travel the long road

Who knows what will happen.  It all seems like a lot of pressure to put on a kid. 1,300 miles of pressure.

We slipped out of the house at 4:12AM.

We drove the night. Racing down I-15.

By dawn, we were so far gone... I could breathe.

But as I drove us away from the pressures of my life we inched closer to the pressures of Beach's life.

It's a two-lane highway her and I traveling in opposite directions.

The place we meet is the journey in the middle.  Perhaps that is why we linger.  Why we pull off.  Why we seek roadside attractions and dirt paths along the way.

Our family is often the first ones to head out and the last ones to come in; the last family on the road.

Like I said, I don't know what will happen at the meet. All that I can know is what I can give to her along the way.

Breakfast in Mesquite served by little old ladies in fishnet stockings, painted rocks in the desert, rainbows on the side of the road, and mountains of sands.

May she always find the silver linings in the big blue sky above her.

start time now

I can see us walking through the mall, passing the glass storefronts laughing.  I can feel Beach's excitement beside me.  

Time is ticking, but we don't know it yet. 

It's not about spending money, but yes, I had just decided to give my daughter a gift. She was wrapped inside the love of it like a fuzzy jacket. Smiling, the paper bag with its tissue crown swinging in her hand. Still enjoying the polished sweetness of the women of the Bare Minerals Shop like pieces of strawberry candy. 

What had I bought for her? Their three-piece skincare package, a loose powder, and a concealer stick. The excitement and the appreciation are about getting something new, whole, and decedent. Something she would never have dared to ask for. 

We pass a group of men in dark clothing, and I think of the week we have had, of my neighbors and the lingering threat they pose, but not here, I breathe. We are having fun, and for the first time in days, my head is not pounding... not here.  

Time is ticking.

I paused to see a $24 t-shirt that reads Death before Decaf. Beach shows me a pair of socks that look like sharks.

We stop at Pacsun to see the contents of my 7th grade closet out for display. Pacsun, the store that on Christmas Eve Beach picked out two pairs of pants believing they were buy-one-get-one-free. Luckily, I sent her off to get lunch at the food court while I paid. Turned out, they were not buy-one-get-one-free.  She would have never asked for them had she known, and I never would have agreed to buy them. But I bought them anyway, not wanting to break her heart.    

Being there remembering it makes me sad. I step away while she gazes at the racks. I stare a second at the pen of ride-on autonomic animals and think I want a photo of them in all their ridiculousness, but for some reason, I don't take it.  

Beach joins me. As we pass the breezeway doors, I ask Beach what time it is.  

It is 1:25.  

We step into Dillard's.

I ask her to send a message to let her friends know we will be arriving early unless there is anything else she wants to see... we stop for just a moment lingering at the front of the store. She says no, squeezing the bag in her hand a little tighter. She is too grateful to ask anything else of me. 

We walk under the bright lights and around the glass cases in the perfumed air. I touch the shirts in the men's section like it is a petting zoo.

We walk out of the mall and into the southeast parking lot; it is 1:29. 

[STOP TIME] 

All summer, I have been dropping and picking up at the mall. I enter the same way all summer, park in the same row, and enter/exit through the same doors. For some reason today, I turned into the mall one entrance early and parked one section over, shifting the doors we would use to enter and exit the mall.

That nondecision, that strange chance, took us directly out of the line of fire.  

From my house, I watched the NEWS recounting the aftermath of the shooting. One of the Bare Minerals store clerks retells the terror inside the mall. I wondered if she wondered about us. The clerks had been so charmed by Beach and her sweet-softness. Won over by her attempts to help me pay the bill with the contents of her little wallet. So gracious, so kind, such a great kid.       

When Alexis and Conner were little, I went to bed every night asking myself, if this was the last day we had together, did I do all that I could have done to show them they were loved? 

I know we were never really in danger. But had it been different...

Walking beside my daughter, she knew she was loved. That is something time can't take away. 

   

under cover

Beach has been struggling with friends.  A few of her closest pals have started pulling away as they explore the world of distractions: boys, drinking, smoking, and even drugs.

On New Year's Eve she was lied to and then ditched by Sophie leaving Beach heartbroken.

It was a big wake up call.  I have watched the changes in their friendship over the last year and tried making adjustments but it took that moment of hard realization for Beach to finally see it was time to let go of Sophie as her best friend.  

Since then Beach has been reaching out to other girls from Team.  There are so many wonderful personalities <3

Last night she got what she had been looking for all week; somewhere soft to land.  Serious downtime eating cookies and popcorn and watching movies in a blanket fort with PayPay.

"One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood." 

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

to do nothing

At 3 AM I woke to the sound of children screaming in the street. I woke BC and he went to check. I heard the front door open and close twice.  The third time what I heard was our end of BC's 911 call.

A man had come out of the dark following the 3 young kids and bleeding woman. BC had come out to ask if they needed help. BC asked the man if everything was okay. The man responded with a punch that hit BC on the side of the face and dropped him instantly.

BC was not out looking for trouble at 3 AM when he left the safety of our bed.  He was not duty sworn to protect and serve. He wasn't armed or trained or ready with back-up.  He was doing what anyone would do, what anyone should do; he was offering help to someone in need.

The police arrived behind 3 blazing spot lights shining down 10th. Captured in the cold beam was the woman barefoot, bruised, eye swollen shut, and bleeding from a head wound.  Beside her 3 young kids not dressed for the winter weather.

From the first moment the police talked with BC they treated him poorly. They set the tone. They were dismissive of his injuries and story. Telling us, "Well, we don't know there was an assault; we didn't see it. You can make a report if you want but then you will have to file that with the prosecutor's office." A clear effort to insert a barrier to action on the officer's part.

We were asked multiple times if we really wanted to file charges every time we said YES. Reminded twice it was only simple assault. Again, an attempt on the officer's part to discourage BC from filing charges.

They spoke with the woman.  She was uncooperative other than to give the address of the house she had fled.

We had 2 people out in the street bleeding. "You can't make someone be a victim," the officer told me. Same officer who liked to remind me when I pressed for some sort of action on their part that they don't know if that man assaulted BC because they didn't see it. 

"You know how ridiculous that is?" I responded. "We aren't in a court don't pretend you don't know that guy hit my husband. We are all more intelligent than that."

Seven police officers proceed to knock loudly on the door of the neighbor's house. The woman and the kids had returned inside with him. The man refused the police entry so they tried to leave.

It was me questioning them that held them up. I was told they can't go in without an active threat to someone. Without that they had no reason to force their way in.

Okay, understandable but then they got one.

While I was questioning them the man shirtless burst out the front door into the yard.  The 7 armed officers suddenly decided to stay. They even called 3 more officers to help them. The cars blocked the street.

It seemed they were about to become more serious about the threat. Instead, I watched 10 huge cops stand outside the small fenced yard collectively trying to open the gate from the other side and failing to do so.

I was seriously about to go help them at the risk of being shot when a man in a truck pulled up.  He ran across the street, jumped the fence, and grabbed the man now openly threatening to beat and fight the cops and "everyone in the house" into the house shutting the door behind them.

The police returned to pounding on the door.  Then they gave up a second time and left.

But before all 10 trained, armed, fit men left I had another long conversation with 2 of the officers because their story kept changing.

At first they couldn't go in because there was not an active threat.  Need I remind you THEY didn't see BC get punched so they don't know why he was bleeding.  The woman refused to talk so she was totally fine.

Then there was a threat but they told me it didn't seem safe (now it was too big of a threat) to them to go because they didn't know what was in there. And yet they all seemed pretty shocked that I was pissed they were taking all their big guys and big guns and leaving us here next to what they felt was a dangerous situation. Too dangerous for them but not us?

I shared my disappointment in them. They were sorry I felt that way.

What was most disturbing was 15 minutes after the officers left we stood in our front room, too afraid to let our guard down, watching a woman ushering 6 small children out of the house and into the van parked in front of our house. The whole time there had been children trapped inside the house as the man threatened in front of the police to beat them all. The police had left them there and those kids knew it.

The police refused to act because they didn't know what was in the house. BUT they did know, and what they didn't know, you can never know.

For the record, I didn't know what was waiting for me the day I ran into a house to protect small children as my neighbor's boyfriend held a knife out threatening them. I didn't NOT act because of the unknown, I acted on the known. There were kids in danger. My job was obvious; get them out at any cost. I don't want to be someone who wouldn't see it like that.

I didn't know what was wrong with the lady slumped in the gutter across the street when I approached her. I didn't know what I would find climbing into an over turned truck at the end of the street to stop the bleeding from the driver's gushing wounds.

To the Officers:

I'm sorry one your own was killed this week.

I'm sorry one of you felt justified enough in that fresh wound to say to me that I should consider that you have a family you want to go home to while I stood there pleading with for you stay and protect my family and the family trapped inside the house with that man.

I'm sorry you feel we should live in a world where we should do nothing. I'm sorry you are so scared to do what you know is right, that you don't do it.

I am sorry the assholes are braver than the heroes.

I'm sorry you feel helpless.

You told us, next time don't do anything. Call us. I told you that was impractical, and you agreed.

In the night a child cried out for help.  In the street a woman was beaten and bleeding. The man who went to help them was struck in the face and knocked to the ground.  The men trained to help were called by the good guys. Nothing happened to the bad guy.  The woman and children where left in harm's way.  And the good man who tried to help them was treated like shit by the men who refused to do anything.

Level 9 Floor RMI 2019

2019 America's Top 100 Level 9 Floor Scores

as f 01.06.2019

#	Score	Name	Team	Meet
1	9.550	Duman, Kaelyn	Maverick All Star Tumblers	The Texas Shootout Gymnastics Invite
1	9.550	Ries, Beach	Gymnastics Training Center	Rocky Mountain Invitational 2019
1	9.550	Shanks, Kennedy	Olympia Hills Gymnastics	The Texas Shootout Gymnastics Invite
4	9.500	Fullmer, Payton	Gymnastics Training Center	Rocky Mountain Invitational 2019
5	9.450	Besch, Riley	Capital Gymnastics / Texas	The Texas Shootout Gymnastics Invite
5	9.450	Bingman, Jersey	World Class Gymnastics	Jerrell Steele Invitational
5	9.450	Charlton, Reagan	Aspire Gymnastics Academy	Fire & Ice Invitational Benefiting Ashley's F
5	9.450	Shambo, Morgen	Xtreme Altitude Gymnastics	Coloradical Classic

(That score won't last long on the top 100 but it is fun to see Beach listed that high at the end of the first weekend of the season 2019)

RMI 2019

 Rocky Mountain Invitational and Elite Qualifier 2019 

Host Gym: GTC

1st place Level 9 Team GTC

Beach Ries Level 9, Sr A Vault 9.2 1st Place 

with teamate Abi Rose (who is a first year level 9 and already killing it!) in 3rd

Bars 7.65 (with a fall) 3rd Place & teammate Abi Rose in 1st!!

Way to rock bars, Abi!!!

Beam 9.05 1st Place with teammate Abi Rose right beside her in 2nd

 Floor 9.550 1st Place and teammate Abi Rose beside her in 3rd

Level 9 All Around 35.45 1st Place 

with teammate Abi Rose taking 2nd! 

Well done all you Little Giants of GTC! 

3 rings

I found the first one on the sidewalk 6AM in winter morning dark.  The kind of dark that wraps around your body moving with you like deep water.  I was walking between the banks of shoveled snow up 33rd when I kicked it.  I heard the high pitch ting of cheap metal cartwheeling in the cold.  

I was thinking of a few hundred other things as I mindlessly bent down to grab it with my numb fingers. I was looking into the future reminding myself; This moment will soon be gone. In a blink of an eye the stinging cold, the doubt, the stress, the fear, the crowds, the noise, the demands, the sadness, the tiredness, they will all be gone almost as if they never existed. 

My mind writes it as a long and narrow hallway decorated hotel red with white doors numbered; day one, day two, day three.

A long hallway: Three 16 hour days on a bad foot with a hurting back- sure sounds long to me. Narrow: claustrophobic, surrounded, crowded, closed in, trapped, only one way to go and that is down it.  A hotel: away from home, on my own, you have only what you can carry, not enough coffee, alone in a crowd, stranded.  (Jung would be proud of my waking brain.)

Day One

Put only what you really will need in your bag: water bottle, chap stick, reading glasses. 

Get there on time: 6:20 AM. 

Try not to worry about the child you left behind still sleeping as you slipped out of a still, dark house: is she nervous? has she eaten? is she ready to compete? will her ride get her to the gym on time? 

Remember what you are good at: hostage negotiations and cruise directing. 

Try to stay hydrated enough not to get sick but so much that you have to pee because there won't be time for that sort of self indulgent shit.

Go home the first time it is offered, not the last or you won't make it.

Level 7 Regionals Long Beach, Ca

Day Two      

Arrive in the dark and leave in the dark.

Try not to worry about the child you brought with you- is she tired? has she eaten? is she having fun? is her back okay? how will she get home? and when she does, what then?

When literally there is a circle of people around you all asking you questions at the same time and the apex of the wave of people flooding in the doors is a woman who says, "I have to pay to see my daughter compete?" and the lady beside her says, "I have 3 adults and a 4, 7, 11, and 14 year old but my husband is parking the car, can I pay for him too?  Well wait, what age is considered an adult? So I have 5 adults, 1 is military, 2 seniors, and 3 kids but one is leaving early so do I have to pay for her? And can you do it on 2 separate cards?" as the man on the other side of her leans to hand you a $50 for a $1 bottle of water and a $.50 bag of chips and asks, "Where are your restrooms?"... remember to breathe.

And on that note when you feel like crying laugh instead.

Walk out of the building before 11PM. Leave in a pack of women who accept you as you are. Laugh and scurry together against the bitter cold. Ignore what you know, what you see, and enjoy the moment for what it is; a white crosswalk shining in winter under red and green traffic lights.    

Team traveling some airport somewhere in Ohio (?)

Day Three

Dig deep because everything is at the bottom of the bag now.

Accept help. 

Accept coffee.
Soak in the love of the people around you and your daughter.

Don't linger too long in how pathetic you feel standing in the kitchen seeing all the neatly packed boxed filled with the leftover catering with your coworkers' names on them and realize you have written your child's name instead of your own on the single plate of fruit and one can root beer you plan to take home.  

Use the kindnesses shown to you to get through all the way to the end.

And when you get to the end, and you are on your knees pulling trash out from under the bleachers...let all the garbage go.  Haul it off in white trash bags and throw it away.

Beach on beam at Lady Luck 2018

The other two rings were there at the end.  Found by the moms working beside me.  Picked up from the broken glass and sticky wrappers left on the floor.  One a costume diamond.  The other something floral looking, I was so tired I can't remember. They will be there on my desk on Monday morning when I come into work the first half of a double shift.   

There are 3 rings in a circus and 2 rings in a partnership.  In chemistry, a single ring symbolizes a simple cycle of atoms and bonds that form a molecule set in which every atom and bond is a member.

I found the first ring alone in the dark outside the gym. I thought it was kind of beautiful almost something I would buy for myself but Beach told me it was something common that >insert eye roll< everyone had.  I thought it was mountain.  She told me it was a wave. I suppose we mostly see what we choose to see. 

These moments will soon be gone. They will slip through our hands and fall away lost to time. But the simple beauty of the bonds formed along the way will always be where we can find them, when and where we need them the most.  

To all the Moms and Coworkers who helped to make sure I got to see Beach compete in the second session a HUGE thank you!  And to the Moms who literally went the extra mile to make sure that Beach wasn't left out of the groups going to the Ute's Meet and to friends' houses another HUGE thank you!! 

We are GTC <3 <3 <3