Friday, June 13, 2014

IN DIFFERENT LANES

     Hanah is at home. I have a thousand reasons to get upset: she doesn't help, doesn't talk with Reina, doesn't do much of anything except sitting or lying on the couch that became her room this stay at home and either watch videos or work on her drawings. This last thing is OK by me: she is doing it for her theater job. Well, she doesn't really get payed, but getting such consistent experience at your future occupation is also valuable! They use Hanah's designs for stage scenery, plays' posters and make-up that she made all the time, as she told me!
     She is at home and I have a thousand complaints and - I am happy! Or, rather, content! 
     Today we went to the pool together with Hanah and Reina. The girls had to endure a little bit of the sales talk concerning joining the gym,  but since I DO want Hanah to get a gym membership for the few weeks that she will spend at home, so that she can exercise and also be my pool buddy for one more day a week, - we didn't mind too much.
     Young people are so weird! May be it's just my kids?! Hanah would not talk with Reina, would not get to know her; and Sonny is, probably, the same. I feel bad: it must be painful for my niece from Japan, and lonely too! But what can I do? I can't push Hanah and Sonny to become friends with Reina. I asked them a few times to talk to her, but things didn't move forward beyond that. Is it natural for people of their age to shy away from each other? I wish, I knew!
     The water was cool. I grabbed a couple of weights and began walking up and down the pool lane. pushing the weights with styrofoam ends under the water and feeling the resistance that will help me lose belly fat and strengthen my core. Hanah and Reina began to swim in two other lanes, looking away whenever they happened to stop next to each other. It was awkward, and the girls had pained expressions on their faces, but I ignored it: I came there to exercise, and everything else was besides the point. In about twenty minutes, the door to the pool area opened and a very fat black man walked in, followed by someone who was pushing his wheelchair. The black man walked into the pool, and his companion just sat in the wheelchair with a book to wait.
     For a few minutes the man in the pool jumped up and down at the opposite end of the pool than us. Then he began to make his way towards us. I glanced at the girls. Reina, probably, never was in close proximity to black people, and I didn't know, what her reaction would be. 
     The man stopped at the end where we were. He huffed and puffed a little, as he did his best to make his muscles work, then asked me about the weights that I was using. That was the beginning of a very lively conversation between us about the weight loss. The girls took off swimming, and after a while I followed them, pushing my devices up, down and to both sides. I didn't ask Reina about her experience: it seems too confronting, somehow, to talk to her about the race issues.
     
     
 

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