Three Jews on a Treadmill

Sounds like the beginning of a joke…There were these three Jews on a treadmill…

Two months ago, I moved from Sulphur Mountain Road in the Upper Ojai to the more gentrified mid-town. Prior to moving, my drive time from the mountain to town was eighteen minutes. After Ila died, I made the thirty-six-minute round-trip to the Ojai Athletic Club every day just to get out of the all too quiet house and find social interaction. It was lonely up on the hill without someone to share my life.

I had used a rowing machine at our mountain home nearly every day. Five thousand meters of rowing in thirty-five minutes, that got me nowhere. A nagging shoulder injury caused a forced migration from the rowing machine to the treadmill and, thanks to Jackie, membership in the athletic club.

My daily routine on the hill was religiously repeated day after day. Up at 5:45. In the car by 6:15 and at the club by 6:35. Flash my membership card at the electronic reader and react with hidden glee at its assurance that I was still welcome.

Exchange pleasantries with the ever-changing person behind the front desk. Enter the men’s locker room. Change into my Lulu Lemon shorts. Grab the headphones that Jackie bought for me…got to be careful what I wish for, or it will surely end up in an Amazon box at my front door.  March up the stairs to the second floor without the aid of the handrail…it’s a macho thing…and deposit myself on one of the six treadmills that line the far wall.

Moving to mid-town replaced my old eighteen-minute car ride to the town epicenter with an eighteen-minute walk. But old habits are hard to break, so I still hop into the car for a three-minute ride to the club. Not enough time to warm up the innards of my car on cold mornings, necessitating the wearing of a wool cap that sometimes draws giggles from the club’s front desk.

Even though my shoulder has healed, and the club sports two rowing machines, I am still on the treadmill. To further cement my place on it, I sold my own Concept 2 rowing machine last week to a nice guy who schlepped to my house from Glendora, a one-hundred-fifty-mile round trip.

The club opens at 5:30 am and draws people who exercise indoors or, god forbid, swim outdoors in near freezing ambient hell, then head for work. When her teaching responsibilities require it, Jackie often prides herself at being first in line at the club’s front door, in the dark, with little to wear but a very pretty smile on her face.

The sweet spot for me is between 6:30 and 7. That’s when the locker room empties, and parking spaces open up close to the club entrance. Finding an idle treadmill is easy. Sometimes I get the pick of the litter, the one on the end in front of the windows that open onto the pool where crazy people do laps. Or, in a pinch, I take the one next to it. My decision whether to turn on the overhead fan is challenging. Shall I suffer a cold draft until my body warms up, or be an overheated wimp.

Each of the treadmills has its own video monitor. I can watch live TV, but I nearly always opt to sign into my Netflix account where I am entertained with mindless comedies, serious documentaries or, my favorite, the Great British Baking Show. I avoid the news which, I have found, generally provokes me to mumbling angry epithets that attract the unwanted attention of those within earshot.

The same faces regularly populate the area around the treadmills and the other, sometimes fathomless, exercise equipment. It’s comforting to see these faces nearly every day. It brings order to an otherwise chaotic and all too often sad world.

My sixty-minute treadmill routine at a four percent grade generally starts before the others arrive. About fifteen minutes into it, Sheila appears. My age, but not yet aging, Sheila is a whirlwind of activity both on and off the treadmill. We are also members of the synagogue where she leads the Friday night service on alternating weeks. Her petite, bouncy, figure and perky cropped hair are a welcome addition to my sixty-minute trip to nowhere.

Norm, also in the octogenarian category, is a lot less bouncy. But he makes up this unfortunate difference with a strong torso, friendly smile and a blessed sense of humor. I relish our conversations which, on occasion, include prolonged inexplicable laughter over a comment that often has its grounding in something Jewish.

Silence, or the soft-spoken word, is the desired state when in motion. This unwritten treadmill rule is often violated by heavy footed young men and women who strive for unattainable recognition by generating massive decibels that offend nearly everyone in range of them. Fortunately, a good pair of over-the-ear headphones tends to mitigate the otherwise mind-numbing racket.

This morning, Sheila, Norm and I find ourselves together on three of the six treadmills. The other three are unused and blessedly quiet. Norm correctly notes, with some humor, that we are three Jews on treadmills, which seemed to me apropos of life as a Jew. Moving with determination to escape stereotyping, and maybe worse, with only a modicum of success.

Ojai has a significant number of Jews who have blended into the community. Except for the synagogue, we find ourselves fully integrated in the life of the town. Yet there is something special when three of us find ourselves on the treadmill. A certain comfort, often indescribable, takes hold. A certain calm descends and allows us to enjoy a moment devoid of tension.

Perhaps it’s genetic. Perhaps it’s our strange customs that have been etched into us over thousands of years. Maybe it’s the same for people of other faiths. Maybe they relish time together on the treadmill. I hope so.

The Moose Lamp

My son Steven would have been fifty-two this month. But his life was cut short at forty-three by his death in 2011.

Memories of him floated to the top today when I attended my bereavement group, an event that takes place every Tuesday from 10:30 until noon. Housed in a small, Ikea style conference room in the west end of Ojai, there are no frills. The lighting is dim and there are no cookies. In addition to an outpouring of feelings, there are tears, extended silences and, blessedly, enough occasional laughter to raise one’s spirits a notch or two.

I’ve become a regular who began participating after my sweet wife Ila passed away almost two years ago. During that time, my attendance has morphed from a focus on Ila to one that includes both she and Steven. I often picture them together, arguing; and I smile. Always looking for a bargain, I also take advantage of this group therapy to talk about my relationships with other loved ones.

The number of Tuesday gatherers varies from as few as three to as many as nine. Mostly women who have lost their husbands, we have others who’ve lost parents and children. Regulars, loosely defined as those who have been coming more than three months, usually predominate. New faces join periodically while some regulars stop coming. Others leave, rest, and then return months later. Some come once and are never seen again. It’s not for everyone.

It’s not clear why some people come every week while others attend less frequently. The reasons they come are clear and fairly consistent, but the frequency with which they appear seems governed by inexplicable, unsaid reasons.

For me, one who disdains being idle, the meeting is a block of time that I don’t have to otherwise fill. It also provides the social exposure that I treasure. My home on the hill, while in a beautiful setting, does not easily offer personal interaction. The quarter-meter plan that once allowed TV watchers to deposit quarters in boxes attached to their sets is not an available option. And, more importantly I can comfortably say things that would remain unsaid in other settings.

I arrived at today’s meeting a few minutes late. Making the non-obligatory excuse for my tardiness, I described my trip from Vons to the vacuum cleaner repair shop in Ventura and back. A trip of fifty-eight minutes that I claimed to be a new world record. Satisfied that I had been forgiven, I took my usual chair at table, sat back and scanned the crowd.

A man who I had not seen before sat opposite me. When newcomers join the group, the rest of us introduce ourselves. I’m Fred. My wife died almost two years ago. I’ve been coming regularly and, yada, yada, yada. Depending on the urgency of the need to get something off one’s chest, an introduction can often take as much time as chanting the first five books of Moses, in Hebrew.

Some people are eloquent and engaging. Others, less so. The man opposite me merely said his name and added succinctly, “My thirty-year old son passed away in December.” Nothing else. Then he shifted in his chair and assumed a slouched position that non-verbally said ‘I don’t know why I came here and I shall remain silent for the next ninety minutes.”

Time rolled on. People told stories and described feelings that might go unheard in confessionals or even in a bed shared by two lovers. Yet the man opposite me seemed unmoved. His lids occasionally hid his eyes and he often furtively glanced at his smart phone. Yet, even with his seeming detachment, he appeared troubled.

Our group leader is a master at drawing people out. Never asking directly, she has the uncanny ability to elicit words from an otherwise reticent participant. “Fred, do you think you could share something about your son Steven that might be of value to our newest member?”

Of course, I thought. The moose lamp. And I told its story.

Steven bought a ten-inch high table lamp at a garage sale. Maybe he paid as much as two dollars. It had a tiny bulb and a shade that had the image of a moose on it. When you turned the lamp on, its light shone in a way that accentuated the moose. Tacky at best, Steven kept it on a table in his apartment and switched it on every night. And turned it off when he went to bed. Never very sentimental, he nevertheless loved the moose lamp.

In the last month of his life, I was with him in his home when I stumbled and caught my foot in the lamp’s cord. The lamp fell off the table with a sound that presaged disaster. I picked it up as though it were a baby, flicked the lamp’s switch and was horrified to watch it stay dark. My son David was standing next to me and I said, “I don’t care what it costs, I want that lamp repaired and working before Steven is gone.”

David picked up the lamp, looked at the cord and sarcastically said, “Well we might first try plugging it in.” We did and the light shone through the moose and into my eyes. Laughter replaced tension.

Steven died a few weeks later. Aside from his guitars, the only valuable object in his apartment was the moose lamp. I wanted it and I took it. The two-dollar lamp now sits on an expensive table in my living room. I look at it each time I pass. I light it when the feeling takes me there. Memories flood back of Steven’s stubbornness and ego-centrism. But the lamp also reminds me of the special moments when I loved him most. Memories that assure me that his passing need not always be filled with sadness.

I don’t know if my story of the moose lamp helped the man opposite me. But it made my day.

What did he say?

A few weeks ago, Jackie asked me if I’d like to see Eckhart Tolle in person. I said something like “Is he a rapper?”

After that display of my sublime ignorance and a well-deserved shrug of her shoulders, Jackie gave me some facts about the man who commands large audiences and is generally thought of as a particularly adept spiritual teacher.

In 2008, the NY Times called Tolle the most popular spiritual author in the U.S. where his book The Power of Now has sold millions of copies. In 2008, he and Oprah Winfrey participated in ten live webinars that drew thirty-five million people. He became an Oprah favorite in 2016 when he made her list of 100 Super Souls including visionaries and influential leaders. OK, enough already. I didn’t need any more convincing. Oprah did the trick. I had to see him in action.

Not so fast, Jackie warned. To get the full impact of his spoken word, I needed to read his book before seeing him in  person. Sensing that I might conveniently forget her suggestion once I was out of her sight, Jackie immediately dialed up Amazon on her iPhone and downloaded The Power of Now to my Kindle. To her everlasting credit, she’s done this kind of thing before. Tablecloths, exercise pants, shaving kits, and Lou Malnoti frozen pizzas flown overnight from Chicago have miraculously appeared at my doorstep. I’ve learned to be careful with my words and I try to avoid phrases like “Gee, isn’t that nice” or, ”What a handsome shirt”, or especially, “I’ve always wanted something like that.”

Aspiring to even greater status in my sweetheart’s mind, I dutifully started reading. It began with…

When your consciousness it directed outward, mind and world arise. When it is directed inward, it realizes its own Source and returns home into the Unmanifested.

Although it was a book with only one hundred and thirty pages, I was obviously in for a long, hard slog.

I finished my assignment a day before our trip to see the savior in person and, after much soul searching, realized that the primary message of The Power of Now is as simple as 1, 2, 3.

1. Don’t worry about the past, you can’t do anything to change it.
2. Don’t worry about the future, you can’t control it.
3. Live peacefully in the moment

So there. I saved you fifteen bucks on the book and a whole lot more on the live event.

The Saturday evening program was held in the three thousand seat Pasadena Civic Auditorium, a very impressive and costly venue. We planned to stay overnight and had booked a room at the adjacent Sheraton. Arriving at the hotel around five o’clock after an exciting two hour drive from Oxnard, I demonstrated my driving acumen by attempting to park my car in the narrow “Deliveries Only” driveway. Reaching the end of the driveway, I was hemmed in by a unforgiving concrete wall and a massive semi-truck that did not allow for a turn-around. Forced to back all the way up the ramp, I threw caution to the wind, summoned The Power of Now, exited onto Euclid Avenue and made a u-turn that Evel Knievel would have been proud of.

Parking in the hotel lot without further damage to my ego, we registered, and then debated whether to head directly to the hotel bar for an extended stay, or go meekly to our room. Since both Jackie and I are anally compulsive about being on time, we chose the room option. Much to my regret as I would later learn.

Having made ourselves presentable, we walked to the Civic Center and entered the lobby about twenty minutes before showtime. It teemed with people waiting in a drink line that was long enough to reach to the moon and back. Another mob of souls, with too much disposable income, was four deep at the book sale tables where Tolle’s army of credit card swipers withdrew vast sums of money from the ravenous buyers’ Visa cards.

Jackie had promised her daughter, Samantha, that she would get Tolle to sign her book. In response to her cute query about how that might be accomplished, the reaction from the Tolle card swiper was akin to “Are you crazy? He’d be here all-night signing books. Foolish girl.”

At fifteen minutes before showtime, three thousand seats were half empty. They’ll never fill this cavernous hall, I thought. Foolish Fred. Ten minutes later, it was nearly overflowing. People kept coming and were being seated fifteen minutes after the appointed hour. Oblivious to those around them, they were in the Now, peaceful in their tardiness.

Just like the warm-up singer in a Las Vegas showroom, Marianne Williamson appeared on the stage in a stunning off-white pants suit. I thought “Jackie might like that.” But I quickly avoided thinking about it, fearful that my subliminal message might somehow activate Jackie’s Amazon ordering mode. As a suffering second fiddle, people were still being seated while Marianne spoke.

Along with her reputation as another highly respected spiritual leader, Marianne is currently one of a stampeding horde of seekers for the office of the President of the United States. Blithely skipping around the stage, her thirty-minute message boiled down to don’t be a stinker and love your neighbor. Reasonable campaign material I thought, and a vast improvement over the current occupant of the Oval Office.

And then he arrived. A small man of about seventy, he looked a bit like a combination of ET and a Tolkien Hobbit.  He immediately plunked his thin frame onto an over-stuffed chair that my grandmother might have had in her dated living room. He assumed a somewhat stooped pose, admired the flowers next to his chair, and looked out at the audience of nearly three thousand hungry disciples. A large TV screen above his head made him appear even smaller.

He was silent and peaceful, yet he commanded my attention. Then, quietly, he spoke the same words that I had struggled to read in his book. He occasionally told one sentence off the cuff jokes that no one should have laughed at; but they did. He talked about the horizontal plane that we all live on complete with our fears, challenges and never-ending desires. He spoke of the vertical plane that would, if we could comprehend it, allow us to live peacefully in the now.

The thirty minutes passed in a wink. I didn’t learn how to achieve The Power of Now. But I did learn why people buy his books and why they pay to hear him speak. Why he gets a standing ovation before he speaks and another after he’s spoken. But I can’t explain it. Maybe that’s why people keep coming back.