Inside and Out

As recounted elsewhere in this blog, to help my osteoarthritic hip, I joined the YMCA in July 2015, injured myself in October 2015, quit the Y when the pain in my hip was just too much to bear and rejoined the Y in July 2017, almost a year after the hip surgery, whereupon I promptly injured myself again, so I hobbled around Italy with a cane when I was there to celebrate my 60th birthday.

Suffice to say I've been a habitué of the YMCA on Grosvenor Street for the best part of the past three years. I spend a little bit more each month to get the Membership Plus package: a women-only workout area with a spacious locker room, dry and steam saunas, free grooming products and other perks including a largely child-free environment. Some weeks I go to the Y every day; other weeks not so much.

I go the the Y, but I do not "belong" to the Y. Those who do belong and who have the same membership package as me, are the doctors, nurses and other health care professionals who work at Women's College Hospital, just a half a block away on the other side of Bay Street.

These women have all been going to the Y - almost every day - since, I don't know, the dawn of time. They all know one another, share loud, personal conversations with one another across the confined space of the workout room and monopolize the showers, the saunas and the whirlpool. This is their space.

Signs posted throughout the Women's Plus locker room tell people they are not supposed to take pictures with their phones, which strikes me as a good rule. The Y is very body positive. Women of every size, shape and description unself-consciously roam around buck naked in the locker room. That would all be ruined if people were afraid someone might surreptitiously photograph them.

I certainly did not consider myself to be in violation of the rule when, sometime last year, I sat at a vanity in the near-deserted locker room and looked up a recipe on the Internet on my phone. I was going to shop on my way home and needed to know the ingredients for something I was going to make for lunch.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone coming up beside me. Thinking I might be in the way, I scooted over a bit. 

But I wasn't in the way. A woman I had seen many times before but had never spoken to admonished me for using my phone. She did not begin by saying "hi" or "I've seen you around a lot but never had the chance to introduce myself". She just scolded me, citing the rules against photography.

I protested my innocence. I was not using my phone to take pictures.

She was adamant. I didn't see any good reason to hold my ground, so I thanked her for setting me on the path of righteousness and left.

So this is how people say "hello" at the Y. 

Having not gotten off on the right foot, I still do not speak to the woman who scolded me, though I see her at least once a week. Her locker is ten feet from mine.

She most often hangs with another woman, with impressive red hair, who I also see frequently, and who is likely a doctor. From their conversations that are impossible not to overhear, I understand that they have known one another for many years. 

And of course, the other day, I looked over from my locker and saw the two of them, standing side by side, looking into their phones.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen