot pool for him to swim in (and waterslides, and a wading pool—-fun, but not real exercise like swimming back and forth in the deep end). Charlie seems to need vigorous aerobic activity and so I decided to take him to the fitness room and try out some of the machines.

This small decision resulted in some immediate changes to Charlie’s and my usual YMCA routine. We had to stop in the locker room to leave my bag, as we couldn’t take it into the fitness room. I coaxed Charlie to leave his coat and just as he was pulling it off, a little girl jumped on a bench and started counting in a rather high voice. Charlie cried out really loudly. We got ourselves into the fitness room and beheld a row of exercise bikes. I sat on one and pedaled and asked Charlie to, and he did, after a few minutes of “no.” Once he was done after about 30 seconds, no suasion could get him to sit down again. I saw two empty treadmills next to each other and we made our way over to them. I stood on one; Charlie didn’t; there were no’s; there was Charlie running at full speed out of the fitness room.

He stopped just outside the entrance and followed me back in. I modeled getting onto the machine and he did so, and stepped off. I got on again and held the two bars on the side and started walking. After a minute or two more, Charlie grasped the handles, pulled himself up, and walked. After 10 seconds, I leaned over and pushed the “Quick Start” button and Charlie looked down, with interest, at the moving surface under his feet. For almost 2 minutes, he walked. I walked on the treadmill beside him, uttering numerous words of praise.

At the end of 2 minutes, Charlie stopped walking and let the treadmill pull his feet to the edge, and  jumped off. I turned off his machine and mine.

“Good job,” said the man who was on the machine next to Charlie.

Sometimes a little shaking up of things is needed; is good.

Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears;
Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.