Meltdowns.

This pregnancy has a dark side: it’s churning up the noxious stuff, the stuff that reminds me what a train wreck I am. You can work around it for years, and then this teeny person, who doesn’t even have a voice, starts conjuring things in your mind. Apparently, I am carrying an intuitive little girl. Or maybe it’s the hormones.

When I went through addiction counseling, I made – and kept – all sorts of promises that allowed me to live in freedom for the first time ever. The promises gradually became habits, my modus operandi, and everything improved. My health, my appearance, and my confidence soared. No longer did my brain resort to the addiction cycle to cope with everyday life. I was in charge of my behavior, no diet necessary, and Jesus bolstered my strength to live in his provision. I felt and looked so wonderful that I attracted a very hot man who married me just under a year after we met.

Then I got pregnant. Of course, joy flooded me: it was impossible! A miracle! And of course, that’s undeniable. But there was a singsong voice in the back of my mind, like Clare Dunphy, that said, “You’re gonna get fat.” I pictured my former marshmallow-esque body. I pictured my very hot man not wanting me anymore. I pictured myself buying huge clothes. And, to make matters worse, I realized as the weeks went on that my neat and helpful counseling promises weren’t working. When I didn’t feed my fetus every three hours, my blood sugar dropped, and I became weak and dizzy. Twice I fainted. When I didn’t eat ample carbohydrates, like fruit and grains, massive headaches hit without warning and were followed by crippling nausea and fatigue. The baby was simultaneously breaking all the rules and producing purple stretch marks on my midsection to boot. I started saving for a Mommy Makeover.

One thing I’ve learned: my healing never comes until I dig into the ugliness and write about it. When I see it on paper, I can name it and deal with it. So I’ve spent hours recently writing about my addiction – how it looked, felt, sounded. I’ve been journaling and letting my introspection explain myself to me. And it’s rough because underneath it all, I am still a train wreck. I am still all the things I once was if I’m not constantly vigilant.

I asked my man tonight, “Who in his or her right mind would give me a baby?”

Without missing a beat, he said, “Jesus.”

“Then I am seriously doubting His lucidity,” I replied, quite seriously, before melting into tears again. Sometimes I am so excited for Anna’s yuletide arrival that I can barely breathe. Her pictures are so heartbreakingly perfect, and her butterfly-wing flutters feel so delightful. Other times I think, “What the heck am I going to do with a baby?” My man assures me that no one is ever ready; they just grow into it as time rolls by.

My consolation in moments like tonight is thinking about my last decade of life. I have experienced too much, enough to break me, but Jesus has brought me through it all. I shouldn’t be singing this way, shouldn’t be joyful or in love or blessed. After addiction, sexual dysfunction, miscarriage, divorce, lost friendships, and more, I should’ve been crushed. But Jesus didn’t allow that.

I also think of my personal constellation, my stars that point me home and outline the form of grace for me. My mom teaches me sacrifice, my dad teaches me trust, and my sister teaches me how to be a friend. My dear friend A.K. teaches me how to listen, my precious friend K.S. teaches me patience and faith in Jesus, and my best friend teaches me unconditional acceptance. My stepchildren teach me to play. My man teaches me to be both strong and kind. Anne Lamott would call these people my “tribe,” but they are also Anna’s. So when I hit the inevitable moments of not-enough, they will tap in for me, and so will many others. Anna does not have a perfect mother, but she will never lack love. God told me early on she exists to display his glory. And he will never not be enough for me, my husband, or our family. What can I say about such wonderful things as these? If our God is for us, who can ever be against us (Romans 8:31, NLT)?

Pity Parties.

I am thankful for “pity parties.”

Of all the potential best friends in the world, my JB ranks in the 99.9^th percentile. She is a genius. She is hysterically funny. She is supportive and dependable and sarcastic and a terrific wife and mother. She’s one of the best gifts God has sent me to date, and I will lose my mind if she ever has to live far away from me. Although, after 12 years of friendship, we have dozens of memories and traditions, one of our enduring favorites is the “pity party.” We established said parties during our senior year of high school and have indulged in them infrequently but when necessary ever since. They’re based on two fundamental beliefs: 1) Sometimes you just want someone to listen to you complain, and 2) Chocolate is delicious.

If I describe the glory of pity parties, I realize I’m running the risk of everyone—or at least all the like-minded women—wanting to attend. But I’m going to do it anyway because they are wonderfully therapeutic. It goes like this: a 2-liter of soda + Swiss Rolls + moaning and complaining until you feel better + someone listening sympathetically as long as it takes + Bridget Jones’s Diary (optional humor booster) = pity party. I assure you, it cures all evils. JB and I have had pity parties to get through breakups, family/work stress, procrastination, and general disappointment. We even had a pity party over the phone while I was in graduate school. Lost your job? You need a pity party. Your boyfriend cheated? You need a pity party. Your car was stolen? You need a pity party.

While I realize it’s not the healthiest idea to wallow in despair and gorge yourself on Little Debbies, I assure you both are side notes in a much lovelier story. What makes the pity party work is the loving support of a friend who cares deeply about your hurt or frustration or confusion. Pity parties are about reminding yourself that you’re not wandering in the dark. You’re connected, loved, and integral to someone else. That’s what JB tells me all the time, directly and indirectly, whether we call an official pity party or not. And that’s one of the 3,000 reasons I love her. So here’s to pity parties! Which translates, of course, to, “Thank God for friendship.” And chocolate. And most importantly, in my case, for JB.

Halloween.

I am thankful for Halloween.

I’ve never been much of a Halloween fan, mostly because I don’t like scary things or donning costumes. And these days I don’t eat a lot of candy either. (Unfortunately, I’ve learned that chocolate consumption is inversely related to weight loss. This was an unhappy discovery.) So that effectively knocks out 99% of the holiday’s festivities. But I do love fall, and I especially love Thanksgiving, so I thought I’d spend my holiday energy celebrating what I do love. In honor of Thanksgiving, I’ve mused recently about things in life I’m particularly grateful for.

Ironically enough, one thing I must say I’m grateful for is Halloween. It is because of Halloween and its frightening nightlife that the church I attended in my adolescence created “Hallelujah Night.” Hallelujah Night was the brainchild of the children’s pastor, and I must say, a pretty brilliant one. Costumed children went in groups from room to room in the church, watching skits of Bible stories. Every room gave out hundreds of pounds of candy over the course of the three nights, and a really long line of children waiting to participate always snaked around the church. There was a Jonah room where you were lit up with a black light and sprayed with whale saliva (…or water streaming from water guns), a Lazarus room where a biblical zombie came back to life, a Noah room with more water and strobe lights, a resurrection room with an authentic-looking Jesus (seriously, you should see the man who played Jesus), and the list goes on. (I do wish there’d been an Ahab-and-Jezebel room. Or Balaam and the donkey. Or Sodom, Gomorra, and the pillar of salt. Some highly entertaining Bible stories were completely overlooked.) To this day, when I think of Hallelujah Night, I can smell the black trash bags that lined the walls in the water rooms and the trampled-on popcorn in the fellowship hall.

Since I was an adolescent when I attended the church, I never went through Hallelujah Night as a child, but for years I worked it as a teenager. I was a tour guide, leading the groups through the rooms. It was so much fun rushing around like I was in high demand, wearing a T-shirt that said staff, and acting like the adult I so desperately wanted to be. But even beyond this, Hallelujah Night gave rise to some great memories. I remember my friend J’s mom jumping off a chair in a dark room to scare the workers as we were cleaning up. I remember a water gun fight (thank you, Jonah) between J, me, and some other friends on a cold autumn night on the playground. I remember getting so sick and tired of Sandi Patty’s “Via Dolorosa,” but still tearing up at the end of the resurrection skit every single time. And thanks to Hallelujah Night, and thus Halloween, I met P, one of my very best friends in the whole world.

So I have to be grateful even for one of my least favorite days of the year. Thinking about what my adolescence would’ve been like without Halloween, and thus Hallelujah Night…that’s, frankly, a little scary.

Crap.

Last week my friend A and I had Italy Day. We ate pasta, planned our someday-vacation in Europe, and watched a couple of movies set in Italy. Interestingly, both movies—Under the Tuscan Sun and Eat, Pray, Love—feature women making a drastic, spontaneous change to heal their broken hearts. Frances renovates a Tuscan villa and fills it with food, friends, and family; Elizabeth takes a yearlong quest for self-discovery, starting in Italy. That’s all very nice, and it makes for gorgeous films. But for most of us it’s not financially advantageous to buy a villa in Tuscany or rent an apartment in Rome. Some of us have to deal with our crap right here in our own houses while we drive to work, walk the dog, and cook dinner. Lather, rinse, repeat; take care of the crap when you get a chance.

But that’s okay. Because sometimes getting past the pain is just a matter of refusing it, of being patient enough with yourself that you choose against self-doubt for a day. Or turning up the music and dancing until you have to catch your breath. Or closing your eyes and filling your lungs with fresh air. Or hitting your knees and admitting your fallibility to God. Or spending the day with a dear friend, laughing and talking and watching Italy movies, and thanking the Lord for the sweet gift of friendship.


Sometimes you just have to remember, as one of my friends regularly tells me, that the crap is ancillary to who you are. You’re lovely; the crap is just a mess you have to clean up because humans have to do that sort of thing sometimes. Today the crap will not win. And I…I am dreaming of Italy.

Hope.

dedicated to my dear friend J.S.

I am tired.

In the last six years, I graduated college, returned for a teaching certificate, endured my first year of teaching (complicated by no student teaching, an absent administration, and two students trying to get me fired), bought a house, married, fought my way out of sexual dysfunction with the help of myriad professionals, transferred jobs, miscarried more than once, moved away from my hometown, dealt with depression, dealt with serious relationship difficulties, and graduated with a master’s degree that felt like a mini-doctorate. In the space of ten days at the end of May this year, I moved back to my hometown, crashed my car, and landed in the hospital.

It’s been a long six years.

Do I bring this up to drum up sympathy? No. I bring it up because in the midst of all of this, I am constantly reminded of my Jesus. The fact is that everyone goes through this. Everyone experiences sorrow, loss, conflict, and pain. But regardless of who appears and disappears from my life, who strengthens me and who ignores me, Jesus is my hope. Because I know how fervently and unconditionally He loves me, I am able to revel in the cool water of His peace. As my friend J.S. reminded me today, He promises joy on the other side of the pain, joys upon joys. And He has already given me the joys of a loving, supportive family; the most loyal, dependable friends on the planet; and a job that utilizes my interests and allows me to work alongside amazing coworkers. These are not coincidences: they are gifts from a loving Parent who has my best interests at heart. Whatever I deal with, He is my strength and my song (Exodus 15:2). Whenever darkness threatens me, He roars, “This far you may come and no farther” (Job 38:11). He prays for me (Isaiah 62:1), delights in me (Isaiah 62:4), and rejoices over me (Isaiah 62:5). That is the God I love.

And sometimes my Lord speaks in an unexpected voice. Like a spider’s. I watched Charlotte’s Web last night because that’s what I do when I’m feeling down. (Or when I'm really down, I read it.) Early on, Wilbur’s destiny is uncertain: as a spring pig, he is likely to be cured ham by Christmas. One of the animals references this fact, which nearly gives Wilbur a heart attack. “Charlotte, should I be worried?” he asks his best friend. She chuckles a bit. “Of course not. What good would that do?” Tears sprang to my eyes as I looked upward. God might as well have been in my room, winking at me, smiling, and saying, “That goes for you too, my love.” And if you ask my heart, he was.

Hospitality.

When people find out I’m a French teacher, most of them respond one of three ways: 1) “I could never teach high school,” 2) “Bonjour!…That’s about all I remember,” or 3) “Why did you choose French?” In general, I’m sure people mean the third question benignly, but since humanities programs are slashed from universities like crazy of late, what I hear is, “Why in heaven’s name did you choose that?” In my French courses, in both college and grad school, the fact of being in a discipline that requires a constant fight for relevance was a frequent topic of discussion. It’s an increasingly prevalent opinion that students’ time would be better spent on science or math. So I do a preemptive strike on the first day of French I. I tell my students that the only reason our planet is of any consequence at all is that there are people on it. And the only way these people can get anything done is to communicate with each other. The more people we can communicate with, the more efficiently and effectively we can get all our things done. And since the brightest people in the world are not concentrated in one country, they speak different languages. Ergo, we learn languages. That is the pragmatic argument anyway.

But that wasn’t compelling enough to 17-year-old Amie to make her choose French. I usually tell people that French chose me, in fact. My French textbook called out to me: “You love to travel? Countries on five continents claim me as their national language. You love to read? Study me, and you can read millions more books. You love words? I’ll give you a whole new set of words to play with.” Clearly, 17-year-old Amie was persuaded to study French by selfish reasons. But as I got further in, I discovered that learning another language isn’t about speaking so much as listening. Conversing with someone, when you think about it, is pretty darn magical. Language, mere sounds your mouth makes or lines and dots scratched from the tip of your pencil, translates your feelings and thoughts into something others can understand. So the act of learning another’s language communicates, “Understanding you is important to me.”

If that hadn’t already hit home for me, it certainly did while I was in the hospital last week. One of my technicians was named Jacotte, a kind, lovely Haitian woman. On the second afternoon that she came in to check my vitals, she said, “You speak French.” Surprised, I said, “I do. How did you know?” She smiled. “The way you say my name. I said to myself, ‘Jacotte, that girl called me by my name. She speaks my language.’” From that point on, barely two words of English were exchanged between us. At one point Jacotte told me, “It feels so good to speak my language. I don’t get to do that much.” So Jacotte and I had a constant exchange of hospitality: she took attentive care of me physically, and I let her relax into her linguistic comfort zone for a few minutes each day. Following my surgery, Jacotte was the one who took me walking to keep my muscles in motion. She introduced me to everyone, saying, “This is my friend. This is mon amie.” And when my mom went to the desk to ask for Jacotte’s help, she said, “Yes, yes. Anything for mon amie.” I didn’t say anything special to this woman. I didn’t do anything extraordinary for her. But because she was able to communicate in her natural way, because I was willing to be at a linguistic disadvantage, Jacotte showed me every kindness she could.

I believe in studying math and science. I believe in studying organic chemistry and calculus and medicine and physics. But if we let go of language study—as many universities are now wont to do—vital lines of communication will be broken. International trust will be harder to win. Cultures will have trouble understanding one another. Why not study math and science alongside the way to communicate them? This way, we will continue to discover our friends, our amis.

Mothers Day.

Chances are you think your mother is the greatest of her kind. Me too: mine is beautiful, wise, compassionate, and seriously smart. My mom has spent hours and hours of the last two years on the phone with me while I cried or complained or unloaded fear and hurt. She never turns down a hug or says she’s too busy to listen. She works to make sure everyone in the family has what he or she needs. As I write this, tears of gratitude spring to my eyes, for I am blessed with such an amazing mother. I love that a twenty-four-hour period is set aside for my family to give her an extra dose of special treatment. Mothers Day is a sweet time.

Mothers Day church services are a different story. To those of us who aren’t mothers, it can feel a little like not being tapped into a sorority. The beginning of the church service I was in last Sunday was like this. One of the pastors asked the mothers to stand as he thanked them on behalf of all of us. “Ladies, you make significant sacrifices through the years, and we rarely recognize it. You have answered the highest calling a woman can have: raising children. We want to bless you and thank you for your service to us.” He said other things—he spoke for five or ten minutes—but that’s the gist. My issue with this is not that it’s necessarily untrue: my own mother does some serious sacrificing, and she deserves appreciation for that and so much more. So do all mothers. Across the world, women spend their days cleaning up spills that no one else sees, mending tears in clothes, administering medicine, crying as they rock their children to sleep for hours on end when the little one just won’t cooperate. Mothers are strong, so strong.

But I do not believe that raising children is a woman’s “highest calling.” If that’s true, a sizeable demographic will never reach its female potential. In this subset, some have chosen not to have children for very valid reasons, and some have chosen against wifehood, as well. Some want desperately to have children, but for a reason that mystifies the doctors, it isn’t happening. Some have had surgeries rendering them infertile. Some have hormonal abnormalities, chronic illnesses, or other medical factors that bar them from motherhood. Some have watched in horror as their dreams of motherhood ended abruptly in the bathroom. For some, this holiday is a reminder of the loss of life or the inability to give it, not its celebration.

However, there is much more to the concept of “mothering” than giving birth. Some women who have not and will never bear children have left an indelible mother’s mark on the little ones in their lives. Aunts, stepmothers, grandmothers, nurses, teachers, big sisters, babysitters, family friends—these women and others like them have the same capacity for “significant sacrifice” and “service” to children* as the women whose biological offspring are involved. Mothering, I would argue, is the art of cherishing and guiding children, an art that does not require a functional reproductive system. Mothers encourage. They spend time with children. They cause smiles and laughter. They provide for children’s needs and wants. They teach. They love. Women with unused wombs are just as capable of these functions and eager to fill them as their childbearing counterparts. Many of these mothering-women have played important roles in my life, as I hope to in the lives of others.

So maybe the entrance qualifications for the Mothers-Day sorority can be modified. Rather than honoring only biological or legally adoptive mothers, perhaps we can include all mothering-women who nurture and care for the world’s younger people. While only one woman births us, many, many women along the way help us become who we are. One such woman in my life was A.M., a family friend who spent a lot of time with me during my childhood. She took me out to dinner (and as a good Southern girl, I almost always picked Cracker Barrel), she took me mini-golfing, she invited me to spend weekends with her in her apartment. Many evenings she made us hot dogs and we talked and laughed while eating in her kitchen. A.M. reached out to me: she loved me, cared for me, and looked me in the eye when we talked. I knew I was important to her. And there is no greater gift a mothering-woman can bestow than the message “You’re significant. You’re special. There’s something wonderful inside you that I love to watch and be a part of.”

For A.M. and all the other members of the mothering corps out there, whether you are biological moms or moms of the heart: thank you most sincerely for the love and guidance you so freely give, and a very happy Mothers Day to you.

*Although I use the word “children” throughout, certainly some women mother us when we are already old enough to have children and perhaps grandchildren of our own.

Adieu.

French, like English, offers its speakers a number of ways to say goodbye, most of them dependent on when you expect to see each other again. A tout à l’heure has one of the smallest lapses of time between departure and reunion: it translates loosely to “within the hour,” although in conversational French it’s just used for “see you very soon.” There is the weekday staple a demain!, which means “until tomorrow.” From there, you have your generic goodbyes of indeterminate length but with certain reunions, expressions like salut for your friends and au revoir for your superiors. Then, there’s the scary one. It connotes a forever goodbye, quite literally translating “to God,” as in “I commit you to God.” This is a very certain goodbye, not one that had ever been said to me, not even mistakenly from a student, until today.

E and I were at the market for the last time this morning, picking up our final selections of bread, cheese, fruits, and vegetables. On our way out, I stopped at the Bread Man’s stand because I just couldn’t pass up being his customer one last time. Besides, he had my favorite bread, pépites au chocolat, which he hasn’t had since that first week. It was a sign.

When we approached his display, he said, “Ah! You were in Avignon, no?” Surprised at his remarkable memory—he must see a few hundred people pass by every Sunday—we replied that indeed we were. “You went to see the plays of the festival. I remember. I went there myself once, spent an enjoyable weekend there. This is a good tradition of France.” We agreed that we too had had a great time in southern France but that we were glad to be back in Lyon. I ordered my pépites au chocolat loaf and then informed him that it was our last market visit before returning to the States. “I had to come back once more for your bread!” I said with a smile.

He raised his eyebrows. “Your last market?” He shook his head. “When do you return? You are American, no? Going back to America?” We told him he was right and that our planes for America would leave on Saturday. “What city will you go back to?” For simplicity’s sake, E and I just gave him our home states. “Well, I must take my breads to America then! You have nothing like this in America. All factory breads!” We all chuckled as he handed me my box. “Well, I guess this is adieu then,” he said with a regretful expression. “Yes, adieu.” I nodded, almost tearing up, and echoed his goodbye.

It’s amazing that someone I spoke to for only a few minutes each week could cause such emotion in me. But this, this is why I chose language for my career. You learn a language so that you can hear other people speak: their stories, their joy, their pain, their fragility. You learn a language so that you can appreciate the Godlikeness of other people. You learn a language so that you can laugh with them, understand them, be welcomed by them and welcome them in return. That’s why it’s so close to God’s heart. He said at the dawn of mankind that it’s not good for us to be alone.

The Bread Man and I never spoke more than ten minutes at the time. We don’t even know each other’s names. But for four weekends, we looked forward to seeing each other and exchanging a few words of conversation in his native language. He clearly enjoyed regaling E and I with brief stories of traveling to Avignon and America and with proud claims of the superiority of his bread to anything else at the market or across the ocean. I enjoyed hearing it. That, if you ask me, is a little bit of God showing up in everyday life.

The Bread Man.

Last Sunday E and I woke up early (well, early for jet lagged Americans) to go to the open-air market just minutes by foot from our apartment. We wanted to absorb everything, taking stock of all the available goods, before committing to any one particular vendor’s wares. We noticed right away an especially delicious-looking display of small breakfast bread loaves in various flavors and promised each other we’d return. We kept our word: after purchasing conservative quantities of tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, cherries, and strawberries, we made our way back to the Bread Man. E asked for a pain aux fraises et au chocolat blanc (bread with strawberries and white chocolate), and I chose a pain aux pépites chocolats (bread with chocolate chips).

Upon hearing our French, the Bread Man brightened and asked, “Which nationality?” We replied that we were Americans, and he was delighted. “Americans, yes?” he clarified jovially. “So Lyon is cold for you!”

Wasn’t that the truth! The day E and I arrived in Lyon it was in the low fifties with rain, and the next morning was no warmer—less so, in fact. “Here some years we ski on our national holiday!” he enthused. “Can you ski on your national holiday?” he winked at us. We all laughed. “Impossible!” I said, while E too assured him there were no such opportunities in our native land. Skiing in July! If you’re not in very select locations or you don’t own a snow machine, you are likely unable to celebrate the Fourth of July with snowballs.

Quickly, as happens with many of his line of work, he turned to the quality of his craft. “You have bread like mine in American stores, no?” I replied that while we had bread—even bread meant specifically for breakfast and dessert—we definitely had nothing of the caliber he offered us, at least not in stores. He nodded knowingly. “Yes,” he agreed, “your bread is industrial. Me, I make all my own bread. All of this”—he waved a hand across the whole spread—“all made by my hands. In America, you make things much more quickly than I do, but then you lose the love of your food. I make everything with much care, yes, much care.”

And how true is that. I am not the sort of person who thinks everything in France is better and more interesting and more chic than everything in America or vice versa. Both countries should be appreciated and celebrated for their differences, particularly their strengths. Nonetheless, I think the Bread Man is right on target: we are so separated from our food in America that many of us either hate it, anesthetize ourselves with it, or struggle between the two. It’s a consumable like everything else, something to be mashed into our mouths while working, watching television, or driving hurriedly from one appointment to the next. We don’t love our food because we expect it to fill voids for us or because we are so disillusioned that it hasn’t. We tie it to what it does to us, for better or worse, rather than from its source.

The French are paradoxical as it relates to food. On the one hand, everything they eat is loaded in fat—butter, cream, grease, take your pick, and it’s probably there. Bread and butter are served in large quantities at each meal. Lunch and dinner are both accompanied by wine, and sometimes by a few wines. The French spend—quite literally—hours of their lives à table (at the table), lingering long after the last morsels and drops are gone. Our group had dinner at the high-class Brasserie du Nord on Sunday night. Our reservations were at 7:00 p.m., we were seated immediately, and yet we didn’t leave until after around 10:30. It took that long to eat our three-course meal. Each course was eaten slowly with much laughter and conversation interspersed between bites and courses. Both wine selection and food preparation are sciences at which native French people are expected to be proficient; serving at a restaurant, even a merely decent one, requires the highest levels of such knowledge. Servers, in fact, often have culinary degrees. Yet with such importance placed on food, the French remain one of the healthiest, slimmest, and most robust nationalities on the planet. How is this possible?

For one, the quantities are much smaller. I haven’t left a table hungry yet, but much less is served to me than I would expect at even a Steak ‘n’ Shake in the U.S. Also, the streets are teeming with walkers and bike-riders. Rush hour is nothing to be worried about because if a person lives within four miles or so of his/her office, she/he walks. Everyone is aware of how much they are eating because they eat so very slowly and deliberately. Meals are accompanied by things other than food to look forward to, such as the entertaining and fulfilling company of others.

Of course, not all of these elements of the French meal could be adopted in the U.S. We lead faster-paced lives, we frequently live a longer distance from our jobs, and we enjoy the peace and quiet of our fierce individualism (myself included). But what if we did slow down, eat a little less of the delicious foods we love, and invite friends over often to share a meal with us? What if we did prepare our food on a regular basis—and take pride in it as a craft that sustains life—rather than buying “industrial bread”? I wonder how our health and our entire society would change, with or without the gym.