My Obliviousness

I went to the gym about three to four times a week when I lived in Idaho. Gold’s was a mere matter of minutes away from my apartment and somehow my husband convinced me that this was the perfect chance to take that 5:00a.m. spinning class he knew I’d just been pining for. It was our golden opportunity.

So we went and I’m proud to say that we actually lasted longer than three days. For a person who hardly realized that there was a 5:00a.m., this was quite the feat. It took three months before the blaring microphone of the instructor and the blaring beat of the music finally got to us. Funny that those things should do us in before the early hour did. But I wasn’t going to complain. I could start getting up again at 8:00a.m. like a normal person.

I did continue to go to the gym, only now when the sun was out. Paying $50 a month for a membership is great motivation to use it. That, and the small fact that they have cable TV on all the treadmills. I’m not ashamed to admit that HGTV, more than health, was my main reason for getting myself to Gold’s each day.

Now that I was heading to the gym at a reasonable hour called daylight, I noticed for the first time that across the street was a big empty plot of land. I’d driven past it many times before, but when the sun isn’t shining and your eyes are barely open, there isn’t a lot that you notice. I wasn’t missing too much since nothing had ever been there but an empty lot of dirt.

For months it continued to be the same expanse of nothing. Then, one morning I drove right past it as I usually did, heading for Pilates class, not really paying attention to the field on my left. Forty-five minutes later as I was waiting for the two-way traffic to recede so I could turn out of the parking lot I saw that the dirt across the street was suddenly covered in trees and half-finished construction projects. It was a double-take moment and I wondered what kind of fast-working construction elves had been doing this while I had been inside, working my core to the music of Jack Johnson. I swear it hadn’t been there forty-five minutes earlier. Or had it?

Hmmm, I wondered. What else had been going on while I hadn't been paying attention? Shrugging my now-limber shoulders, I pulled onto the street and headed home, but not before I saw a little elf run behind some plastic tubing. At least, I think I did. Maybe all the sunlight was playing tricks with my eyes.