The Locker Room

It is the room that most people dread. It's really quite bizarre if you think about it. The place where complete strangers gather together to take off their clothes and act non-chalant about it. We try so hard to piece together our outfits in a flattering way, or maybe at least just make the pieces match. Then enter this room, shed all, bare all, make small talk, and see everything about everyone that you wish you never had.

Teenagers dread it because they are forced to see what every other person has, does not have, or has too much of. Grown women fear the thought of exposing what their bodies have become. The elderly? Quite frankly I'm pretty sure they don't give a damn and are usually the most naked of anyone. But for me, I fear it for another reason. I often have Isis with me and I act with haste for I fear what may come out of her mouth.

A few days ago we went swimming. As we were doing the locker room thing, Isis befriended an older, Turkish woman. The woman spoke with such a thick accent, I was surprised Isis could understand her. But she did. And they conversed. They teased each other about whose locker was whose and which swimsuit belonged to whom. The woman informed me that she has a ten year old grandson who loves to come over and eat her Turkish cuisine. I told her I think that is what grandparents are supposed to be good at. I then coaxed Isis to tell this grandmother about the special food her Pop-Pop makes for her. The correct answer here is applesauce.

"Isis," I said. "Is there something special that Pop-Pop makes for you when we go to his house?"

She smiled sheepishly, looked at the woman, and said "Butt snaps."

I think I threw up in my mouth. Butts snaps are another delightful game we play with cousins at Grammy and Pop-Pop's house. I feared what might get lost in translation so I grabbed Isis and we drove home naked.

I try hard not to dwell on our locker room conversations. She sees things and says things and we pay little attention to them and shuffle in and out quickly. But it just seems that somehow someone in the locker room draws theses words right out of her mouth.

Today there was a woman pumping breast milk in the locker room. She was perched on a bench, covered in a towel, reading a book. I immediately empathized with her. Pregnancy. Birth. Motherhood. Breastfeeding. It's like for over two years you have loaned out your body for the sake of this child you would do anything for. Anything. Including getting naked in front of strangers only to strap your nakedness to a machine which really does sound like a pulsating bovine.

It's beautiful and thoughtless and something every woman who has ever done it understands. However it is none of these things to a toddler who skeptically keeps looking around saying, "Mommy, somebody farting."

I crawl into my locker and do not come out. I dread this place. There are things you can pretend not to see, but there are other things you simply cannot pretend you didn't hear.