Metropolis: We Hereby Resolve….

In her first post for 2016, Lucille confronts the daunting specter of unexpected change
  
Although the temperature was preternaturally warm in New York for Christmas and the Eve of, we had a quick preview of winter when the thermometer dropped to 16 ° F during the first full week of January. As the weather was trying to make up its fickle mind, I ignored the elements and went to my early morning weekend Zumba class on the 2nd.

This has been my go-to class for a couple of years. For a long time we were a cohort of 6 – 10 regulars in a small studio at the local community center. Our instructor, wildly energetic with a delicious island sensibility to her choreography, taught our class directly after an earlier class at the local Bally’s that I only attended once – along with about 100 other Zumba enthusiasts! The class was deservedly popular – and way too dense for me. I returned to our faithful few, and have continued to attend the class consistently.

Then we got word that in December, there would be a number of changes to our class. The Bally’s was going to close, having lost their lease, our class would now start earlier, and many of the students from the defunct class were hoping to join ours. Uh-oh. Changes. Multiple changes at once.

The first Saturday morning after the dreaded Bally’s closing, our class more than doubled in size. We regulars were outnumbered by the Bally’s brigade. The week after that, a couple of our regulars did not show up, and I hoped that my Zumba buddies were just missing due to holiday preparations and travel and such. I myself was going to miss the following week.

When I returned to the first class in January, some of my Zumba buddies were still not back in class, and there were now more like 3 times the number of participants ready to rock and roll – or rather Zumba the morning away. AND, another change: the class was reduced from its usual hour to 45 minutes so they could add 45 minutes of kickboxing directly after; a 90 minute workout with two instructors. It was all too much for my change-resistant soul, and cranky girl surfaced, insisting on an explanation for why such a decision had been made, instead of creating two separate classes, each instructor teaching for one hour.

Getting no satisfactory answer – I took a deep breath and decided to do my best to enjoy at least the first 45 minutes of class, and then see what would happen. As I took my place in the much-reduced space, one of the new students turned to wish me a Happy New Year, and asked me if I had made any resolutions.

I’ve never been much for New Year’s resolutions, not finding winter a particularly inspiring time of year to start something new or try something challenging. But in that moment, when this cheerful intruder posed the question, it came to me that a resolution would be good for me and I knew which one: to push through my resistance to unexpected changes and see what it would be like to stay open to them instead.

And since then I’ve thought about how pervasive unexpected change is in our lives. As someone very smart told me, those unexpected changes are a good reminder of the illusion we have that we are in control. Of anything. Whether it be our family, our relationships, our economic situation, our jobs, or simply the changing times, in every aspect of our lives we encounter the unforeseen. We can fight change or embrace it, individually and together. And we have all seen the disastrous results when a group of people digs their heels in and refuses to accept something new. The choice is ours.

So I have made a resolution. Even when I feel the resistance rising, here’s to a year of embracing change and the unknown.

Images courtesy of Google Images. Excerpt from “Changes” by and in memory of David Bowie.

"Metropolis: We Hereby Resolve..." and "Meeting People Where They Are", The Leadership Program, 2015