We decided to return to the climbing wall, but masks made it difficult

Holly Baxter hadn’t considered just how challenging it might be to do moderate-intensity exercise with a mask clamped to her face, but being able to do it made the weekend feel a little more normal

Grabbing at holds on a plastic wall while you attempt to haul your own body weight around is no mean feat (Shutterstock)

Most New Yorkers have had to give up at least one ridiculous-sounding exercise class during the coronavirus pandemic. My own class of choice – “mindful yoga and kickboxing with primal movements” – may sound like a parody from the California-bashing comedy Silicon Valley, but it pales in comparison to the others some of my friends partake in (bucking broncos on sand and spinning in a pool, to name just two). Besides, I haven’t actually had to give up my primal movements combined with active yoga. Instead, the married couple who run the classes sign in on Zoom every Saturday from their leafy home in the Hamptons, along with their young daughter (Mia-Luna, because of course) who toddles up to the screen at the end of class and says one of the only words she knows to the assembled online audience: “Namaste.”

Despite the joy I get out of that class, there’s one shared activity I’ve really missed: climbing. It’s an activity my fiancé, E, and I can do together (he’s got good upper body strength; I’m small – you basically only need one or the other to be able to do it, though it’s best if you have both.) So you can imagine our excitement when the Cliffs at Dumbo, our favourite outdoor climbing wall, reopened last week in time for “phase four” of reopening. We signed up without a second thought.

When I went to get my hair done for the first time in four months a couple of weeks ago, it sounded a little less traumatic than it was in practice