“Yes!” I cheered quietly to myself, noticing both windows were open, coming into the gym room at Presidio YMCA. What a beautiful sight. It was hard to believe. Thank you to whoever let the fresh air in. From across the warehouse sized gym room, I could already feel the cool breeze coming through my nostrils from outside by the Golden Gate Bridge.
Growing up in China’s famine, I was fortunate to be born into the pine forest deep mountains with year-round cool fresh air. My peasant grandparents’ one room house was built with river rocks, pinewood and mud. The two-leaf pinewood doors were gapped from top to bottom and wouldn’t close snuggly. I’d go to bed and wake up smelling the crispy mountain fresh air.
Now living in rich America, I still like to keep my windows open most of the time. Fresh air is a good trade for high heating bills. It’s worth it. I always have a hard time in a sealed-off room, where windows are closed to shut out lung-cleansing fresh air and curtains drawn to block out the mood-cheering natural light. I especially couldn’t take any mixture of suffocating indoor odors from everyday living: feet, shoes, socks, hair sprays, toilets, diapers, steamy shower, bathrooms, pets, cooking, etc.
I once saw a gorgeous house for sale in my outer Richmond neighborhood. It looked magnificent from outward appearance, with its roof as a huge Pyramid-shaped beautiful skylight. But, puff! A thick, well-aged odor inside the house promptly ended my snoopy look-‘n-see tour.
It took me a long time to get used to the headache-inducing odor inside the San Francisco Presidio gym. The smell was choking. When I looked around, I saw no eyebrows showing any signs of disturbance or discomfort. “No, I don’t smell anything,” one person said to me, looking surprised when I mentioned I did. I tried to hold my nose as much as I could. At first, a half hour was all I could last. I couldn’t wait to dash outside to gasp for fresh air by the lungful. Now my sense of smell faded away and numbed out. I don’t smell any more odor and can last inside the gym to one hour at a time. Oh, dear God. What have I absorbed into my system for one hour each day? Scary.
What distressed me the most was the closed windows. There were four of them, with two on top. Every single one of them was shut at all times. I felt trapped, my claustrophobia in full fear. And the full wall-sized painting of bright golden sunshine pouring through the woods was no help to my uneasiness.
The workout room was solidly packed, with sweaty people everywhere working closely next to one another on the bones-muscles-enhancing machines. In full blast were the electric fans hung high up to the ceiling in all four corners, recycling the used hot air out of scores of nostrils and dozens of breathing mouths. Breathing in. Breathing out. You breathe out. I breathe in. Everyone is breathing in everyone else’ dirty used air.
Oh, my poor lungs …
Unbelievable how everyone appeared to be peaceful and completely contented, unaware of the fact that their lungs were being contaminated in the recycled dirty air. Everyone was so earnestly and diligently working their muscles and bones into frenzied soreness, all for an outwardappearance of physical fitness.
Common sense was all but lost.
Closed windows shut out the free, oxygen-filled fresh air, yet electricity was being wasted with fans blaring at full speed stirring up everyone’s used air for all to breathe in; Drawn thick plastic shades blocked out the precious natural Vitamin D from the Sun and shun the real-life beautiful scenery of golden sunshine-covered green hills, yet an imitation of the great nature painting was in place to give out illusions.
But I thought San Francisco is all about being green to conserve energy and avoid any unnecessary waste? The irony!
I did once try to plead with a young staff member on duty to open the windows and pull up the thick vinyl plastic shades. It didn’t get me anywhere. He advised me to look at the gigantic painting on the wall if I needed a visual enhancement. “But it’s so fake!” I protested. He laughed. And, why shouldn’t the shades be pulled up? Oh, he said, some people’s eyes were sensitive to the natural bright light from outside.
Image of bats in dark caves immediately came to my mind.
I gave up asking but didn’t give up trying. I decided to take the matter into my own hands. After careful observations, I noticed that the two lower windows, and one shade, were actually within reach if I squeezed myself, sideways, between the row of treadmill machines.
“No problem!” The woman looked over her shoulder, yelling in a sarcastic tone. She apparently was irritated that I’d just bypassed her machine and opened the window she was directly facing. And I didn’t bother to ask for her permission. Embarrassed, I became tongue-tied and scampered away as if I’d been caught red-handed doing something wrong.
I needed to apologize to the woman, just to make peace. So, I waited when she passed by the arm-bike machine I was working at.
“I’m so sorry,” I said to her, a very fit-looking middle-aged woman. “I probably should have asked you when I opened the window.”
“Yeah, next time please ask one of the staff. They are the ones should do it. And, you know,” she added. “Some people really like it toasty hot when working out.”
“But the stuffy air is not good for our lungs,” I put my hands over my heart.
“Well,” She shrugged, walking away, as I apologized to her again.
I had been so impressed from afar by this woman’s very fit physical shape. In her late 40’s or early 50’s, the woman literally had a teenage girl’s smooth figure. But at that moment in close range of my attempted apology to her, I saw the whites of her nice big eyes. Oh, my, this lady’s eyeballs didn’t match her physical fitness. Those were not clear eyes but clouded, even covered with a few fine red lines. That wasn’t a good sign of health, I thought to myself. According to the ancient Chinese herbal healing medical theory, a good healthy sign for a middle-aged and older person should be their keen hearing and bright, clear eyes, 耳聰目明. But who am I, a person from the third world, to advise a proud citizen of the first world?
We humans are part of the great nature. Our lungs, like the beautiful delicate California poppy flowers, could only stay healthy on outdoor oxygen-filled fresh air.
So, this was one good thing coming out of this disastrous Covid-19. It scared some good sense into people in charge of YMCA gym, making them reopen the long-shut windows! Such a relief. I was so elated that they now finally understood the importance of the outdoor fresh air to the health of our lungs.
Sadly, good times of opened windows inside the Y gym only lasted a few days before it closed its door in answer to the city of San Francisco’s Shelter in Place order to fight the coronavirus.
I’m missing my daily gym time. My flabby arms needed to be worked and loosening muscles to be tightened. Just for that alone, on top of my other 5,000 reasons, I hate the evil dictatorship of Chinese Communist Party for spreading its deadly corona virus beyond China all over the world. I grew up suffering and was fortunate to be able to escape from the evil authoritarian regime. But just look how they’re now at my heels from half a world away trying to destroy my good life in America.
And I can’t help but feel the dread to prepare and brace myself for a predictable backlash for being an ethnic Chinese living in America, although a grateful American citizen.
And I hope YMCA gym, when it finally reopens, won’t forget its newly gained wisdom and common sense about the importance of letting in fresh air through open windows to nurture everyone’s lungs.
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