But a certain poetic position has gone inconspicuously unfilled for over two decades in Ottawa.

With City Hall proposing funding for a renewed Poet Laureate position, we looked into the idea that slowly crept back into the Capital’s consciousness.

(a piece by Julia Sisler, Kathleen Clark and me)

It’s a place no one would go to relax.

There’s a smell of sweat and rubber, the clink of weight machines, and the clang of barbells being dropped on the floor. Overtop of all this, a techno track soars, lyrics about love over an electronic drum beat.

And little puffs of breathing, like steam coming out from under the lid of a pot.

It’s as if there’s a code of silence — but really, what is there to say?

You lift until your muscles burn. You rest.

It feels almost intimate to share physical exhaustion with strangers.

But a workout is also, in some ways, a performance. A long mirror covers one wall, and it’s hard not to feel the eyes, to appraise yourself, and to look.

The room begins on the far left in the land of the treadmill – and the land of women. A dozen of them, with a few men thrown in, on running machines and ellipticals. One has a copy of Elle spread out over the front of her stationary bike. Others gaze into the machines’ screens as if they’re gateways to Wonderland, lulled, their heads bobbing back and forth like pendulums.

On the floor next to the treadmills are a few mats for floor exercises. A woman lies on her stomach, with one leg curled behind her and upwards in some kind of stretch, all while chatting on her cell phone.

The people on the treadmills look out on a sea of weight machines that take up most of the room – and a sea of men.

One, with shaggy hair, stubble, a bandana and big headphones, heaves a pulley up from the floor, which in turn lifts a stack of black weights. His round, bare biceps frame a black tank top that says “Megadeath.”

There are all body types here, from round to narrow – and in droves. To reach the water fountain in the far corner, you have to navigate through sweaty traffic.

A pair of women stand out among all the men. One, with a blond ponytail, sits in a machine that forces her to twist her whole body in a kind of sideways crunch. Her friend looks on, a willowy Asian woman wearing leggings and two tops – a white tank top that looks almost lacy underneath a loose green shirt with an open neck that seems stylishly lopsided.

A Black man with muscles bursting out of a tight black tank top arrives on the scene, tiny white ear buds dangling from his ears. His thighs are probably each the size of the Asian woman’s waist.

“Are you waiting for this?” he asks her, indicating the machine, as the blonde girl finishes.

She looked like she was waiting. But she makes a sound that seems to intonate “Oh not at all”  and seconds later, the man is in place, twisting away.

At the far end of the room, far from the treadmills, are the barbells, and a little community of talkative gym rats. They take long rests, chatting, their bulging muscles appearing almost unnecessary when not in action, like extra blankets you didn’t need after all. Then one goes to work, hoisting an unspeakable amount of weight. Never have I seen so many veins — like pulsing lengths of blue string underneath the skin.

The gym is a place no one would go to relax, but at the same time, there are moments of bliss: the breaks between sets, the ecstasy of relief after exertion.

The water from the shabby old plastic fountain is cold enough to hurt your teeth. It feels like the only cold thing left in the world.

Today, I had a completely opposite experience.

I was pushing a cart of TV equipment from my house in Old Ottawa South to a building on the Carleton campus. I was cutting through Brewer Park, between Cameron Avenue and Bronson Avenue. There’s a path through the park that gets plowed – but the path was covered still in a solid layer of ice several centimetres thick almost the whole way. And in the above-zero, rainy weather we’ve had the past few days, that ice had become quite slushy.

The TV equipment is big and heavy – camera, tripod, lights. It fits nicely onto a little push-cart, but it’s not exactly built to be a snowmobile.

I would trundle along for maybe 50 metres, then get stuck, and ram the cart forward in little jolts, until it got free from the slush.

I could hear footsteps coming up behind me, and I felt a bit embarrassed at my situation – dragging what basically looks like a big trolley of luggage through slush. I tried to go as quickly as possible, hoping that I wouldn’t be overtaken – but knowing at the same time that I would be.

As I got stuck one more time, the footsteps caught up to me – and then suddenly the smiling face of a young man with shaggy hair and a bit of a goatee appeared next to me. He asked me if I wanted help carrying the cart across the path.

“Yes” I said to the offer of help – but “What do you mean, carrying it?”

With that, he picked up the front end of the cart – the heavier end – and we carried it together to Bronson Avenue.

Kindness like that is so unusual. I’m so grateful.

It wasn’t that hard for Patrick (that’s his name) to do – not to understate how much the heavy cart probably strained his muscles – but I probably wouldn’t even think to make such an offer, out of shyness and fear of being too forward.

It made all the difference, just to get that bit of help from a complete stranger.

Turns out Patrick is a fourth year engineering student.

One funny moment in our conversation, when we were talking about what we were studying: he said to me, “You must be almost done, eh?” I don’t look like an undergraduate anymore…

But thanks Patrick.

And I hope to do my own kind acts.

***
On a completely unrelated note: Monday night, walking that same route home from Carleton, I noticed how pretty the treacherous ice can be:

But on a crisp winter afternoon it comes alive.

Ian Stewart has been drawing crowds to his yard for 44 years.

For him every winter day begins the same way.

(By Julia Sisler, Kathleen Clark and me)

The city imposed a moratorium on all new street food vendor permits in 1996.

Since then, the number of trucks has gone down from more than a hundred to 32.

One Ottawa woman who wants to offer healthy choices is finding that she has to do it her own way — on private property.

(By Martha Troian and me)

I did a little radio doc on it for a class.

It’s a little hokey, but it’s got a wicked guest – Western prof of pop Jay Hodgson — plus music from Rihanna and Britney Spears. AND you’ll learn what side chain pumping means. It’s as sexy as it sounds.  

But now that I’ve written it, I’m kind of pleased with it. I’m publishing it here, but with this caveat: I’m Derek Boyd’s friend, and he asked me to write this basically to promote his business. This is not journalism.

At the same time, I don’t think I am hiding anything in this piece, or being dishonest with my portrayal.

Here we go:

Blaring techno and fluorescent lighting seem to make the narrow room even hotter, as a bunch of young bodies throw punches into foamy red pads.

The pads are held by training partners, who try not to flinch.

Instructors Derek Boyd and Corey Sheikh yell out encouragement. “Imagine you’re lighting a fire under your butt!” Boyd says, describing one particular kick.

The two men are trying to turn the vicious combat sport of muay Thai into fun fitness.

Muay Thai is called “the deadliest stand-up fighting martial art in the world,” Boyd says. Competitors use every limb to inflict blows. “You pummel each other, you knee each other. It’s not about dodging any punches. It’s about how much damage can you take and how much can you give back. It’s a battlefield martial art that turned into a ring sport.”

But in Ottawa’s only muay Thai fitness class, there’s no combat – just conditioning. You can vent aggression and go home with all your organs intact.

In this community centre workout room, everyone’s barefoot, with gloves on. To give the pad a good smack, you have to throw your weight into your punch or kick.

The pads are “probably the best conditioning,” Boyd says, because of their stiff resistance.

“A lot of kickboxing classes, a lot of aerobics [have you] punching the air, which could get you fit, but really it’s not going to build any muscle, it’s not going to get you really toned,” Boyd says.

He prescribes punches, kicks, and combinations of the two in batches of 50 at a time.

After first running out of breath and then dealing with a rush of lactic acid, participants get a break when they get to hold the pads, clenching their knees as their partner’s foot cracks against the foam.

The teamwork in these classes is what sets them apart from other martial arts fitness programs, the instructors say.

“In kickboxing, they train with the bag. The bag doesn’t give you any feedback. The bag can’t tell you how hard you’re hitting,” Boyd says.

Many of the class members have come out with friends or partners.

Ryan and his friend Jose are interested in learning how to “spar,” or fight recreationally: “We’ve known each other for years, he was best man at my wedding… you know, there’s always that curiosity, can I beat my best friend up?”

Dripping with sweat at the end of class, Ryan says the class is more motivational than a solo gym workout. “I own every piece of gym equipment in my house but I don’t use it,” he says.

The class even convinced him to quit smoking, since he was wheezing and coughing so much while throwing punches. Cigarettes had been a habit for 17 years.

After punching and kicking till they’re red in the face, participants cap off the night with sets of abdominal exercises.

“When I first started, I’d leave class shaking every time. You have to build up your stamina. I’m feeling more up to things now,” says a woman called Jessica.

“[Derek] just made me work so hard that I almost threw up,” says one man, talking about his very first class.

The instructors have slid naturally into “good cop” and “bad cop” roles, class members say. One of them imitates Sheikh: “No water! Harder!” and Boyd: “Good job guys!”

“It’s not like we come in and put on our teaching mask and now all of a sudden we’re different,” Sheikh says. “Our natural personalities are coming out. Derek is a bit more personable – I’m personable too but I can be straight to the point.”

A woman called Sonia says she likes the encouragement. “They’re motivating, and they’re on top of you – Corey does not let you rest! You get that personal trainer kind of feel, whereas if I go to the gym, I’m not pushing myself as hard as I should,” she says.

Both Boyd and Sheikh fought muay Thai competitively for several years before starting the class. Boyd spent time training in Thailand.

These days, the two spar recreationally while focusing on the expansion of their business. They have plans to open their own gym, a second story space with large windows in the Byward Market.

Sheikh talks about “revolutionizing the way you can work out.”

Boyd says the trouble with fitness programs is that “everything is about a means to an end.”

In this case, kicking, punching — and sweating — are ends in themselves. But at the same time, they’ll still give you wicked biceps.

The quote is from Hilaire Belloc’s ’Dedicatory Ode’:

‘From quiet homes and first beginnings, out to the undiscovered ends, there’s nothing worth the wear of winning but laughter and the love of friends’

I drive down to Knox Presbyterian Church once a month to volunteer at a supper for the homeless. I park on Lisgar Street, at the end of the street just before it becomes a cul-de-sac at  Lisgar Collegiate Institute.

When I arrived at 5:30pm tonight, it was dark.

I saw the white lines indicating parking spots on the road, and I slid my car into one of them.

I’ve been parking there for years.  Why would I check to see if the green  circle parking sign has suddenly changed?

I come back two and a half hours later to find a 50 dollar ticket on my windshield.

Since I last came down there, a little red no-parking sign has sprung up – with no change to the white lines on the road.

How about a warning next time you make a change like this, instead of a ticket?