For decades hiking and back packing were part of my life. Many trips, many with my friend Peter, another member of 212, to the High Sierras, the Adirondacks, March trips to the high deserts in California, Arizona, Death Valley, Joshua Tree. In 2020, at 70 years of age, I was still backpacking, in part because I had discovered training gyms 4 years earlier. My last back packing trip ended on March 16, 2020, when Peter (the Rev, as Kerry calls him) and I came out of the Canyonlands/Moab, went to a Navajo restaurant for not freeze-dried food, and found our meal interrupted by an announcement from the Utah governor that all restaurants must close immediately. Terrified, Peter and I rushed to the Denver airport and flew home. (Picture, by Peter, of me in Canyonlands in March 2020)
After a year and a half of Covid stagnation, I found I could no longer easily go up and down stairs, much less up and down mountains. I moved to Providence to a third-floor walkup (who does that at age 72 when stairs are already a challenge?), shopped for two months for a gym that did small group training and finally found 212. I fell in love instantly. This was unlike any training gym I had seen or known. The warmth and sense of community was electrifying. Sure, many training gyms tell their trainers to learn everyone’s name, but at 212, it’s not just your name, but your person and your needs that they know. I learned that pretty soon.
Turned out Covid stagnation wasn’t the only reason I couldn’t go up and down stairs easily. I needed two knee replacements. And here is where the 212 community that so many people talk about comes in. It is full of people with knee replacements, people recovering from heart attacks, people with Parkinson’s disease, broken ankles, wrists, and many things I haven’t heard about, yet. And they support each other.
The 212 staff, every one of them, in every small group training, was laser focused on what I needed to prepare for two knee surgeries in 2 months. At the same time, they were focused on what the other 3 – 5 people in the small group needed. I was strong and confident going into those surgeries, and it was pretty clear to me that moving on from physical therapy to get back to the gym was the best route to recovery. And then there were the little special things like, the week before the second surgery, I had this wave of fear and started crying at the gym and Kerry just put his arms around me and told me, not just that it would be OK, but that it would be OK because they would help me. And they did.
Fast forward, here we are this summer, I’m about to start hiking again, I’m getting married in September, and damned if I don’t break my patella. Six weeks in a full leg brace, but after a couple of weeks I came back to the gym. Again, the team gives me exactly what I need. But in late August the orthopedist says, we’ll keep you in the brace another 4 weeks. No way, I said, I’m getting married in 4 weeks and I am not wearing a full leg brace. 212 helped me get there and on September 20, Hank and I got married, no full leg brace, Peter, (the Rev), officiating.
I give 212 a whole lot of credit for getting me from the post-COVID nadir, to this day in September.