odds and ends from pikes peak 2018

Beam

Floor

Vault

Bars

art and sky and winter warm

It was the color of the sky that drew me out there in the first place.  The strange rosy glow amidst the winter warm.  Such a winter we are having.  What there is for snow lays rotting like carrion.  There is isn't even rain.

I wanted to look through the lens and see the farm differently.  See the winter ground peacefully sleeping.  But when I looked, it was not sleeping it was dead.  It is hard to believe there is so much land trapped here in the city like this.

I spent the morning binding up fences and closing gates.  Wrapping up long hoses and raking the fallen leaves as if I am on the first side of winter, not the last. 

Seven Falls, Colorado Springs, CO

There haven't been many photos sent home from Beach while she is out on her adventures in Colorado.  Three to be exact.

I am sure her Instagram is better stocked.  These turned up in my email late last nigh sent from the gym owner & fellow gym mom (not to mention Beach's trip mom) on their hike along Seven Falls.  

She had a fantastic meet and most importantly she is having a blast! 

By the end of the day she will be home <3 

from here

From here, there is nothing to do. I sit with my laptop open to the Pike's Peak Meet Results. Under the banner of the host gym it reads: waiting for scores.

You and me both, buddy, I scoff.

This is a King Solomon moment. Scores don't mean anything. They don't tell me what or how she is doing. Scores only say how the judges, who don't know her, think she is doing on this particular morning, on this one split second chance, in a blink of an eye. 

I would trade all the scores I will eventually get for some real information. Beach has been competing since level 3. This will be the 2nd meet I have missed- both over money :C

Before Beach is done competing I will be taking Baby J to 'dan-astics'.  Unlike Beach, she will let me hold her hand through the parking lot. Unlike Beach, she will look for me.

From here, I try not to worry about the details, about food, about rest, about nerves, about fear, about the emotional & social winds of a flock of 14-15 year old girls. Beach is heartbreakingly silent when she is gone. I have to not take that personally.

Yesterday, the only information I received was from a teammate still in town who told me about a snap chat that put Beach with 2 other mates driving from Denver to Colorado Springs in the head coach's car, then one 3 second phone call when they were at the Broadmoor checking in, and a goodnight text to her dad's phone after hours of nothing.

I knew this moment would suck for me.  All I can do is hope that it doesn't suck for her. She is with her people.  She's in good hands.  She has everything she needs.  So we're all just waiting for scores....

Meet Hair Pike's Peak 2018

window seats

I've been sick since Thursday the 16th- that's 2 weeks.  A hollowing, waxy wave that's been rolling around in my body.  It steals my voice at least once a day, stuffs-up my chest, clogs my head, and dulls my want for food. 

It hit Beach late last week.  She was out for 3 days. Teammates and coworkers rise and fall with it. It's attacking the whole country.

The windows on the high speed train bulleting up the track of life are framed with the thoughts found on long rides and within extended illness.  They are the pauses where I can see.  Pauses of perspective. 

But through this one I have been running.  Too busy to rest.  Too busy to look around. I worked sick.  I ran kids here to there.  I cooked and cleaned and 'gym-mom-ed'.

Slowly the sickness is lifting. I had moments yesterday when I almost felt well.  Returning within the haze of 2 weeks worth of fever dreaming is the memory of the only window I remember seeing the view from in the whole damn month of January.  Something has to change.

All I have for mental scenery are the slick painted lines trickling down the interstate as we clipped by in BC's truck, heading home from Las Vegas.  The feeling behind it, I am going home- I want to go home.


On Thursday Beach flies to Colorado.  We are sending her to compete.  We are trusting her to the care of her team.  I am crossing my fingers she won't get sick.  Crossing my fingers I get her to the airport on time.  Crossing my fingers her comp leotard, out for repair, returns in time to go with her. Crossing my fingers that whether or not she lands it, that she finds a way to make peace with the vault that she believes is too big for her. 

Sending Beach off to Colorado with barely enough time to leave work and get her off proves to me I have done something wrong.  My train is running so far off course I can't see the ground anymore. It is time to really come home.  To cut out the extras and the people pleasing and the worrying about things that I can't control. I am crossing my fingers that I find a way to make that happen.

I am crossing my fingers that at some point along the way she gets a window seat.

family bowl night

signs of life from last weekend