I am not

I sent a message out on my phone telling him I miss him and went to sleep. Of course between friends of the opposite sex, those weren't the words I used. I would never say that, not to him, maybe not to anyone.

 But I do- I miss him.

I miss the way he cut through the bullshit for me. I miss having someone who right or wrong was always on my side. I miss having someone else see my child as she is and loving her just that way. No excuses, no imagined divides, no hidden agendas.

No pretend smiles, no sudden silent conversations, no half-hearted cups of kindness. In fact, nothing about him was ever fake.

But that's not the shadow hanging over a 5:25 AM alarm. It's this day ahead of me. I have to get up and return to the place I left crying. The spot where I held it together until the moment I clocked out and then lost it right there in the coach's room in front of anyone unlucky enough to be in there with me.

It's been over a year since I actually cried probably closer to 2.  It takes a lot to go wrong for me to not find something beautiful or good inside a bad moment. It takes a mountain range of frustration or sadness to bring me to tears. 

I have to assume it was not intentional. The moment was simply bad. Raw stupidity on my part.

No one likes looking stupid but add in the injury and slight to your struggling child and that is the cocktail that took me down.

Mostly I felt complicit in the actions that were hurting my own child. After all, I'm the smiling asshole who asked her, "Didn't they invite you to go with them?" No. No, they didn't but thanks for reminding me. Left me holding a bag of empty words trailing out, "I think they were going to..."

I'm not good at asking for help. I see it as something powerful and not to be done haphazardly.  It's not small, the act of reaching out an empty hand and asking someone else to help you fill it. It's not small that I believe people will find a way to help each other out.  I am always shocked to find out that's not as true as I want it to be.

This shifting landscape that is the world of gymnastics has given me more than I have put in. Shocking but true.

The athletes aren't the only ones it changes. I am braver. I am bolder. I have gone places and done things I never would have done. Through this experience, I relearned how to face the world. Learned to walk into the unknown and be okay.

Each parent has given me a gift. Each parent a story or a lesson. I am grateful for each and every one of them and their amazing daughters. We truly are a family, faults and all.

But I look at the idea of doing 3 more years like this.  Three more years watching my child walk it alone.  Her head held high, her kindness, her leadership, her cheering squad of one for the underdogs.  The spaces she wraps with her beauty.  The tears in the car.

It's not because she is homeschooled.  It's not because she doesn't go to church. It's not because her closest friends have all moved on. It's not because she lives in a different neighborhood.  It's not because she is at gymnastics 4 1/2  hours a day.  It's not because the other girls aren't good kids. It's not because she doesn't deserve it.  It's just because.

And it isn't going to change except to get worse as the social season builds.  There isn't a fix on the horizon because there isn't anything to fix... unless she quits and she's not a quitter.

The only person's behavior you can control is your own... unless you are crying and I'm not a crier.

little giants

If it were up to me she would have played the cello.

She would have gone to school; Montessori I believe. 

Her hair would always be in a prim shoulder-length bob.

She would have colored neatly between the lines every time and rocked a school uniform.

And most importantly of all, she would have played soccer.

Aren't we glad it's not up to me? At least those of us who are blessed enough to know Beach.

A gifted photographer. An artist. A compassionate leader who leads by example and kindness. A friend. A justice seeker. An animal lover. A think outside the box style. Smart. Funny.

And a gymnast. 

If it was up to me my child would NEVER dismount the Beam.  I tell her all the time when you are done with your routine just stop and tell the judges that your mom doesn't like you running full sprint on a 4" wide piece wood and punching as hard as you can so you can flip through the air. Then climb down nicely and salute. 

Of course, it's not up to me.

I mean, I guess it could be.  I could stop driving her to practice and stop paying the bills.  I could force her into a box that isn't her size. I could break her dreams and ignore her passions. I could tell her she isn't good enough as herself that she should strive to be something and someone else. I could tell her she is a victim rather than a warrior.  

I could fold to the pressure of the dark wave that is bringing pollution and garbage into the harbor. 

I could make her a peripheral victim of the scandals rocking the gymnastics world by taking from her the tools she is using to forge her future. 

That is what the haters are doing. They are NOT making the sport safer. There are ways to do that. Positive and honest ways.

In fact, I will say that the woman I encountered online yesterday was attempting to use other people's children for her own purposes. She was attempting to victimize my child. She took a post that when you boil it down is about how parents need to not push their kids because gymnastics is hard and scary without their help and she tried to twist it to fit into her campaign of anger. 

I'm not about that.

I don't post about abusive coaches or some larger culture of cruelty because that has not been our experience with this sport. Trust me I was shocked too. My initial response to my child doing gymnastics was "over my dead body."

I write what I know.  I write about what is in front of me. The only behavior you are truly in charge of is your own. 

I am a mom. And yes, the darkest thing I have encountered (up until that woman) is badly behaved parents. This is where I can create positive change in this sport- within my own people. Within myself.

I have worked hard to make sure my child is in a safe environment. I won't apologize for that but I will take a lot of credit for it... and twenty extra pounds from skipping my own workouts to sit on a wooden bench making sure that I knew and understood the program and the people in my daughter's world.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize I am always at my child's gym. I was there so much they finally hired me to work the front desk.

If it was up to me no one would ever judge my child. My daughter would never fall, never get hurt, never know pain. 

Knowing that's not how the world works, I am grateful that she spends most of her time in a space where the judging is at least fair and the whole place is padded.

Last weekend we visited an interactive art installation Dreamscapes. The first room was an escape room.  In a room full of adults all strangers where no one else was brave enough to even try Beach was the one willing to risk making mistakes so we could all move forward.

She was the one who set us all free.

This is our story.  These are our Little Giants. They are not normal children.  They have chosen a tough road with lots of work and lots of lessons.  Gymnastics is a big book so don't try to throw it at them. There are a lot of stories out there. This one is ours. If it helps you and you liked it, share it. If you have a different story, tell your own. 

sunlight through my fingers

Yesterday was a shit show.  A shit show on a stale cracker.  

A day so messed up it can rarely occur so it's important to not let it go before wringing out the hidden drops of beauty inside it. 

I learned my grandma passed away.

My son's truck broke down.  Meaning my day watching Little J was going to run late and my plans to go to the gym (my gym) had to be canceled.



BC left a gate open and the dogs got out.

My daughter's car was hit (& run) in a parking lot.

I was talked into buying McD's for lunch by a 4-year-old who was then not in the mood for chicken and wanted me to make pizza.

Beach's back went out and she had to miss practice.

BC lost his wallet.  His jobs ran late so he missed getting to the bank again leaving me cashless. 

I couldn't get Fair Photos to the printers.

Ants in the laundry room.


I hung up on BC.

And then I was called into work.

Looking back I see the sunlight and hear Little J laughing, the water splashing, the dog jumping.  

I see Little J's other grandma, Nana, despite having her own long day smiling, standing at her back door as I handed her a sleepy Little J so I could get to work.  I see the gym moms and my coworkers laughing through it with me. 

When I rushed out the door to work my yard was picked up and raked, the house was clean, laundry done, a chocolate zucchini cake for dessert cooling on the counter, and dinner set to pop in the oven.     

And I only put Little J's swimsuit on her backward once.

Today doesn't look any less complicated. 

 I have Little J all day again.  I have photos to get to the printer, a kid to get to gym or the chiropractor or both, homeschooling to be done, a gym date for myself and the request that I work tonight to lessen the crazy of the first week of a new session.  

So much for getting days off in trade for working weekends.

I also have a mystery: I have a blog post Words Across The Water that has gone viral for a lack of a better term but I can't figure out how or even why.  

And there is one more thing I have today I didn't yesterday... last night as I was dreaming in the chaos of dreamlife. I saw my sister.  I want to remember this, I told myself so I reached out and grabbed her arm.  I held on to it for as long as I could.  

Hold on to all of it.  

The phone calls, the texts, the distractions, the craziness, the dogs, topless markers, lidless glue sticks, tiny socks, the sticky smell of pancakes, the sunlight, the splashing, the whole whirlwind of life- shit show on a stale cracker and all.

Grab ahold of it and don't let go. 


  

rivers of doubt

The heat comes for the river first.  It drinks from it twisting the air into moppy strings of green earth. The dogs don't care.  They ride the black path as if it is tundra. One is leashed the other is not.

Along the trail, the grass grows tall but tired.  Sunlight clips through in broken waves catching on the stillness of the river and bouncing off the orb weaver webs.

I can see the spiders.  I can hear my heavy footfalls. Feel the pull of the dog who knows I am slow.

Returning to the J Trail is always the same.  It's like crawling down a tunnel; light at both ends and dark in the middle.

The darkness is doubt.  It is fear.

The dog pulling me is a flashlight that cuts the darkness.  He removes the fear of the next corner, of the overgrowth, and of the drug dealer on bikes that roam boldly.  His brashness and the way I handle him as if he were a keg of dynamite about to blow scares the men passing us.

For this, I am not sorry. In fact, it's a little fuck you for scaring me away from here in the first place and you are welcome.

The dog does nothing for doubt though.  Doubt only fades with time.  Time on the trail chasing the heat, chasing the river.

the fine print of love

The speed in her response to my slip is brutal, "Except we don't have a dog named Kilo," she states.

No, she's right we don't.  At least we don't have one anymore. And we don't have a dog named Moses either. 

We have Ginger, aka Little Dog. A poorly timed foster dog turned into our forever dog.

And we have Juneau. 

The latter of which was who I was referring to when I accidentally said Kilo's name.  But he's not Kilo.  

For starters, Juneau's brain seems to be attached to his body.  Kilo was like a brakeless tractor-trailer on a greased slip and slide.  

Juneau ignores the boom of fireworks and the crack of gunfire.  Kilo was a hot mess if a plastics water bottle tipped over in the sink.  

The first time Kilo saw open water he swam and swam.  Juneau waded in carefully never letting his feet leave the sand. 

Kilo panicked in the canoe.  Juneau moved between the boats and the shore as if it was nothing.  Kilo was sleek and black dashed with a single brush of white war paint.  

Juneau is fire red with cresting waves of white foam.  Kilo a dirt reservation dog.  Juneau a mountain ranch hand. Kilo's expressions flat. Juneau's cartoonishly dynamic.

But one thing is the same they have the same desire to not be abandoned again.  Both dogs labeled as strays.  Both ending up at BFAS.  Kilo at Dog Town, Juneau (under the name of Groot) the Salt Lake Center. 

And both dogs became mine.

We don't have a dog named Kilo... anymore.  Kilo rests in a grave in the southeast corner of the garden.  Thinking he had been left behind he slipped the gate one morning blending with the dark and headed out to find me on the J Trail. Only, I wasn't there.

We found him down in the road. 

He died with me, lying in the back of my car. 

Juneau is not Kilo but that memory haunts my love for him.  I worry about his drive to be loved. About his neediness and just how far he will he go.  I worry about the road. This worry reminds me to not take the days together for granted. Dogs are born and grow old and die while we watch. Love is the most beautiful of liabilities. 

All dogs create purpose. Moses helped create a family and he grew old within it. Kilo rescued my heart from silence then slipped away. Ginger gentles the ground around us. And Juneau he has reopened the door.

stories

It's the stories.

The waves.

I can see them; thick and blue lapping at the sky like hungry dogs. Four teenage girls riding wave runners on an open body of water. I see the sun glinting off their colt-like legs.  I hear them laughing into the wind.

Then in an instant, in two misdirected circles they collide.

Beach's good friend India, a trained athlete, former gymnast, nationally ranked pole-vaulter, was able to jump from the wave runner right before impact.  She was the only one not injured in the crash.

She was able to think and to react. It might have saved her life.  It certainly saved her from injury.

The other three girls suffered injuries from minor sprains with a broken patella to life-altering.  The worst injury an open femur fracture and fractured tib-fib.

It's not our story.  It didn't happen to us but we felt it deep in our hearts. Grateful it wasn't worse.  Grateful for the incredible luck that the next boat over had a doctor and a nurse on it.

Am I sad that just as Beach is recovering from her back injury that she broke her thumb messing around with a friend?

Not at all. I am glad she was living her life (albeit it was still in a gym). I am glad it wasn't a gymnastics injury- there are enough of those. I am grateful for the amazing network of moms that supported us. Grateful for a lot of things <3

I LOVED the female ER doc who sat on the bed with Beach on finding out she has a metal allergy and said, "You will have to get a good job to pay for the good jewelry." Then added, "Don't rely on a husband."

I adore my daughter who said, "I feel really stupid now knowing it is broken- I should have cried." For the X-Ray tech who let her keep her phone so she could snap-chat the x-rays.  For the nurse who got us handwritten discharge papers so we could make it back to camp in time for Beam.

These are not normal kids and I have stopped hating that and I have stopped apologizing for it. I have stopped morning the loss of "normal".  It took me 9 years to get here but I am here.

Patient's main complaint: hungry.

no title

She appeared in the yard, short, tight shorts and an oversized t-shirt. I introduced her to our new Tiny House neighbors again and to their friend. Three young girls, 2 her own age, jumping on the trampoline.

Beach's outing in the yard was short.  She threw the frisbee to the dog a few times and then she was gone. Slipped back into the house.

We had just returned from a parent-athlete-coach meeting.  The stats of how great her season had been only made her grumpy.

Talk of her progress and recovery from her back injury, improvements, future skills, none of it what she wanted to hear let alone feel the weight of.

After dinner, we took the dogs for a walk.  We wandered down the J trail across the train tracks then detoured into the Wayman's far-field to watch the sky put the day to bed.

Fifteen, on the edge of sixteen.  Walking with her parents through the tall grass.

And again on return to the house, we settled in the yard.  She played with the dogs in the collecting darkness.  Jennifer, our Tiny House neighbor throwing a blanket over the trampoline seemed surprised to see Beach.

She invited her to sleep in the yard with the other girls.  Beach politely declined explaining she had an early morning practice the next day.

She is a ghost both at home and in the gym.

The mom in me wants to rescue her.  

But I know, I can't rescue her from herself.  I can't stop her from being her.  

All I can do is stand behind her as she makes her way.