A Shrouded Hex Bar and a Room Full of Stories
How grief rituals helped us tell the truth about what that place held, and how we’re building a new container together
Things are a bit different again this week because life is just like that at times. That said, I have a fun update on a post I released a few weeks back.
Seven weeks ago I published The Places That Hold Us, a reflection on third-place grief, and on the quiet violence of a system that treats the containers that keep us alive like disposable products. I wrote it in the raw ache of hearing the news: the gym was closing, the basement altar was being dismantled, and the nervous system would have to re-learn its coordinates.
So what did we do a couple weeks ago? We did something our culture almost never gives us permission to do. We held a funeral.
Not a metaphorical “well, that’s life” goodbye. Not a quick toast and a shrug. A funeral. We processed in with a hex bar in lieu of a coffin, shrouded and heavy as Ave Maria played beneath the laughter. We let the room enjoy the absurdity while still telling the truth about the loss. I wore a clerical collar and stole over gym shorts and gym shoes (Nunorm for those who might be wondering), because that mismatch is the point. We are bodies and we are meaning-makers. We lift heavy things, and we also bury what mattered.
And then the room became what it had always been, at its best: a place where people could tell the truth without being fixed.
About thirty-five of us sat there and offered witness to what the spreadsheet can never measure. The system calls it a gym membership. But what people were describing was a sanctuary of return. A third place where bodies were welcomed, where grief could move, where change could be held long enough to become real. We did not just mourn the closure. We honored the fact that a place like this had taught people how to keep living.
And for a few hours, both formally and then over bottles of wine and whiskey, we gave that truth the dignity of ritual and care.
Here’s more of what happened:
The Procession
My Opener
Dearly Beloved,
We are gathered here today to … well … what the hell are we doing?
A few weeks back after they announced the closure of the Denver Club Haus, as we were transitioning between a couple classes, Megan tossed out the idea that we should do a funeral.
And at one level, that sounds really strange. After all, nobody died. This is a gym. The only thing that outnumbers them in Denver are pot shops.
It’s a basement, a windowless room that we ourselves objected to because of the lack of light and the unwelcoming stairwell entrance.
That said, as odd as it might sound given the number of funerals I’m at, I don’t see myself as someone in the death business, but as someone in the life after loss business.
And the truth is, we are losing something rare, something special, dare I even say something holy or sacred. Because while this is just a place, just a basement, just a gym, it’s also a container where beautiful things have happened, and where we walked with each other through both joyful and painful things, and as much as we want to think things will be the same next week, if we’re honest, we know they won’t.
Yes, some of us will still be working out together. But others who’ve been part of the rhythm won’t be there.
Some friendships will hold, but a WhatApp group for the diaspora only works if we’re all intentional.
And while new is good and it creates opportunity for fresh growth, it can also be hard when you no longer find yourself in the same soil that’s been giving you life.
So in one way, tonight is about honoring that we all stand at a threshold, a point of transition, a gateway from one season of life into another. So we pause for a moment of intention, of remembrance, of celebration, and of reflection on what’s next.
We also honor the disruption that so many have felt over the past month.
When life is busy and everything seems to be working, we live in what author Miriam Greenspan calls deep forgetfulness. We forget the Buddha’s first noble truth: life hurts. And it doesn’t hurt because we’re failing, but because we’re human.
But we’re dislodged from this blissful forgetfulness when something ends. Sometimes a relationship, sometimes a dream, sometimes a body, sometimes a place. And suddenly we are aware once again of that forgotten truth.
It’s in these moments of renewed awareness it’s important to remember once again that our lives are sustained by rhythms, familiar faces, and passing through doors we’ve walked through a thousand times. In other words, we’re once again aware that our bodies need coordinates. Belonging needs a room. And if it doesn’t have one, it becomes difficult to ground ourselves again.
So we’re here to tell the truth about what this room held. We’re here to grieve the loss, yes. And to express what this place gave us that others haven’t.
What happened in this basement was not a product. It was a covenant of return. A people who kept showing up. A place where strength was built, and sometimes, without anyone making a big deal of it, so was the capacity to keep living.
And that means we’re going to speak aloud what was never honored by the language of spreadsheets and business decisions. Not to trash the powers that made those decisions, but to be more human than a bottom line ever can.
I bring up that last point because, after the announcement, like a lot of other people, I was thrown. There was anger and frustration, but it took me some time to put a finger on why. After all, they made a business decision, and that’s their choice.
But in making their business decision, I felt they never truly recognized what they’d created. They never listened to the voices of the people who were here, voices that had spent months not only talking about what could be done to make this place thrive, but help with the work to make it happen.
Instead we were reduced to wrong names or no names on what was dubbed a highly personal email, being described as a microcosm, offered more hollow promises, and of course those profoundly empathetic words produced by ChatGPT.
So to counter that, and to honor the loss, we are here to do three simple things:
We will remember.
We will witness.
And we will bless what was true so it can travel with us into whatever container comes next.
The first will come from all of us as everyone here will have a chance to share what this place has meant to them.
The second is something we will all do as we hear and honor the stories of others.
And the third will be something constantly happening in the background, as we make decisions on how to move forward.
So with that, I want to invite those of you who’d like to share your Gravity Haus story to do so. Share with us what this place enabled and what the people gathered here meant to you.
It can be a longer story, a favorite memory, an expression of gratitude, or just a couple words.
Open Sharing
A college lacrosse coach talked about how much the programming is meant to her. How at almost 50 she is still able to run the field with division one athletes, although she does it backwards and ready to blow a whistle at a moment’s notice. And the only thing she does to keep herself in shape was classes at the gym. The programming was that good.
People spoke about meeting a spouse, about watching a love story become a marriage and then a family, two kids arriving like living punctuation marks. People spoke about moving to Denver and being swallowed by loneliness, then walking into this basement and thinking, with surprise and relief: these are my people, this is my place. Someone named being at a bottom point in life and finding, in the simplest way, a rope back to themself.
And the stories went deeper, as they always do when a container is safe enough. A child coming out as trans, and the family learning how to stay tender. Someone stopping drinking. Marriages repaired. The hard work of becoming honest. The slow, stubborn reassembly of a life.
My Reflection
So I’m here today, because I got stood up.
It was one of those, she’s way too hot for me but I’m going to go for it anyway kind of dates. The plan was to do one of those open houses they had at Nurture right as we were coming out of Covid.
I got there that night and about 20 minutes after we were supposed to meet I got a message on Instagram that something had come up.
But instead of going home, I went inside and had a great night connecting with an array of people and providers. Now, if she showed up that night, I would have been all kinds of focused on her and not connecting with the people there. Instead, I enjoyed the vibe so much, I started hanging out at Nurture on a regular basis, which is how I found Gravity Haus.
It was one of those unexpected collisions. For years I’d been a distance runner. And in 2020 I was training to run Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim, a 46-mile slog from one rim of the Grand Canyon to the other and back. And then my body crashed and I learned the hard way that when you’ve blown past 40, doing nothing but endurance training will destroy your body from the inside out.
So here I was, a year later, failing at home workouts and needing something that would have me picking up heavy shit with guidance on how to do it well. And honestly, that first part terrified me because I’d never been a gym guy and didn’t know the first thing about kettlebells or dumbbells or barbells.
My first class was the Monday before Christmas in 2021 and I was the first one there. Amy King looking like Fitness Barbie greeted me at the door and I wasn’t sure what I’d done to myself. Then Sydney walked in and set up her phone so she could turn the workout into content. To be honest, I’m a bit surprised I came back.
But by Thursday, I was a member because I figured the workouts were what I needed. I just didn’t know how important the people would also become.
But that second class gave me a hint. It was just Paige, Steph, and I. Steph did the 12 Days of Fitmas in about 15 minutes. I’m not even sure if she broke a sweat. I made it halfway through, created a 6’ radius splash zone, and thought I might die. Then the three of us talked about divorce for an hour.
I never imagined that day what would happen over the next four and a half years. That it would be the place I’d learn to feel safe in my body again after someone I wish had stood me up came at me with fists and a kitchen knife.
That it would be the place I’d not only work through the stress of my dad’s cancer journey, but the place I’d find my support as I spent 15-months carrying my parents.
That Tracy would be there for the funeral, or that Brent would be saving the day and picking my brother up from the airport after his flight was delayed.
That the one expense I knew I couldn’t cut after losing my job would be the gym … not just because I needed the workouts, but because I needed the people.
The Blessing
Which brings us back to why we’re here, because people came to a space. As John has described it in his new endeavor, the common desire for workouts became the vehicle that allowed all this to happen.
That means what we are burying tonight is not just a gym. We are grieving the end of a container that helped us stay human.
But the container was never the brand. It was the people. It was the return. It was the agreement, spoken or unspoken, that you could come as you are and be met.
So as we close, I want to bless the diaspora. If you are heading to Platform Fitness with John to be a part of STNDRD FIT, may it become a place of life for you. If you are going somewhere else, may you find a room that fits, and may you help make it kind.
Carry the best of Gravity Haus forward. Not as nostalgia, but as practice. The practice of showing up. The practice of belonging. The practice of becoming strong, together.
Thank you for being part of this. Go gently. And keep choosing each other.
And if you want a next step (beyond the whiskey and wine as we shift this to a wake), make it uncomplicated. Before you walk out, trade numbers with one person. Make one plan. Be it coffee. A workout. A check-in. Just keep choosing each other and let the good that happened here happen beyond here.
The Next Step
Here is the part I did not see as clearly when I first wrote that essay: endings do not only scatter. Sometimes they reveal the real thing.
Because the container we lost was never just walls and equipment. The deeper container was the web of people, the covenant of showing up, the shared language of suffering and laughter and encouragement. And that covenant has not died.
One of the coaches is teaching at another gym now, building something of his own inside it. A new business, a new doorway, a new chance for the work to keep going. And some of us have followed, not as consumers chasing convenience, but as people choosing continuity. Choosing to keep sweating in the same orbit. Choosing to keep each other.
We are also finding ways to gather that are not dependent on a single brand or lease. We’re throwing one friend a 50th birthday party, and the invite list is basically a love letter to the old room. People who would have remained “gym acquaintances” in another timeline are now becoming friends who share meals, milestones, stories, and actual life.
This is what I mean by re-creation. Not optimism. Not denial. The slow defiant act of making a new container when the old one is taken. The willingness to let the good remain, and to carry it forward on purpose.
The place is gone. The people are still here.
And if the system keeps trying to monetize, optimize, and erase the spaces that make us human, then our response is not only to grieve. It is to build. To keep choosing each other. To keep making third places out of whatever rooms we can find.
May what formed us there travel with us. May the belonging outlive the basement. May the container keep moving, until it becomes a village.
If you’re in Denver and want to join us for programming that is “that good,” check out STNDRD FIT meeting at Platform Strength in Rino, just across the street from Improper City.
For those of you not in Denver, John will soon have online programming available specifically targeting GLP-1 users, people who spend most of their life on the road, and online options for what we’re doing in person.
And wherever you are, if grief over loss of any kind is weighing you down, jump over to my website and share your email. I’ll send you a pdf that unpacks how our approach to grief in the Western world actually makes the whole thing harder (and offers some thoughts on what we can do instead).
