Beyond the Gym: Rediscovering Nature & Peeing in the Woods.

During almost four months of Sheltering-In-Place to contain the Corona Virus in Northern California, I’ve rediscovered natural wonders, like watching wildlife as I walk alongside a riverbank, or the simple joy of peeing in the woods.

I didn’t plan to uncover these unparalleled delights. Like most remarkable moments of epiphany, they revealed themselves spontaneously.

With gyms and virtually every form of recreation locked down during California’s comprehensive COVID closures, walking or hiking on wooded trails or along rivers was one of the few, and healthiest, options available. I found renewed pleasure in walking outside, and didn’t miss the boundless boredom of the treadmill. For years, I found it ludicrous to look at a lock-step line-up of aging Boomers, earphones hugging their heads, running nowhere as fast as they could, frantically trying to outrace death.

Even before the pandemic put pumping iron on pause, gym membership, for me, was teetering on a very narrow beam. When I lived in San Francisco and was a member of a 24-Hour Fitness near the Embarcedero — where many of SF’s homeless came to shower — I watched in amazement as one fully clothed homeless guy jumped into the hot tub, convincing me it was time to change gyms, before he could change his clothes.