ashes and sparks

The racks of clothing run long in lines that are blurred by the rising and falling crests of collars and hemlines. It's our tenth store, on the third week of the hunt. Only now are we getting serious.

Dress hunting with a gymnast. Her problems are practical; her arms too build for the narrow sleeves, her waist too small, her legs too long, her chest not a soft cupped curve but a ridge of muscle. This is not the body of 15-year-old hiding in an oversized t-shirt at the pool.

She walks like she is driving a machine. In many ways she is; finely tuned and out for display. But the skin is that of a girl, imperfect, constantly fused with. And the hair, only this year has she allowed it to go free. It explodes like champagne bubbling and fizzing down her back.

She could wear anything. I fish the racks pulling out dresses to display, "I don't hate it," she says tilting her head. "Okay, I can't tell if you are joking," she says to the next.

I sit and I stand in the corners of dressing rooms staring at myself in the mirrors waiting for her to appear. No, not this one, no, it's cute but not for the banquet, no, the cut is wrong, no, oh god no!
 
Then there is the one. I pull it from the end of a rack where it is peeking out. It's a head tilt one way, then the other. "Oh I couldn't....could I?" She squints her fingers running along the soft waves of the fabric. It is a white 2-piece dress with a fitted top and full skirt.

"How much is it?" she asks reaching for the tag.

I brush her hand away.  "Try it on, then we can worry about the tag."

"A 2-piece?" She questions it three more times before finding some bravery in that it is her mother offering her the dress.

She takes 2 dresses in with her.  Only one comes out.

She nods. "This is the one." It will have to be taken in at the waist but that can be done.

The sales attendants smile. They like the girl but not the dress. They would have preferred she picked the blue one. They say nothing but I can tell their judgment is on me as a mother.

In defense of the 2-piece dress; the skirt is longer than what she normally would wear and after the alterations, it will sit securely above hips leaving no gap between the top and the bottom... unless she salutes.

And as for the open back, my god, she certainly has earned that.      

"How much is it?" she asks and offers to buy it.  I tell her that with the sale discount of 50% off the cost is $21.50.  And no, I will pay for it and the alterations.  The clerk asks if she going to a dance.  No, a banquet.  A sports banquet. They place the dress in a bag, staple it shut, and staple on the receipt. All sales are final in bold black.

In the car with the bag on her lap, she looks up the label on her phone.

"Mom," she gasps, "these dresses are like $300! How scary. This is a really nice dress!"

I nod. I smile. I drive.  

She is already dreaming of shoes.

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.

what it takes

A four and a half hour practice beginning with Floor and Vault at the end of a long week of workouts. Followed by two back to back rotations on bars. Rushing to throw a few full routines on Beam to catch up with her team. Roughly fifty minutes of conditioning and stretching.

Three ibuprofen twice a day.  Four to five 20-minute rounds of ice and heat.

Beach has struggled all season with her bar routine (and her back). At the end of this week she was given the choice to change her routine for Regionals. To give up the 10 start value in the giant blind in trade for a pirouette to a shoot-half.

Mentally exhausted, she took the offer but it came with its own price tag. She only has 2 weeks to learn the new routine.  To put together skills that she has not done together before with a hard deadline and no real safety net to go back to if she "fails".

That's what she was doing on Friday when she stayed for a second rotation on Bars while her team moved to Beam.  It was what she was doing on Saturday morning when she walked back in a crowded gym and made her way back to Bars.

It's hard to watch them struggle. I am ready for her to NOT compete at Regionals and start rehabilitation on her back.  It's not that I don't want her to go to Regionals, it's that I don't want her to train for it... I want her to stop pushing and start healing.

After Bars, we drove out to the mall where she ran into a teammate out on a group day date for Prom (It's a Utah thing I think). We walked through the weekend crowds pressed behind the storefronts of glass.  Lulu for shorts. She had saved up to buy them for herself but I bought them for her as a treat. Lush for bath bombs; one for now and one to save for after Regionals. PacSun for overpriced...everything; she only bought socks.

Then the chiropractor. The bookstore to browse. Starbucks for a pretzel. A quiet family dinner of lasagna and salad to the backdrop of rich smells coming from the woodburning stove.

When she was offered the chance to come in and work extra on Saturday she had looked down at her hands turning them over. The hands of a gymnast.  It wasn't a question of do I want, or should I.  It was physically can I?

Will my body let me do what it takes?

Friday after practice I had taken her to Milley's for a dinner of chicken, fries, and milkshakes. We sat together in a little red booth watching the traffic of the Sugar House District pulse by. We talked about gymnastics which we don't really do very often. Usually we talk around it.

Since Sophie retired I have talked to Jeff almost every day. It's like seeing into a parallel universe. The universe of what if. All the unasked questions of regular girlhood and the outside influences rushing in like current trying to fill in the dry land that is no longer protected by the wall of Gym.

On the other side, I see Beach walking in on firm ground on a Saturday morning. Every coach pausing to greet her.  Stopping to smile and ask why she is there. Teams making space for her to warm-up and work her in on Bars. Parents, coaches, friends... what it takes is a village. Her Coach, who has been with her from the very beginning, standing there willing to go out of her way to help Beach help herself as if it was nothing.

Gymnastics takes everything but it also gives. It is a place, it is a people, it is a playground and a classroom. It is a closed door and an opened one. It is what she is. She is what it takes.

once she was

I remember sitting at the old gym building on the benches watching the "big" girls practice. I remember the pockets of time they were suddenly absent from the gym for a few days. I remember hearing their moms talk about single event scores instead of All Around awards. I remember watching them and thinking nothing about them related to us. I remember the day that changed.  

Every single one of our JO team girls qualified for Regionals this year.  The lower levels head to Reno. The upper levels to Las Vegas. For many, this will be their first look at a national stage.  

I am surprised at the lack of questions coming from the parents. I know I was not prepared for what was ahead of us that first time. Most of the girls will compete alone. There are so many athletes the age divisions divide by months not years. At best you will get one or two teammates in your session.     

Although I was not prepared Beach was. All those "do we really have to travel this far for a meet?" moments make sense the second you see the scale of a regional meet.   

The encounters with the big-hitting North Cal teams have already happened somewhere out on the road. Knowing ahead of time the talent pooling together in one spot helps prepare our girls so the can enjoy seeing the differences and the possibilities.

I look at all the scores and placements from Beach's regional meets and I am honestly surprised at how low they were and yet I don't ever recall anything but joy tied to all those numbers.   

Regionals is a victory lap. Mixed in there are falls and personal bests, big risks, bravery, and the final salutes of the season.             

Once she was little and we had never gone this way before.

A brief history in numbers of Beach's past regional meets:

A Quick Note: The year Beach competed JO Level 6 the national program was completely restructured. It was the first year Level 6 became an Optional Level.  The program did not yet include a Regional Meet* 

Regionals 2015 Level 7 Long Beach, California

Vault 15th 9.1, Bars 2nd 9.575, Beam 3rd 9.425, Floor 1st 9.725, 

All Around 2nd 37.825

Regionals 2016 Level 8 Las Vegas, Nevada

Vault 1st 9.550, Bars 9.15 10th, Beam 8.825 14th, Floor 9.35 5th, 

All Around 6th 36.875

Regionals 2017 Level 8 Utah State Team Visalia, California

Vault 2nd 9.6, Bars 9.2 12th, Beam 9.3 7th, Floor 9.3 15th, 

All Around 7th 37.4

Regionals 2018 Level 9 Reno, Nevada

Vault 2nd 9.6, Bars 8th 8.675, Beam 9.3 5th, Floor 7th 9.35, 

All Around 5th 36.925

Qualified for the Level 9 Region One Team for the 2018 Westerns Championships

And coming soon: Regionals 2019 Level 9 Las Vegas Nevada April 12-14th

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

home room

...and finish

They have been together from the start.  

Competed together from Level 3 to Level 9.

 Their journey together in gymnastics is over but their friendship will go on.

Good luck, Sophie <3