Last fall I bought a used Peloton. They are a lot easier to come by these days, and for all the reasons why, I am grateful: we are not in lockdown, we (currently) have access to vaccines and masks, body bags are not being loaded into freezers due to lack of morgue space.

I bought my Peloton from a young woman who was moving to London for a graduate program. We had the exact same size feet, which I took as a sign of camaraderie more than anything else, because she’d thrown in the shoes and a couple of mats and a vibrating foam roller, which I didn’t even know was a thing. That kind of win-win generosity wasn’t lost on me. She needed to lighten her load, and I needed hope that my winter exercise routine wasn’t going to have to include a gym again.

I am usually grumpy about gyms, which I have never succeeded in appreciating despite many, many, many attempts. They have served me well when they did, for short periods when it was too icy or windy to be outside safely. As soon as spring arrives, though, I bolt. Conceptually I think gyms are fine, it’s truly just a me problem. I need to be outside to exercise, and if I can’t be outside, I would rather just be at home.

I also do most of my exercise alone. I walk in the morning and in the afternoon, because we have dogs, but morning walking or biking helps me connect to the Universe (an all-inclusive term meant to be as descriptive of the infinite, all genders, all concepts of good, mercy, and love, a truly higher power if you will) and later in the day it helps me surrender whatever I’ve gotten my claws into that does not serve me.

When I bought the Peloton I was deep into campaign work so of course I asked my new friend if she was registered to vote, and when she assured me that she actually was a big Harris/Walz fan and had already requested her absentee ballot, we talked about having conversations with people she knew who weren’t voting. We both shyly shared our hope that decency would prevail, hugged, and went on our separate ways into the most gorgeous New England fall in recent memory.

Then I had my hysterectomy, the election was a week later, and everything changed.

I was not expecting to like the Peloton instructors so much. But I kind of adore them. A few of them are actual channels, and by that I mean they are healers. They share. They exude their authentic positive energy, which in my exhausted state I forgot still exists as something real and not just a new age commodity or marketing ploy. Healers are here to be of service to the highest good for the greatest number. We encounter healers in every walk of life, in every profession or organization, or even out in the wilds of human interaction when we least expect it. You know you’ve been in the presence of a healer because no matter how mundane your interaction has been, you feel better afterward. They can be actual practitioners of healing like doctors, therapists, PT’s, etc that have this effect, but not exclusively, not by a long shot.

You might have been in line at the grocery store after an excruciatingly hard day after forgetting your reusable bags in the car yet again, your feet killing you, when the checker makes eye contact with you and smiles as they give you the total….but only when you’re back in your car do you realize you feel better. Somehow.

You might absolutely love your dentist, which makes no sense because for your entire life you’d have rather gnawed your own arms off up to the elbows than go to the dentist. Ironic, since in that case you’d probably need a dentist more than ever.

Your last call to whatever customer service hellscape you needed to call ended rather pleasantly, surprisingly. You’re impressed with how kind and knowledgeable your agent was, and even if they couldn’t help you right away, you were struck by what a hard job they have yet how earnestly they connected with you.

I know you have your own stories of how the secret agents of love move among us. They are here to demonstrate what we all can do. The energy they can’t help but exude, that heals us, often does so because of the connections we’re able to make with one another, heart to heart. They show us that the love we come here to share doesn’t need perfection in order to function. It just is.

Which lately, is an awareness we are trying desperately to live out of. Because, wtf.

Many days hate seems like it’s winning. Or whining. Or both.

One morning I got on the Peloton, positioned strategically by the slider, and even though there were still 3+foot snow banks outside the window, the sun was shining, the new rescue dog Max was being adorable watching squirrel TV (whoa), and I decided to try a more challenging Peloton class now that I wasn’t exactly a beginner and the chances were slightly greater that I wouldn’t fall off and injure myself.

I tried a short interval ride, which most of you familiar with Peloton or spin cycling will think is very cute. An interval class incorporates effort with rest in different ratios: basically you bust your ass for a certain amount of seconds, followed by recovery in approximately the same amount of time, shifting as needed, or to increase the challenge.

The idea is to work really hard when you’re working hard and to….not do that afterward. In this class, we did a hill climb for the first part and then 8 intervals, starting with 30 seconds and increasing to 45. So, 30-second push, 30 second rest, up to 45 seconds of push and 20 seconds of rest.

I liked it. A lot. I worked hard, but I also got….soft. An interesting result from kicking ass. I got emotional when my instructor said the inspirational things I previously would have thought were kind of canned and corny. But then I realized she was a channel. That’s why I believed her.

I started listening differently to the energy in what she said. She meant it when she said things like: we didn’t have to be perfect, because we’d already shown up for ourselves and that was everything. She looked straight at the camera and told us to adjust our effort as needed, but to keep going, that we were important, that it was no small thing to take care of ourselves. That we should be proud of making time for ourselves, that we should give ourselves props for being so strong. Most importantly, she encouraged us to leave it all behind on the bike.

At least I think she said all that. It was only a 20-minute class.

When it was over, after the cool-down part and the post-ride stretching, I had the thought that I really had given it everything I had, but it had been possible because I only had to do it in intervals. Because I was also allowing myself to rest.

You know what I’m going to say next, right? Even those of you who aren’t seasoned Peloton fans can guess what the big light bulb in the sky gifted me, the AHA! I had standing there with Max, mesmerized by the squirrels?

Everything she said is true for sustaining hope. We don’t have to have enough hope to last through every minute of every day. Every waking moment doesn’t need to feel good, or (gag) positive. During the darkest times, the longest winters of our civilization, the cycles (see what I did there?) when suffering and struggle and cruelty press hard on our hearts and minds, what if we only have to sustain hope in intervals?

We give hope everything we’ve got. We send it straight from our heart into the entire world knowing it will land in the heart of someone who is spent. Then it’s our turn to rest, so we rest. Someone out there is about to start peddling as hard as they can, helped by us.

This is how we keep going.