Melting Pot

Why can't the world be more like the Y?

I go there three or four times a week now, as schedules permit, to walk on the treadmill, do a little light weight work, stretch, ride a bike, and have some coffee for the road (my favorite part of course!). It's a good place to be, a healthy place to be, a fun place to go where you know you're always welcome, the staff members smile when you come in and tell you goodbye when you leave. You feel welcome there.

There is healthy competition on the basketball courts this time of year. Gangs of would-be Michaels and Kobes tear up and down courts firing three-point shots and leaping for spinning slam dunks and then turn around and do it all again going the other direction. They battle fiercely, but in the end they all shake sweaty hands and go to the same showers and tell stories and laugh and go back home to their families. The play by rules, sometimes moderated by someone in a zebra-striped shirt, but sometimes not. Even when the whistle-blowing zebras are not there, everybody knows that there are rules to be followed. Of course there are rules to be followed. How could there be order and safety if there were no rules?

There are individuals, free spirits who do weird things with medicine balls, going up and down the spaces in between machines, dipping and crunching and crouching and flexing, up and down with that ball, up and down, then back up the aisle toward the front again. There are big strong men whose muscles bulge so much that you wonder how they can keep shirts. There are the old athletes whose heads still feel twenty but whose fifty year old bodies have betrayed them. They are still very much in the game, though they are a little wistful watching the Jordans flying on the basketball court next door.

There are the sick, the recovering, the partially lame, the post-stroke rehabbers, the post-cardiac-event guys, the amputees, the partially paralyzed young lady who transfers herself from wheelchair to weight bench as easily as the rest of us brush our teeth. There are the ones who have obviously had strokes, the ones who are young and robust and have their whole lives in front of them, and the ones who you wonder if you will see back here at all next week.

There are the staff, with their yellow t-shirts clearly identifying them as helpers, mentors, cleaners, folders of towels, coaches, cheerleaders, trainers, and motivators. They are quietly everywhere, making sure that things are safe, that things are clean , that everyone has access to everything they need, that everyone is caring for everyone at just the right level. They never get in your way or become intrusive, but if you want to talk, if you need a towel, or if you don't know how to use a machine, they are right there, ready to help you.

There are the ramps and the assistive devices, and the special purpose rooms and the pools and the saunas and the showers and the handicapped parking spaces and all the infrastructure that shouts "Come on in here, all of you, each and every one of you! It's easy to get in; it's easy to be part of this experience; we all love you here; there are no purposeful barriers here to keep you from being a part of us!" Everything points towards helping and assisting and including and being a part of something bigger than yourself, and helping others do that as well.

It just feels good.

Why can't the world be more like the Y?