any other day

I only have a few minutes to spend here.  I wanted to sit down on write yesterday but I ran out of time.  Now that I am here I'm not sure what it is that I want to say. I am struggling. 

Beach's appointment with Spine Clinic is in a few hours. Every time I start to get dramatic and worry that it could be a moment that changes the world before her I remember most likely we will have no more answers at the end of this day than we had at the end of any other day.

I worry they will require more testing that we can't really pay for.

I worry something was missed the first time.

I worry that something will be missed this time.

I worry she won't hear the words she needs to hear.

I worry that she will walk away from gymnastics and still be in pain.

And somewhere deep in the part of my heart that holds her hopes, I worry that she won't get to do what she could have done... 

the thing most feared

I don't want her to die in a gym.  It's a feeling that doesn't have to be written. I don't want her to die; not there. 

No one has to say this but I am. I don't want her to walk into a room and never walk out.

She has traded a childhood of freedom for discipline and work. Hours, days, months, years of training. She has lived there; I don't want her to die there too.

Gymnastics is hard.
It's scary.
It hurts.

It is not for everyone.  But for those who find it as the framework for their lives, it is the only way.  It is their language, their culture.  It teaches them about the world and about themselves. 

And as much as I don't love the sport part of it, I have always feared the moment it ends for her.  Never once did I consider the alternative- that she could end.  Broken bones and pulled muscles... but even I didn't allow my fears to go beyond that.

She is who she is because of this sport and this sport IS because of others like her.  

So I say again to the moms and the dads, what words do we want to give to our daughters as they go to and from their work? 

Work harder, point your toes, run faster, take more turns, push harder. OR I love you. Have fun. Be brave, but not too brave. We are proud of you for all that you do. 

It is more likely one of us will die driving than one of them will die as a result of gymnastics.

 It is more likely your good-bye would be your last, not hers. 

But what if a million horrible things lined up.

Anxiety gives me a clear window. The world is dangerous. I am just "lucky" enough to always know that. It doesn't take a tragedy to remind me of how fast the clock is ticking.

If today was our last day together what would we have done differently? How would you have said good-bye? 

cups of water

It's the water.  The blue weight of it lapping at the side of the boat.

It whispers low beneath the wind, Let me in, let me in.

This was my idea but sitting in the canoe in the cool vastness of a November mountain lake I start second-guessing myself.

The wind is combing the dark water.  Scraping it towards the canyon and away from the dam.

I paddle but it feels like rowing through the sand.

"You can't straighten the canoe from the front in the wind," he says over the gentle clicking of the reel on his grandpa's fishing pole.

"The wind is going to push it sideways."

I know this. 

I lean carefully over the side of the canoe.  Let my fingers dip into the water.  I guess the water temperature to be in the '50s. I nod to myself knowingly but really it's the only cold water temperature I know- the water tank at the sports rehab I take Beach to. Honestly, I have no idea how cold it is or isn't.

 I look boat to shore, shore to the boat. Then I glance around the canoe wondering if we tipped which of the items I took with me would be the thing that killed me: the scarf? the big sweatshirt? the coat? Yeah, definitely the scarf. If only she hadn't worn the scarf...

I imagine the weight of waterlogged wool wrapping around my throat and my hands like a sea monster. I resist the urge to throw it off to the muddy floor of the canoe.

BC leans to one side.  I react and lean to the other and swear under my breath.

"When we go back we should take the trail below the parking lot," he says.

I look back up the steep, yellow hillside and wonder how long until we do actually go back.  Long, I tell myself, relax, enjoy this... because it was your fucking idea after all. He is only doing this for you.

I sit quietly among the sound of the grayling jumping; starvation fish.

I begin to contemplate how to get into a life jacket while fully dresses in breath-stealing water. Will it fit over my coat? Or do you try to remove your coat first? 

"I know this makes you uncomfortable," he says.  I hear the strong zip of a good cast. "Just give me a few minutes of drift to get set."

I turn and "date" smile. "No, it's fine. Take your time." I adjust the lifejacket at my feet so it's not trapped beneath the seat if the boat flips. I measure the distance to the nearest shoreline- far. Yep, it's officially very fucking far.

Pause. "It's just...uncomfortable, why does it feel like we are going against the waves?"

"We aren't."

I paddle three dozen strokes.  "I want to go over there but we aren't." I am pointing at the far shoreline.

"We are," he answers dryly.

The sun touches the hazy crown of the mountains to the west. I stop my slow panic to watch it.

He shifts.  The canoe takes a bow to the waves.

"Why does the canoe seem so tippy?" I ask, once again readjusting the lifevest with my foot.

"It's a canoe," he says.  Then probably remembering something about me he adds, "It won't tip.  We would have to both really try to tip it to get it to go over."

I know this. 

I nod. My back fighting to stay calm.

I watch the waves roll by blue- but the lake is green.  Clearwater almost gelatin looking in its purity.  Early in the day, I had called the reservoir ugly but it isn't.  It sits like a silver cup between golden canyons. 

"Okay, where do you want to go?" he asks his paddle already in the water correcting the course.

"There." I point to the shoreline around the headwater. Dead trees standing like broken gates. I can't help but to want to look behind them.

The canoe finally points and BC's strong comfortable stokes coupled with mine move us. The water dances against the low craft.

This is why. It's the water.  The sound and the silence.  The light and the dark.  The deepness and the shallows. I was raised on the water.  It's where my soul rests.

My strokes are easier than they have been in years. My shoulder finally healing.  BC and I move the boat together and we make big gains.  Yes, this is why.

Midlake I say, "I think I need a beer."

He stops paddling.  Opens the cooler pulling out a brown bottle.  Popping the lid with his lighter he hands it to me.  Our fingers barely touching over the length of the boat.

The canoe losing it's direct turns in the wind.  I pretend not to feel it as he pours himself a glass of wine. For some reason, the sideways gait of the canoe is less uncomfortable now.

A triad of ducks drifts by then explode into flight. They call out to each other, ark in the muted sky and land on the other side of us; no closer, no farther away.

I put in a few strokes that pull us back on course.

BC joins me and we glide to the end of the lake.

"Shore?" he asks.

"Sure," I answer, not really wanting to leave the water.

"The rocks?"

"Sure."

"You will have to bring us in," he says as he begins to pull is his line.

"I always do," I answer.

I push my paddle down reaching for the bottom and don't find it.  I do it two more times as we get closer wetting my gloves but never finding the ground. The shoreline below us must be steep I reason.

I take aim, give three good strokes and set my paddle down on the bottom of the boat to pick up my beer. The nose races in.  It nuzzles a set of white rocks on the right and a dense cluster to the left.  It stops softly on the patch of open gravel.  A perfect mooring.

I look over my shoulder to BC a laugh already spreading across his lips.

I shrug, "Who needs a paddle?"

I jump out landing precariously three times before finding solid footing.  I pull us in. I was raised on the water.  My body knows everything about it. I look out across the lake, the waves with the sun slipping away.

BC pulls on his coat before carefully making his way to shore.  He is more thoughtful than I was. Choosing a route up the rocks that ensures (over luck) dry feet.

A bottle of beer, a glass of wine, and a silver, no, a golden cup of blue-green water. 

This is the reason: to remember I am more okay than I think I am... even when I am drifting.

learning not to speak

I stood.  I lingered.  Rocking back and forth on the words trying to find enough air to travel on.  She is sixteen, I reminded myself.

Sixteen, but still.

I wavered a moment more. Then I walked to my car. I waved at the parents and a few squares of concrete down the block I waved at the girls.

The two of them together side by side. One a billowing white ghost, the other a black and white convict. One trying making her way while still being invisible; the other bursting, trying to escape her cage.

 I didn't say she is totally night blind and may need help in the dark...

But she is sixteen.  

And this is a new friendship in a new place. 

 I didn't want to ruin it. 

Alone in my car driving down St. Mary's drive, I dropped the work of a decade of Halloweens spent guiding and protecting her while pretending she was doing it all on her.

I know it seems ridiculous.  A Level 10 gymnast with titles on the national stage, a skilled artist, and an award-winning photographer but the kid is legally blind in one eye and low sighted in the other.  For me, this was truly the first time I was letting her go into a world without mother strings attached- without history or a label.

The sunset was a burning jack-o-lantern slipping into the salt of the western horizon. I thought about the time she walked off a 4-foot ledge and tore her costume, skinned her knees and split open her lip.  The countless number of times she tripped or was knocked over by children she didn't see coming.  The painful way she teetered off porches and stumbled down steps. How it seemed every crack in the sidewalk was out to get her.

When I returned a few hours later she was safe inside the home of her new friend.  Sitting at a table with candy carefully sorted in piles, ready to trade. I didn't ask her if she had trouble in the dark.

And the next morning I didn't say a word as I closed the extra spaces in her 5 pages of typed notes on the conditioning program the head coach asked her to write for him.

I am learning how to let go of her disability. 

Perhaps one day, I will catch up to where she stands.

  

beautiful November

I remember the moment: the tip of his white tail flashing through the tall, still grass.  Behind me a small village of pine trees, before me a divided army of Aspens.  

My life is beautiful.

Standing miles away from where most of it is lived I could look back at it and smile.  

How dangerous to be this content, I thought.  How grateful to have this moment.  The edge of Autumn slipping into winter.  The mountains closing into white corners.  The valley about to be shushed. 

I had stolen the time from other places to be there.  To slip away one more time before the snow gate dropped just to see the dogs running free in the mountains.  To watch Juneau crisscrossing the trail.  No one telling him he's wrong.

The air and the ground were cold but the trees held the light so carefully.  I stood in the meadow breathing the smell of the woods.  I had everything I needed on my back. 

Yes, my life is beautiful.

November is calling.  The orange lights of Halloween have burned out. It is time to call all the children home.  

Time to set the table for the next season that is already falling around us.

Home-baked bread, board games, thick books, and piles of blankets. 

I love winter.  I love the snow. I miss nothing of summer and the way it suffocates the city.  

Spring; heavy with mud and false hope.  Autumn; short and sweet.  

Winter stretches long and quiet. 

Dark draws us all home down roads lit by street lights dancing with falling snow, headlights bursting in the slush, frost bleeding with the salt of dining room chandeliers left on.

Winter makes space.  It gives room for change to happen.

November is deep. 

It is sharp and blue and quite possibly the most beautiful part of the whole year. The best part is it starts now.