the size of the fight

I'm not going to tell you a story so don't ask.  It's not that exciting anyway and you will live not to know the exact details.  

In fact, go ahead and insert any G-rated storyline you like- it's all the same for the purposes here. It's not the point.  It doesn't matter. 

What I am going to tell you is how proud of my child I am.  

Sometimes it is easy to stand up for what you believe in and sometimes it's not.  

Sometimes it will cost you something you have worked hard for; hurt for, cried for.

I have said many times that Beach is a fighter.  If she was in public school she would always be in some kind of trouble. That sweet smiling kid is more than she appears.  She has a strong internal sense of social justice. Constantly on the side of the underdog.  If she believes something isn't right, she won't leave it alone. 

She is innately good.  Kind, generous, thoughtful, and smart.  These things help because that much fight poured into the wrong type of moral character would be dangerous. 

This is why gymnastics works so well for her; most days you get out what you put in, gravity is fair to everyone, the equipment is predicable stoic, and you support your team no matter what. 

She also has a built-in drive to collect the herd- to team build and to belong. She sees her team and her friends as part of her and she part of them. 

Yesterday she did what she thought was right despite thinking her parents would both be mad. In fact, believing all the adults around her could possibly be angry. 

Remember a time you did that.  A time you made a choice (the right choice in your heart) and voiced it knowing it would piss off everyone you loved.  

Despite the price tag literal and metaphoric, she stood her ground. 

As she told me the events, her words, and her choice I realized I was listening to the words of a true Leader. 

Whether or not one agrees with her (or what she was fighting for) she stood up for what she believed in.  

She fought for someone else giving everything she could. Everything she had to offer. 

She didn't solve world peace or stop global warming. She didn't even win the fight. The issue will be talked through by the real parties involved and forgotten. 

What matters is the willingness to stand up and say your truth. To fight for what you believe in.  There isn't enough of that going around these days. 

Somehow I have returned to running and to writing. Those 2 things go together for me.  But so do the nightmares.  Running fuels them.  They feed off sore muscles and adrenaline. 

Last night after Beach spilled her story to me and left my bed I fell asleep to the old whispers.  Old dreams, old ghosts, old monsters.

Sometime in the night, I dreamt of a room filled with party-goers; a mix of prom and little kids at Halloween.  I asked a question and Beach answered, "Ask Wendi."  

I turned to see my sister sitting beside Beach on a stool.  A perfect 16-year-old Wendi.  The way I remember her when she was my best friend. Before all the boys and the beer and the drugs took her away. 

Wendi said nothing she simply smiled pastel and papery. 

"How did Wendi get back here?" I asked Beach.  Because it's been a long time since I have seen her in my dreams.

"Oh, she's with me, "Beach answered. 

I suppose she is now... perhaps that only makes sense to me. But like I said that sort of fight in the wrong hands can be dangerous. In the right ones, it will save us all. 

tenth

The back of houses they stick out into alleys naked and exposed. Flowers blindly bloom in gardens that have long been lost to forgotten ambition. The sidewalks slope and crack in too much of a hurry to stay down properly.

With it's newly cut grass and broken canopy of maple trees it smells like Harvard-Yale. But the display of blight, broken bricks, overgrown shrubs, houses divided like cake with too many front doors, and the aged apartment buildings that grow like weed vine among the homes, give it away for what it is; Sugar House.

Why did we did leave here? It was the question I asked myself the first day I slipped around the corner with the dog on a leash heading up one of the Avenues. I had waited on 11th East watching Beach turn the key, let herself into the front duplex for her cat sitting job. Once she was in I had about an hour to kill. So I went walking.

It was a temporary arrangement. One month, two times a week. At noon we would drive up 17th South; drive backward through time. It reminded me of the nanny job I took when Beach was 3.

A three-month commitment.  It too took Beach and me up the hill, a few hours, a few days a week, for a few months. Interlopers in someone else's life.  That one was a cold white house hanging high over the valley on the foothills.  I would drive the streets and park my VW van with the other cars of the workers.  For all the money and the mansions the only people home were the maids and the tradesmen... and the nannies.

From the first seconds of that job, I was homesick for the valley floor. I would pick up the 2-year-old daughter from nursery school. Drive her home. Feed her a lunch of carefully dictated leftovers. Let her watch one episode of Madeline, read her one book, put her down for a nap, then wait to be excused by the grandmother "who would take it from there".

In my memory, there is no sound. The rooms tucked in between marble and carpet and the privacy money can buy all lay in a silence that is almost dead. Surely haunted.

Sugar House is the opposite. Even the job flipped: it was Beach who was working while I wandered.

I would weave my way up and down the streets crossing my own history.  I would find myself staring into a yard, into blank windows, down long driveways. I imaged the people who lived in each house.  I pressed my feelings against the apartment houses and wondered what it would be like to live there- alone.  I cut down alleys over broken glass along leaning fences and off-street parking pads.

One day it was raining; we still walked. The dog, more than reluctant but I had a question to answer and time to kill.

Yesterday was the last day. I waited for Beach to get inside the apartment then I headed out to say good-bye to my afternoon sessions with Sugar House. Mailed a letter at the post office before setting off into the rows of houses that had become my backdrop.

Why did we leave Sugar House? For space, for land, for freedom.

I miss the idea of it sometimes. Miss the idea of clean uniformity of bricks and clapboards that trickles out of Harvard-Yale. It runs downhill splashing out into the streets around Sugar House Park, it dots the shopping district; drying out around 2nd East.
   
I don't miss the interlopers. The dog walkers. The pet sitters. The traffic. The trees that lean and the sidewalks that break. I don't miss the thick bungalow where it was always winter, even when the flowers were blooming.

We moved west to stand in a field as the sun came up.  We moved west to be able to leave our bikes on the front porch while going in for a glass of water and not come back to them gone without us. We moved because of property taxes and horrible neighbors and nowhere to park.

We moved west so we could go walking along the river.

"The house on tenth west liked junk.  We didn’t know it when we fell in love and bought it.  A realtor’s nightmare with dead animals mounted on the walls, overstuffed rooms, gaping valances, and dusty curtains.  The day we were shown the house we stepped around the piles, navigated rooms so full we were not allowed to open closed doors.

We bought her anyway and moved across town.  Down 1700 South over the tracks and through the industrial warehouses, onto a wide residential street that seemed to stretch forever.  We were in by Halloween.  Ripping up carpets, tearing down cabinets and curtains, stripped her bare and we all started over." ~Taming Venus, mlb

What else I hadn't known was that we would spend the next twelve years curing the house on Tenth of her need for possessions. And as much as we have changed her, she has changed us. Once we were a family of Sugar House refugees, a child of Harvard-Yale and a child of the world, moving from under the shadows of institutions like Dartmouth and the mighty U; we are not that anymore.

what is within

It's that moment. The pause. The place that might mark the before and the after. Are we truly here? I wondered watching her trying to get comfortable on the gurney. She's too big and too small all at the same time. The ER hummed quietly outside the closed door as the clock dragged against the night and we waited.

In the 8 plus years, Coach Lindsay has coached Beach that was the first text I have ever received during practice from her. It was about Beach's back. More shocking than that was when I showed up and pulled her from practice to go in for x-rays Beach didn't even question it.

She was done throwing punches in the dark.

It's hard to retell the contents of the hours in a holding pattern and maintain their integrity. To explain the family connection I have with the ER Doc; Dr. Plum. That I grew up with her little brother Andy.  Andy who died of an overdose fueling Dr. Plumb and her family to set up UtahNaloxone. When I identified myself to her I said, I am Wendi Brown's little sister... I too am a sibling to one of the Lost. 

Only hours earlier standing beneath a giant billboard with Andy's photo on it I had told Beach about Dr. Plumb and about Andy not knowing Beach would be meeting her within a few short hours.

While we waited to be seen, Beach's phone died. I gave her mine. Beach got 2 full series of X-rays. I got Instagram installed on my phone.

The first nurse knew one of Beach's teammates. The second X-ray tech was a retired gymnast with horror stories of an abusive coach. The kid standing at the nurses' station that we passed on the way out- was a gymnast. The Dr and the room nurse had bets on what was meant on Beach's chart where it said, It hurt in the fall. Fall the season or a fall? Yes, with a gymnast it would be the season.

The films show compression fractures in her T12 and L1. Mild, stable, painful. The Orthopedic surgeon couldn't believe there wasn't a reportable injury.  He was so strongly confused he keep having to be corrected; there was no single point of injury, no big fall, nothing. I honestly think everyone was surprised.

What else everyone was, was respectful. The staff respected her and her sport. There was no gymnastics bashing, no she should quit, no shaming, none of that which usually occurs between medicine, gymnasts and their parents.

And yes, back to the possibility it was a fall, they fall all the time... but Beach has never truly had a serious wipeout that would cause medical concern. One super bad vault I still hear coaches talk about but didn't see, a half dozen double pikes to the face, a handful of less than planned bar "releases", a couple of beam bites, loads of missed feet.

Dr. Plumb gave me discharge papers, a disc of the images, 2 RX's scrips, and a hug good-bye. We left the ER after midnight. Drove 4th South home in the rain. She was what she was going in and coming out. She is a gymnast.

This morning BC and I sat together on the sofa sifting through the information and we came to a very decisive conclusion: neither of us can read x-rays.

However, knowing what specifically is wrong and what is NOT wrong gives us something. We will meet with a specialist and a PT and the coaches but really all the decisions are with Beach. Had the films shown something unstable or major... but they didn't. Ortho left it open telling us to go get her cleared and she could compete IF the pain doesn't stop her.

So this is the nightmare of a gym mom; in the ER getting spinal x-rays. My child walked in and she walked out. She even stood in her leotard instead of a hospital gown for the first set of films. Yes, I know what this sport can do. I am well aware of the danger it keeps in and out.

This sport helped create her. It surrounds her in love and support. It pushes her to be capable and brave. She is amazing and strong and this sport gives her a place to prove that to herself.

In a moment; it reminds me of how close we are to the end of this chapter in her life. How close any of us are, to anything, at any moment. It reminds me to enjoy the journey, the good and the bad, and all the long drives between before and after.

dust to dust

I can admit I bribed her to help me.  Not that I had to but I did.  I dropped her off at home to get started and I walked the half block south to fetch an oreo shake.

It was supposed to be a pretty straight forward project. Clean out 3 dressers, move them around, pack a load (or 2) to donate, and list a few of the furniture items we no longer need on KSL.   

"Did everyone have this much music?" She asked wading through a dusty drawer of CD's and yes, tapes.  Something BC was assigned to do years and years ago. 

Before you, we always listened to music...

Before you.  She accuses me of saying it all the time.  Before you, we swam every night.  Before you, we took sunset hikes.  Before you...

But it's true.  Life before Beach was different.  It was slower.  It was two families dating each other.  His one child and my two. We were all on our best and our worse behavior.

There were lines of his and hers drawn all over the place.  Two sets of family traditions, 2 ex's, 3 households. It was Beach that changed all that.     

Life before Beach and life after Beach.  She made all of us make sense.  She tied us together and erased the lines.  It only seems right she would be the last child here. The child sorting through the remains of a family.  The family she created.  Helping me decide what stays and what goes.  Knowing the difference between what matters now and what mattered when. 

In my lifetime I have three times cleaned out the living spaces the dead left behind.  One old and ready to go, one just ready, and the other too haunted by life to live, afraid to die but gone all the same. 

I think about it a lot.  Not the death part but the remains part.  What would I want to leave? How much am I willing to hold on to?  And why?  What is the value of objects versus the value of freedom?

Our passion for vintage and rare walks us straight down the whale bones.  Ghost towns and desert roads.  I like abandoned places.  I like to see what gone looks likes.  I am drawn towards emptiness.

Clutter is my number one trigger for anxiety but the house on 10th West (and its male owner) likes junk.             

Despite BC's best efforts to collect and hoard the house is thinning.  We are all growing up.

Before you Beach, we listened to music... but then you came along and created a whole new soundtrack to our lives. 

I can see the end.  Forts made of blankets and bedtime stories are being put away. 

I see a field of golden grass blending in the autumn light. It is the hillside where 16 years ago BC and I laid down a blanket and a bottle of wine.  We planned our life together there.  In some ways we were wrong but in the ways that matter we were so right.

Our lives together, like moving through a house opening door after door.  Now they are all open and we find ourselves standing on the back porch.  Staring out at an open field.  Right back where we started.     

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.  I'll meet you there." ~Rumi

one week at mile 22

One week before State Meet and I am on my knees on the gym floor helping her put on her shoes because she is in too much pain to lean forward.

One week.

The chiropractor assures us it is a pulled muscle.  Different from the back issues plaguing her.  Different from the overuse injuries.  Different from the lingering hamstring and hip troubles or the pain in her shins.

Different.

But like the rain that keeps falling, it all feels the same.  Ice, heat, ibuprofen, ice, heat, CDB oils, ice, heat, tiger balm, ice, heat, massage, ice, heat, adjustments, ice, heat, roll, ice, heat, lidocaine patches.

Ice. Heat.

And I am stuck between two worlds.

One where I am her mother and I tell her, you don't have to do this. You have already done everything you need to in 9.  You could take the time to heal without competing. There is nothing before you that isn't yours to decide. 

That makes her cry harder so I step into the other world and tell her, it's only a pulled muscle, your back is healing, you have a week, we will do what it takes to get you there.

All around her the crowd of young ladies willing to stay here and do this is thinning.  It is the time of year and age when their bodies and minds begin to break.

This is mile 22.

The moment the promises you made to them the first time you held them in your arms are broken- because it is impossible to always protect them.  You can't keep them safe and you can't always be there.

I raised my children to grow-up but to never stop being young.

This one though, she is raising herself.  For as close as we are, she has always been just out of my reach.  One lap ahead, one branch higher, over to the next field, way out in the sea riding on the blues of the gym.

I knelt on the floor running my hand over her foot trying to knock some of the grit loose before sliding it awkwardly into her shoe.  I haven't done this since she was 3 and she told me I was doing it wrong.  I got so fed up with her and her need for perfection I threw her shoe across the house and I told her she could do it herself from then on.  And she did.

Until now.

One week before State Meet, almost to the hour.  And even then she told me I was doing it wrong...   

What I know: You can't wipe grit off.

It is easy to keep going when you are winning.  It is simple to say I will do this or I will be that- or even I could have.  What isn't easy or simple is finding your way when the lights seem to have all gone out.  Finding your footing when the crowds aren't cheering for you.  Building strength when your courage is bleeding and your body is bruised.

She will heal.  She will rise and go on.
I don't think I ever will.

She will look back at this part of her story and see it was all a playground readying her for life.  She will see her team and her coaches.  She will remember the weight of her work.  She will carry scars. She will leave me the box of medals and take with her the real rewards of what she has learned.  What she has taught herself to do.

One week.
One month.
One year.
One small lifetime.

Ice. Heat. Repeat.
This child was never mine; she has always belonged to herself.
     

Addendum:

Months (and months!) later we got an actual diagnosis: lumbarization of the spine. Her S1 vertebra is what is known as a transitional vertebra.  It is acting more like L6 than S1 and is partially fused on one side.  The 2 compression fractures healed leaving no trace behind (as true compression fracture should do) and a PARS fracture was found in the L6/S1.  With PT she has returned to gymnastics as a Vault and Floor special competing her first year of level 10 for GTC this 2020 season.  

the house of no ghost

I dream of houses.  Every night it is a new one.  Every night we move.  We pick bedrooms, we sweep old floors, we stack dishes in cupboards.  And I look for ghosts.

The house of last night has to be my favorite so far.  It was big, not too big.  I remember rich wood and crisp blue windows, fireplaces, and bookshelves.  I liked the deep driveway and the side entrance into a large mudroom with the green-tinted brass coat hooks, warm straight benches, and a raw wood chair rail girdle.

But what I liked best was this house had no ghosts.

They say when you dream of moving it is dreaming of change; change that needs to happen or change coming. I would believe that but I would also note I am the child of Realtor.  Each weekend our dad would take us with him to tour the houses he was listing.  My sisters and I would pick out our rooms.  We would rebuild our lives in a new house, on a new street, often in a new part of the city.

We were always about to move.  We never did.  My parents lived in the house on Herbert Ave for over 30 years.  My whole childhood and the entire length of my first marriage.

I dream of the white house I grew up in as it was.
I dream of a yellow house that sits alone on a concrete lot.
I dream of a blue house down in a glen on the edge of a wilderness.
I dream of a wooden house we are literally digging out of a mountain of dirt.
I dream of a pair of tall gray houses out in a golden field.

I dream of houses so haunted I wake shaking.

All summer I struggled to sleep.  When the heat was finally replaced by rain I slept deep and late for a week.

Within that sleep, I wandered the hallways of lost houses.  Rummaging through boxes looking for my coffee maker.  Wondering how I would be able to sleep in strange rooms wrapped in a cloud of lingering souls.

The dream house of last night had a tiny kitchen right in the center of the house- exactly how I like them.  It was surrounded by the big trees of my childhood; trunks with peeling paperbark and tops too high to see. The front room was flanked with bay windows with the idea that a dark turning sea was just out of sight.

The back of the house had the perfect nook of a room for a family den- a place to tuck away a tv.  A place to hide deep in the bowels of the house and pretend not to be home.  There were French doors hooded in dark wood that led to a shaded yard full of something wild almost dangerous.

I loved that house even I as turned to look for the stairs and realized there were none.  The house had no bedrooms.

I stood in the center feeling the solidness of the beams, the weight of the plaster on the walls hugging me tight.  I was aware of the lightness of the unreachable floors above me.  All around me, out of sight my family moving around boxes.  Moving the same boxes in and out.  The house never filling.

Always moving in never getting to the living there moment.

Three nights ago I carried the ghost of a little boy from a dim yellow room off a matted mattress in an attempt to save him from the other ghosts lurking in the halls.  His spirit was waxy in my arms.  His body the yellow color of fading bruises.  I set him down in the dark of midnight in the wet grass beside the long eggshell house that looked more like a desert worn motel than a home.  In the windows, the ghosts walked by looking out at us.

Gray and torn faces, unwashed windows, long narrow halls, and pipes for handrails.

I dream of houses that fill with green water.
I dream of houses that light with black flame.
I dream of houses that never end.
I dream of houses of changelings, houses of brick, houses that shape-shift under layers of dust.

I dream of change every night.
I carry boxes.
I make plans.
We never quite move in.

But I think I have finally found a house I could live in.
The house of no bedrooms, no dreams, no sleep... the house of no ghosts.

we met

A few nights ago I met her in my dreams.  I looked at her, my sister, across the room.  Oh, she's here, I sighed.  Yes, her, she goes here... I think. 

But it is hard to know.  

I didn't ask her, aren't you dead? Because I remember thinking those days were behind us.  

And mostly they are. 

It doesn't happen often- not anymore.  I look back at how fragile I was, how broken.  Tip-toeing over the crust of sadness.  Drifting between night and day as if they were the same.  

I remember the nightmares.  The clicking I thought I heard of her long nails crawling across the wooden floor of my bedroom.  I remember the smells.  The dark stories.  The crossing shadows.  The silence.  The weight of madness on my back.    

I gave to her in her death a few years of my life.  Shaved them right off the middle and threw them away into the dark after her.  It took years to peel the layers of dim from my mind.  Complicated and entangled- like stripping off wet clothing. 

But I think my soul is finally dry.  

She was my childhood.  My best friend.  My most public mistakes. She was my sister... and I try not to feel too guilty when I wonder if she ever really existed at all. 

In my dream, we said nothing I can recall.  It was all so normal I almost missed it.  But in that golden space, before one wakes, where the dream is real and reality is the dream, she broke from under the mask of Dream Sister.  It was only an instant but it was enough to see her as she had been.

Then I was awake and she was once again forever sleeping.  Forever; how incredibly impossible that seems.