Adventures in Water Aerobics

The first time Ellen invited me to see her dollhouse I was caught off guard. We had met only forty-five minutes prior as I was descending the steps to my first water aerobics class.

I had the first day jitters and was trying to raise my “please like and accept me” quotient with a broad cheerful smile bolstered by a verbal “this is my first class, please be kind and show me the ropes” insurance policy.

As I tentatively waded from the shallow end towards the deep end, splitting the sea of a pod of class “regulars” deep in conversation, I was relieved to spot a familiar face; Linda, a former front desk assistant at the gym where my family and I had been members for over 15 years until Covid locked down the world. I smiled and heaved a sigh of relief for the gift of “knowing” someone in this new group of women.

Linda had worked the early morning shift at the gym. For years, on my crack of dawn workout days, hers was the face I saw first at 5:45 a.m. I remember noticing she didn’t smile much as the stream of early workout revelers flooded past her desk, scanning our bar codes for admittance; but then again, whom with a 5:30 a.m. daily call time would.

All the same, I made it my mission to greet Linda each morning by name and with a smile. I ended my workouts the same, wishing her a good day as I walked past her desk to leave.

It wasn’t long before Linda learned my name and returned my smile with her smile. As time went on she came to know the names of my kids and seemed to delight when my son, then a curious toddler, would saunter behind her desk to greet her and in turn, be rewarded with a sticker from the sheets in her top drawer she kept for that express purpose.

It had been years since I had seen Linda; Covid time plus extra. In recent years there had been a change in leadership at the gym and with it, changes to staffing. I never knew why Linda left; just that one day she was there and the next she wasn’t.

But here she was again. When my smile met the smile I had been intentional about soliciting all those years ago my nervous system was put at ease and I was reminded again how the world always comes round and, if you’re lucky, often with the best timing.

“Did you get the silly of the day?” a lady with cropped hair clad in a long sleeve t-shirt over her bathing suit asked matter-of-factly as we waited for class to start.

I was deep in the business of trying to feel comfortable and returned the question with a smile, but with my head cocked to the side like a puppy dog as if to say, “what is this ‘silly of the day’ you speak of?”

And with that, the lady I would come to know as Ellen pulled out her curated list of daily puns stored in a plastic sheet protector (because, well, water aerobics) and treated me to not one but three jokes of the day (I would later learn you only get a trifecta of jokes on your FIRST day; after that it’s one and done).

By the end of class I was equal parts exhausted and exhilarated, having discovered just how challenging a water workout could be but without the residual joint pain I had experienced in traditional high intensity aerobics classes. My chronically inflamed 46-year old body leaped at this truth; water aerobics and I would be like peas and carrots from then on I decided. I looked around at this company of women, some of whom wore compression sleeves, others whom had discarded canes and walkers as they had approached the pool and thought, these women are badass and I just hope to keep up with them.

It was on my way back up the steps feeling that post-workout glow heightened by group solidarity vibe when Ellen first invited me to see her dollhouse. I was a bit thrown by the request (we had only just met) and I guess Ellen picked up on my uncertainty because she then proceeded to assure me that many in the class had already done so – and, she added – had not at all been disappointed. I politely thanked Ellen for the offer, told her I would keep it in mind and that I looked forward to seeing her in the next class.

It wasn’t long before I caught onto the cadence of water aerobics; the pre-gaming in the locker room when everyone is arriving and putting away their things, Ellen’s daily “silly of the day,” more pre-gaming in the pool (which almost universally consists of a lively discussion of the water temperature that day), class, the parade of shivering ladies out of the pool into the locker room showers at the end of class and then, well, naked lady time.

I have to stop here to say I have evolved in my perspective about naked lady locker room time and I credit water aerobics and my deep affinity for the ladies with whom I work out for this enlightenment. My first day, I’ll be honest. I was a bit surprised at the unabashed nakedness. It was a tad foreign to me as someone who would never risk fully taking off my clothes in front of others lest I be judged (or burn someone’s eyeballs). Here were these women in their 60s, 70s and possibly even 80s, wives, mothers, grandmothers, exhibiting shameless acceptance of their rippled and dimpled beautiful life-lived bodies, hiding nothing, carrying on meaningful conversations with nary a towel in reach while I ducked behind and tightly cinched curtains to make sure my body wasn’t seen. One of these was not the like other and my hunch was I wanted to be more like them when I grew up.

There were important lessons in the early weeks, like the day I texted my friend three words: “wardrobe malfunction, mine.”

“How bad?” she typed followed by copious laughing emojis and GIFs of people spitting out water while drinking.

“Let’s put it this way. I spent the whole class stuffing my boobs back into my suit. I’m pretty sure both the instructor AND the lifeguard can now draw my left nipple from memory.”

It was a tough lesson to learn, though made easier by a gracious group of body proud ladies (and a lightning speed Amazon shipment of water aerobics-recommended bathing suits). But I digress.

All of this brings me to today when, walking together in the parking lot after class, Ellen turned to me and asked again whether I had yet seen her dollhouse. With no pressing commitments or places to be and an ever-growing fondness for Ellen, I found myself saying yes.

“You know what, Ellen, I’d love to see your dollhouse today.”

“Follow me,” she said, a wide, almost clever grin, emerging on her face.

Ten minutes later we pulled into Ellen’s driveway. Exiting my car my eyes were instantly drawn to a structure in Ellen’s backyard; a shed painted in pink and purple hues with a heart mural that extended the entire breadth of the front of the shed from left to right; a precursor, I found, of the playfulness to come.

Ellen lives in Technicolor. Her home is whimsical and fantastical; sci-fi meets Alice in Wonderland with sprinkles of pop culture mixed in.

There are comic book collections, heart shaped boxes of all sizes, textures and finishes, Pez dispensers, original movie posters, bobble heads, glass and crystal perfume bottles and votive holders, all neatly curated and somehow not at all excessive or overwhelming. Stashed in the top corner of one wall, out of reach, were four Cabbage Patch Kids, including one that very closely resembled my childhood Cabbage Patch Kid “Emory” (discovered to my surprise and delight one birthday morning in the 1980s in my parent’s garden plot).

Bold, vibrant color is the backdrop for Ellen’s collections, her playful personality and artistic spirit imbued in every corner of her home.

Like a skilled museum docent, Ellen walked me through her house, every room inviting a new sense of wonder and awe. I could “see” Ellen in all of her things and found myself itching to not only learn more about the source and inspiration of her

artistry and creativity but also the way in which she seems to fully embody her truest self.

My rapt attention was drawn to many of Ellen’s collections but none more so than “The Dollhouse,” the purpose and piece de resistance of our house tour. Our arrival to this sacred stopping point was marked by a plaque on the wall which told the history of the house having been born of Ellen’s unfulfilled childhood wish to have her very own dollhouse; a wish belatedly granted by her two sons in the year 2000.

Where Ellen’s actual house is a living expression of things that delight and bring her joy from color to texture to collectables to family memories and heirlooms, her dollhouse is a 1” scale expression of that and more, complete with ornate lighting, custom wallpaper, trim and thoughtfully curated accessories for each room.

The dollhouse IS Ellen – the expressed and unexpressed, the past, present and unrealized versions of her, all with an overlay of fantasy and whimsy. It’s where a part of the child in her clearly still lives and expresses herself and I felt honored to be a witness to it and its sacredness.

Ellen wrapped up the house tour shortly thereafter. We hugged in her kitchen and I thanked her for having me over.

On the drive home, lost in reflection, I couldn’t help but hear differently the question that started it all, first posed by Ellen many months ago at the bottom of the pool steps: “Have you seen my dollhouse?”

My hunch is that there’s more at play there than Ellen simply sharing with others her pride and accomplishment in fashioning from a kit this magical world of make believe that also wildly mirrors her real life.

I could be reaching but I think Ellen’s invitation to see her dollhouse points to the universal questions to which we all want the answers:

“Have you seen me?”

“Do you know me?”

“Do I matter?”

My heart’s answer to you, Ellen, is a boisterous, emphatic “YES” spelled out for you in radiant Technicolor pinks, purples, greens and blues arrayed in the most beautiful and eye catching stained glass, like the custom pieces that adorn your doors and windows.

“Yes, I see you, Ellen. I see what lights you up and brings you joy and I see how you pay that joy forward each day with your daily jokes. Yes, Ellen, you and your dollhouse and the things you love matter to me because they matter to YOU. Now, go get that ‘silly of the day’ ready for Monday’s class because I’ll be waiting for it at the pool’s edge. Your friend, Susan

© Susan J. Connelly, 2022. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this work’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Susan J. Connelly with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.