Theory of Gym Relativity

My trainer tells me I've been doing it all wrong. I'm losing my mind-muscle connection, he yells. He comes with all sorts of accolades so I'm supposed to be listening to his dissertation on physiology. He explains the muscle fibers of intelligent people are smoother than the not-so-smart and he says my muscle fibers are extremely smooth, like butter. I think it's a lie to get me to pay attention and its working because I want to be smart. "Look in the mirror and focus on the muscle and flex." It feels so egotistical and contrived. Check me out, flexin' my guns. All this narcissism makes me want to throw up. He's trained the LA Kings and Denver Broncos so there's hope I'll be a linebacker or hockey player one day. Shit, how do I tell him I can't even ice skate. 

We're mice in a giant maze in this gym. I look around at all these silly contraptions and gadgets. So many people just wasting time. Everyone making up artificial things to do so that they're bodies don't go sedentary. Take these huge ropes, jump on this box...no a bigger box, here's a giant heavy ball, take this bar and pull it up like this, now get on this hamster wheel and go nowhere for 6 miles. If only they knew the luxury. Everywhere I travel around the world it seems like people are lean and ripped. Shredded. Not out of choice but necessity from a combination of hard labor and lack of food. The Developing World is plagued with deficiencies while the First World is brimming with excess and gluttony. 

We're all in this gym because we're bitches and whiners. We're not enough of who we want to be. It will never be enough. Everyone in here wants to be something else. We want to be thinner. We want more muscle mass. We want to build and tone. We want a lower body fat percentage. Hours go by. Countless repetitions are done. I just did 155 lbs of 5 sets and 15 reps of something I'll never remember. What the hell does it all mean? It feels like the physics I haven't used since college. And am I really ever going to lift 60 lbs above my head in this fashion, with just one leg in the air while balancing on a bosu ball? Maybe...if I have to outrun a tiger and my only escape will be a floating beach ball in a pond which I'll have to carefully perch myself atop with the one good leg that the tiger didn't chew off, all the while carrying a 60 lbs baby gazelle above my head that I need for food later. Everything is relative and anything is possible.  

I think about all the families I've passed on my morning run in foreign lands. They're pulling rickshaws and pushing heavy carts and I distract them with my bright annoying shoes. Nike screams look at me. I run for luxury. What an asshole! Every time I get on a Stairmaster, I think of the families I've seen carrying heavy bushels of food on their heads through treacherous steep mountainscapes. And here I am, just struggling on these pretend stairs to get the look of emaciated hard labor. I feel like Sisyphus...rolling the boulder uphill every day for eternity. I'm trying my damnedest to build a sweat but the fan is blowing on me and I'm bitching again. It's too cold. I can't perspire. I'll deal with it while I watch this television in front of me. Good god, there's a television in front of me; a carrot dangling from a string and I'm just a rabbit. But it's not very enticing if the carrot is Fox News. Now I have to pause from the sweat I can't work up to get a gym employee to turn the channel because watching Fox News on a Stairmaster elongates the passage of time. My 30 mins on stairs will feel like 6 hours. Special Relativity. Amazing, I get to use relativity theory after all. 

I look at all these people wandering aimlessly while proselytizing on to the next new thing. It should be noted that anyone working out with Beats headphone is immediately disqualified from the intelligentsia. Beats cans to the gym are what leg warmers were to 1982. This bewildered herd persuaded to look silly with ill-fitting earmuffs, jumping on the bandwagon of propaganda from their favorite athletes in slow motion put to the sound of a heavy kick drum in some random commercial. At least when I wore leg warmers, I was 7. I'm going to deduce that people who wear Beats cans in the gym have really rough, coarse muscle fibers.  

All hope is not lost. I always finish a workout with 15 minutes in the steam room. We've concocted a room to emulate what I feel when I'm entering the edge of the jungle. That stifling air that's like breathing pea soup while sweat drips from every pore in my body. In the jungle we say "it's hot today" or as I like to refer to it... “103 degrees with 91% humidity." This manufactured room was built as a replica of something that occurs naturally and it's my favorite time in here. It feels like my other home in the Philippines. That 120 minute stretch of time where every muscle in my body is screaming for help as I'm carrying a 40 lbs sack of provisions through the jungle and up to my uncle's mountaintop as I carefully try not to swat the bee whose 5 ft. tall hive will devour me if I piss him off. It's where I fear disrupting the macaques in the treetops and I'm hoping that cobra I once ran into is busy doing something else elsewhere. It reminds me of the birds of paradise whose song echoes through the jungle near dusk. It reminds me that my uncle is probably hungry. It reminds me of purpose.        

This gym is so much of everything I diametrically oppose ethically...vanity, superficiality, self-admiration, ego and yet I come nearly every day like clockwork, alongside Sisyphus and Narcissus and much like the sheepdog who relieves Wile E. Coyote from his shift. It just comes with the territory. But I do it because I have the fortune and misfortune of being born on the part of the globe that doesn't require me to hunt and gather. This is how I lead my daily fight against superabundance and an insatiable sweet tooth. Unfortunately, it also means I must endure the vanity and conceit of Los Angeles gym life. It is based on the fear of becoming the American standard of type II diabetes heart disease. While I struggle for the look of poverty, I never forget that my Third World counterparts are dreaming of a hamburger and wishing they were fat. All things are relative. 

Aira

An ominous cloud is a pleasing sign that rain is imminent. She always wants to play in the rain. It’s the tropical Third World version of a warm bath. She’s the epitome of what brings me back to the Philippines. One of the countless little people…pure in heart and selflessly emanating love. Most of the kids are just like her. Virtuous. Immaculate. Nonpareil. The absurd notion that they are born in sin always infuriates me. They are perfection yet to be tainted with barren ideologies and bad habits of flawed men. Aira yearns to do what she’s told. She’s eager to see what the world has to offer and dreams of going to Cebu City as if it’s a mystical magical place. Little does she know, it’s an overpopulated, godforsaken wasteland with nothing to offer. I’ve just spent 24 hours in flight and still her village is 3 hours from any real city. Visiting means I must forego all of the luxuries of my world…a real bed, electricity and running water in exchange for bamboo, moonlight and rainwater. But the felicity of small smiling faces is far greater than any comforts of the west.

When I hand Aira a piece of bread, she always gives it to her little brother first, without vacillation. When she sees a small child crying, she will give it whatever she has to pacify… her only peso, her hair tie, anything. When I had a bout with dengue fever, she routinely and concernedly whispered thru the makeshift fence while standing in the rain…Mommy Lani, okay ra? Are you okay?

Insensitive and merciless adults with nothing to do always tease her saying she doesn’t have a mother. She will be the first to tell you her mother larga, or left, on a bus. Buses are synonymous with her mother’s egress. She can explain that mama’s gone to Kuwait to make money for her family and that’s also what she wants to be when she grows up. How can you dream to be an exodus, I wonder. I don’t tell her the reality; that her mother is a servant to an affluent Arab and subject to a hellacious life of slavery. She’s been gone 5 years now and who knows when or if she’ll ever be back.

She sees me coming from a mile away and with her, I hear a dozen words start buzzing from afar “Mommy Lani! Mommy Lani! Mommy Lani!” A few boys always put a twist to my name “Mamaay Lanaay!” I have no kids and yet I have so many kids here that I begin to think my first name is Mommy. With them comes the double patter of their flip flops like running horses coming to a slow trot. There are 20 children now, each lining up to give me the blessing. Amen. Amen. Amen. My right hand to their forehead. It’s the utmost sign of respect here. The continual ritual called Mano Po that happens just from walking down the street in this small village. I always wonder how they know I’m coming and suspect that my blondish brown hair is the dead giveaway. But even in the lightless night they just know.

THEY’RE ALWAYS EAGER TO TELL ME I’M FAT. TO ME, AN INSULT; TO THEM, A COMPLIMENT.

“Tambok Fat!”, they exclaim and smile waiting for my return praise but my western ways can only conjure up a half-smile. Although I’m only 110 lbs. being fat means you can afford to eat, and that’s a luxury. They always want to eat with me and probably envision a cornucopia of Filipino food riches. Meat is for the wealthy and I’m sure they secretly hope for an array of carne, so they must be disheartened by my emphasis on vegetables. Regardless, I share until there’s nothing left because they're eager to share with me whatever they have. Sometimes a star apple, sometimes a banana, and sometimes just to hold their hand.

IN OUR MARKET, I OFTEN ENCOUNTER AN ELDERLY WOMAN WHO TRIES TO GIVE ME HER TWO GRANDCHILDREN.

She speaks to me in a way I know she’s rehearsed many times…wala na mama ug papa. No mama and papa she pleads. She explains that their mother ran off with a foreigner and the father stepped on a bone in the cemetery, contracted tetanus and died. Kapoy kaayo. So tired, she says with sincerity. I want to take the children. All the children. And then I start imagining building a structure to house these interminable babies and my bubble bursts when it reaches titanic proportions as I do the math. That’s the commonplace reality of the Philippines.

THIS ISN’T A PLACE OF RAGS TO RICHES HAPPY ENDINGS, AND SO FEW FILIPINOS VOW TO CHANGE THIS PLACE. IT’S A COUNTRY YOU HOPE TO LEAVE AND YOU BECOME PROUD OF ONLY BECAUSE YOU’VE ESCAPED. 

Aira is also my mountain guide who lives deep in the jungle. She shows me all the plants I can eat and tells me how to use them…good for sabaw soup, good with isda fish. Though I’m skeptical, I always discover that everything she says is unfailingly true. She randomly picks up flowers, leaves and strange pods to tell me what kind of medicine they’re used for…headache, stomachache, muscle pains. She fascinates me to no end and she’s so happy to tell me what I don’t know.

ONCE SHE TOLD ME IN HER LANGUAGE, “MOMMY LANI, YOU DON’T KNOW VERY MUCH.” SHE’S RIGHT.

She gives me directions in the most irreproachable fashion; “Take a right at the mango tree” and “When you see the tall mahogany, we’re almost there.” She’s connected to the earth and once explained the circle of life as: the eagle will eat the cobra; the cobra will eat the rats and the rats will then become food for the eagle so be kind to the rats so that we can enjoy watching the eagle soar.

Usually tied to her side with a simple rope is a bolo knife that’s almost the entire length of her leg. She can climb a coconut tree in 20 seconds flat. But since Aira is only 7, she also tells me ‘saba’, or be quiet when we’re walking past bamboo because the Sigbin lives there and it would be rude to disturb them. Sigbin is a mythical fairy gnome creature. I pretend she’s right because every time I walk through the jungle with her, it’s an adventure.

I return because of the Aira’s. I return for transformation. I return here because I want something better for my people. Not just the substandard dreams of obesity and electricity. It pains me to see a 75 year old woman or a 5 year old child doing back-breaking labor. The pig son of a bureaucratic pig in a neighboring town once told me they like to do it. He also told me everyone in his country owns a television and that’s all they need in life. I wonder what world he’s living in. When I told him the majority of people in the Philippines actually don’t have that luxury, we argued while he fumbled with his Nikon D5, unsure of what any of the buttons were but said “My Daddy got it for me from a trip to the US.” Daddy is some arbitrary government official in the nearby Podunk town. Every town has a group of him and they’re what’s wrong with the islands. These fat cat bureaucrats are usually the only ones awarded passports by the Philippine government because they know they’ll always return to their place of comfortable lucrative corruption.

I CONTAINED MY URGE TO PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE BUT SMILED AND KINDLY OFFERED TO HELP WITH HIS CAMERA WHILE I CHANGED ALL HIS SETTINGS TO RUBIX CUBE FASHION….SOMETHING HE SURELY COULD NEVER FIGURE OUT JUST AS HE CAN’T FIGURE OUT THE MISFORTUNE THAT SURROUNDS HIM.

Walk on Water

They always want to know what its like to walk a mile in my shoes. Literally. They ask what my Nikes feel like and can they try them on. Everyone wants to try them on. It’s a strange anomaly in the Philippines; this land of trademark infringement where everyone from the shopkeeper to the bicycle taxi driver puts a Nike swoosh on their property...and yet most of them have never even seen Nikes up-close.

They stand around and stare like an alien just landed on my feet until I'm overcome with guilt because of these damn shoes. It doesn’t help that they’re a lurid fuchsia. They’re oblivious to the fact that they’re made not far away by underpaid and overworked Indonesian counterparts. Even still, there's great mystique surrounding this fabric and rubber on my feet. They call them Nikes with a silent e. They show me their swoosh, it's on the wall right next to the statute of Mother Mary...right there, painted on an old piece of wood. Holy.   

Its origins come from basketball and the West and it has the power to stop an old man and his grandson pulling a rickshaw as I run up a steep and winding mountain road. They’re both fixated on my feet. I offer a good morning “Maayong buntag!” and it’s as if they don’t hear me. I’m annoyingly American as it appears my shoes are punching their monochromatic cart with hues they’ve never seen before. I ask if I can help pull their rickshaw but they think I’m nuts. Who helps someone pull a rickshaw? Stupid American girl with her bright Nikes. 

I pass a group of young boys who’ve just purchased a can of paint to decorate the flat board on their bicycle taxi with a Nike swoosh. They’ve commissioned their friend with the steadiest hand to make an outline. In my inquisitive Western way, I ask “What does it mean to you?" They reply by telling me that Nikes are very nice. Very very nice. I ask why and he asks if he can try mine on. When I put my shoe against his, my 6.5 feet are clearly diminutive in comparison. Again, he asks if he can try them on. I have to explain that they won’t fit but still he wants to try them on so I weirdly pass one over. He forces his foot in while his entire heel hangs over and tells me how nice they are. "Oh wow!" he exclaims, “this is so very nice” except he says “berry” because Filipinos mix v’s with b’s. I’m quite sure they’re not comfortable in this fashion but I’ll play along.

A girl asks a girl to ask another girl who knows me if I she can borrow them so that she can play volleyball in a town far away. She tells me that she loves volleyball so much but she’s not allowed to play on the team without shoes. I tell her to bring the girl to see me. She shows up dressed to the nines. The Filipino nines with flip flops. She puts her feet to mine and clearly they’re oversized for my shoes. I ask what her size is and she says 9 so I explain they won’t fit. She says that’s ok, and she can wear them anyway. Somehow they believe there’s magic in these shoes.  

Despite the fact that people are sometimes shot because someone stepped on their Nikes in a club in Anycity, USA or that someone has paid over $11k for a pair of them, I embrace their love for Nike enchantment...mostly because I don't know what else to do. That's more than they'll make in their entire lifetime of hard labor while feeding their family of 6 and yet still, it’s adorned in many homes. Still there…right next to baby Jesus.    

Before I leave I make sure to give away all my shoes. The beneficiary of my Nikes is the happiest of them all. She explains to me that she never intends on wearing them, that they'll only be put on a shelf. "No no, you must wear them!" I explain. Shoes are meant to be worn. No, no! she argues while smiling. "Oh yes, I'm giving them to you so you can wear them.” I tell her but grow increasingly frustrated because I feel like I've chosen the wrong recipient of my dumb shoes. "Oh no! I never wear them!” as she stands there smiling so much that I can't just take them back now. The fact of the matter is that anyone I give my shoes to will never wear them. They came from this holy land...of Nike.  

Let There Be Light

So, I'm not a religious person. Tho I have faith in something I know nothing about...some great entity that's so powerful and omnipotent that it's unjust to attempt to encapsulate in words, books, churches, synagogues, or whatever. To call it anything or give it any name is egotistical, ignorant and unfair. But, I have a few credos that go something like this...

Ralph Waldo Emerson is my spiritual leader.  

Organized religion is responsible for the demise of humanity.  

People are just "packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes" ...in the wise words of Sting. 

I've been here over a month now with zero solace. There are roosters everywhere, constantly crowing...a tribute to Filipinos' penchant for cockfighting and massive gambling. Children of all ages wander aimlessly making homemade cannons while their parents stand by, assisting by giving them lighters and butane. Kids start gambling in the streets at 6am. People pray to religious statues everywhere even tho their book clearly abhors idolatry. It's Christmastime so there's a constant cacophony of caroling for money out of desperation; a sad reality.       

As the lunacy started getting under my skin through the day I earnestly said to myself "I hope a storm rolls thru tonight with torrential rain so they'll stop with the cannons. I hope there's no power so I can sleep rather than hear the bass of yet another Filipino disco.' And I wondered all day why this place doesn't progress...why it's constantly in a state of regress and decline. Why I can literally watch my people losing any degree of ingenuity each year.  

And tonight, in the midst of handmade cannon fire madness and an eminent disco, I honestly in my heart of hearts prayed to whatever entity controls 'stuff-and-things' in the world, and then low and behold...

At 4pm, a massive storm rolled through and knocked out power from the village of Argao to all points south, including our village. As the storm crept in, it created a magnificent lightning show with beautiful baritone bass pleasant to the ears rather than some maddening artificial disco beat. When the lightning show hit and the town went black, there was an amazing display of fireflies that lit up the sky like infinite twinkling stars. And the light from the sky created a strobe that cast brilliant shadows between thunder. It was, as it should be...on Christmas Eve, people sat in their homes under candlelight, talking to one another. Laughter emanated from bamboo huts while I imagined that people actually paid attention to one another and not the drone resonance of oddly placed techno bass.  

The Philippines is so loud that it can't hear itself think. It is rarely silent. There's always a diversion filled with hysteria or confusion, it's embedded in the culture. From the checkout line in any department store which requires a process of 3 to 4 sales girls to ring one item to the government structure that's so complicated even it's own candidates don't understand it. It's an unrealistic and idealistic world where decision-makers believe a disco is the way to solve problems.    

And so, my contentment was short-lived when the storm passed and power was restored at 3am. Immediately disco lights came on and bass awoke my tinnitus. It was a somber reality but I thanked whatever god exists for the beautiful reminder that this is all on loan. Just a note that we are only temporary residents...

Ode to Anthony

While basking in the glow of midday rays on my favorite beach in the Philippines I sensed an eclipse of the sun. It was short, stout and it had a plastic shovel. Our conversation goes something like this:

A: [monotone and yelling as it seems to lack depth perception] HI-I'M-ANTHONY-WHAT'S-YOUR-NAME? 

L: [quietly] Lani. What's up buddy. I'm Lani. 

A: [still yelling] WANNA PLAY? WE CAN MAKE A SANDCASTLE!  

I notice he’s a lone wolf so I respectfully oblige. I’ve always had a soft spot for the underdog.   

L: Eh, sure. Whatcha got?

We start digging in sand and he tells me he's 6 years old, here's here with his grandma, has lots of cousins but he misses home. 

L: Where's home kiddo?

A: I live in New York. Did you know my dad works at Denny's and I get to have pancakes every day. 

L: [well, that explains the yelling and your portly figure] Hey, how bout that. I live in New Jersey kid, that's not too far from you. We’re practically neighbors.

A: Hey, you talk just like me!

He's suddenly cognizant of the fact that we're both speaking English and not Filipino English which interchanges f's for p's and b's for v's . Fass the pork = pass the fork. Lady Gaga's Pokerface = Fukerpace. We continue making a sandcastle while other kids play nearby. He seems disinterested in them and he wants to keep talking about food and New York and home.  

A: Do you know my birthday is coming up in Knocked-Over and I'm going to have a Thomas birthday cake and lots of Spam. 

L: [October?] That's amazing, kid. Spam, huh. You know, when I was your age…I grew up near the place where Spam comes from. 

A: [he pauses] Do you know how to make Spam?

L: Technically no. That’s a trade secret but I suspect it’s pig snouts and hooves. But do I know how to fry it in a pan?…yes! I digress, dear child…do you like it here? 

A: No. Everybody talks funny. I want to go home. Can I stay with you?

And then a lightbulb moment happens in his brain and he’s content with the notion that he’s staying with me. 

A: YEAAAAA!!! I'm staying with YOU!!! 

L: I don’t think your lola will like that. She’s going to miss you.

A: No, I’m staying with you. I can come to your house and sleep by you. Do you get scared here? It's okay, I'll stay with you.

His cousins keep yelling at him so he begins dancing erratically and says "Look what I can do!" The gang of cousins sits back down seeing that Anthony and I are engaged in serious conversation and tribal dancing. Nice diversion, kid. 

A: How come you’re here? 

L: It’s pretty here, don’t you think? 

A: [staring blankly] Do you like fish?

His cousins come by telling Anthony it’s time to go home. He has no intention of leaving my side. He snuggles closer. Never mind the fact that it's 100 degrees outside. He barks at his cousins to leave and they threaten him with getting Jun-Jun. Anthony hugs me and while doing so he pauses to put his arm against mine and says "Hey, we match!" He's referring to our skin tone and it reminds me of my childhood in a Scandinavian Minnesota. Amidst a sea of blonde hair and blue eyes, my brothers and I were often times the only caramel-colored kids around. Occasionally we would see another child of similar complexion in the supermarket and it was like seeing an alien. But more like a familiar alien cousin. An obligatory head nod was always in order signaling some unspoken pact of understanding. They were just as amazed by us as we were by them...like two aliens passing in the glow of florescent grocery lighting. 

I had a glorious Minnesota childhood growing up on the Vermillion River and fishing for trout everyday after school. Sundays were reserved for walks around the lake and Christmastime was a -40 winter wonderland. My father spoke of distant lands of Morocco and Kenya and scuba diving rendezvousing with the sea. Our bedtime stories came from the shores of my mother’s village in the Philippines and having squid with ink for breakfast was anything but Minnesota fare. 

In grade school, there was a girl who used to call me "nigger, chink, spic." She didn't know what I was. Apparently "Filipino-Welsh-American girl" wasn't in her repertoire of racial epithets. It would have been easier for her to just call me “other!” Against the greenish paint of that old building in junior high, the yellow-olive tones in my skin came alive and I was so conscious of it. As badly as I wanted to answer all questions, I would tuck my hands under the desk for fear that someone would say “hey, you have a color line on your hands…are you diseased? Maybe you should see the nurse."  Once in high school, someone told me I couldn't go to a game because they didn’t like “colored people” there. On the Flip side, when I came to the islands as a kid, I remember getting spit on by a guy who called me mestiza. My “impure" blood was a disgrace to his culture. Clearly he wasn't aware of Spanish colonialism. 

But in Anthony's world, I fit in. I suspect to him, I was all things familiar. Not this foreign land of uncertainty. Where do we ever fit in, us Anthonys? If not with our families, is it in a Denny's in NYC? A grocery store in Minnesota? Or maybe its just on a random beach with some stranger with matching skin.  

A: You’re my best friend. 

L: Aww shucks kid, that's very sweet but I think you have to go now. 

A: No. I'm staying with you. 

We continue building an awful sandcastle and its hot. I feel bad for the kid; lost in this foreign land but we’ll always learn to adapt. I see a menacing teenager coming down the beach with a scowl on his face. I think it’s Jun-Jun. 

J: Antony, you git ober here right now. You hab to eat. We hab Spam. 

L: well kid, while I think you have the fat reserves of a baby seal. I think it's time for you to go eat. I'll be here when you come back [a blatant and painful lie]