Grace, Grit and Purpose

My mom texted me yesterday after watching an inspiring interview with President Jimmy Carter. Carter told the interviewer that he focused on living his life with "grace, grit and purpose." Mom knew I needed a dose of inspiration with a salting of grit, so she passed on the uplifting phrase with lots of heart, prayer and thumb's up emojis.

It's interesting how the world - or a few people in said world - can really bring us down, even when we know to our core that we didn't do anything wrong. A few weeks ago, by virtue of rules, regulations and the choices of a few people, I was brought low. I mean under the concrete, so hurt that tears wouldn't even come. The dual fears of humiliation and exclusion came home to roost in my chest and my amygdala took over my internal regulation, causing unending waves of nausea and stress. My frontal lobe didn't stand a chance, couldn't find a way out of the circular thinking and remembering.

Rob was out of town for part of that week so I binge-watched silly SyFy shows that took my brain to a different world. At one point during my TV marathon a female lead preached to another: "The world can't handle a strong woman. If at any point the world tries to bring you down, take it as a compliment." I clung to those words as well as Carter's, trying to process my way out and forward.

Knowing that my hurt doesn't figure at all on a global scale (given earthquakes, wars, environmental devastation) didn't help at first, though it does now. The challenge of the next few weeks is to find a new purpose, and to rise above the circumstances handed to me with grace and grit. I can dig my teeth into the grit piece, but I'm scrambling for the grace to exit calmly, with good wishes, when all I wanted for the past week was to hurl my rage and grief via sharp words. 

I imagine a round table of all my favorite people, those whose opinion I value most. I know they would tell me to keep my head high and a smile on my face, to make my choices from a position of strength and certainty. I just need a few more days to re-charge the batteries of grace and grit before I can move forward with that purpose and make them proud.

Hiking through Heartbreak

Aden and I went winter hiking on Saturday, a sunny warm day which made us think (erroneously) that the trail would be clear. Rather, the shady trail up the first Boulder Flatiron was snow and ice-packed, and we managed the ascent with assists from various trees and rocks (ie crawling on hands and knees). We knew the downhill would be precarious as we weren't wearing spikes or yak trax on our hiking boots., which error was constantly noted by the skilled and well-outfitted Boulder hikers who passed us.

"Be careful" called one mom as we slithered by.

"Don't worry, we're going very slowly" I reassured her. 

Even the precocious four-year-old in her wake piped up, "Oh I see why, they're not wearing spikes."

But the view from the top was stunning: blue skies and pine trees, a broad vista of the plain with Denver and only a faint layer of smog beyond. After exchanging hellos with a prospective CU parent and son from the Virgin Islands (the only people with worse footwear), we decided to go down a different route to avoid sliding off a rock face.

The path we took abruptly ended - or was lost - in a snow-covered rock field and we hesitated, unsure of the best route forward. After checking GPS, Aden fixed a path across and down the mountain, zigzagging from tree to tree. We checked every foot placement, every step, laughing and swearing at the same time, both grateful for the need to concentrate. As two individuals currently struggling with heartache (though of different types) we both found that need for focus and survival helpful in taking our minds off painful subjects.

After we finally arrived at a maintained trail, my daughter realized that we were close to one of her favorite outlooks. Only problem - we had to scale a boulder-covered hill and crawl through a small hole in the rock feature to reach it. I looked dubiously at the narrow aperture and raised my eyebrows when Aden demonstrated how to hoist one's self up through arm strength alone, lower the head so as not to get clobbered, and then slither through on her belly. None of those actions are in my normal repertoire, but there was no way I was going to be left behind.

As I clawed for handholds and dragged my chest and belly across the rocks, I was bombarded - not by rocks - but by a sense of deja vu. My father used to take us out hiking and climbing in Montana when we were kids, dragging us through rough terrain, up steep crevasses and along terrifying cliffs. It occurred to me that my father was literally in the air around us - as well as living through his granddaughter - encouraging me to be strong. I nearly burst into tears (which would have made the ascent even more hazardous), but then I felt embraced and emboldened by my two angels.

I made it, careful not to look down until my derriere was firmly planted on a stable rock seat. We sat and took in the spectacular view for a while, and then Aden helped me down the way we came up. We slipped and slithered the rest of the way to the car, laughing at our narrow escapes. My clothes were much the worse for the wear but my spirit was slightly better, and I was filled with gratitude for the support from family members past and present.

State Championship Finals

 The Colorado 5A (largest schools) State Championship finals are set for this evening and the entire swim season ends with three hours of racing on a Friday night. The wonderful JV squad that I coached swam their final races last weekend at a successful league championship meet, so I wouldn't say that the success of their season - or my season - rests on tonight's results, but our team record and our team banner waits anxiously for record-setting swims starting at 5pm today.

Swimming is a ridiculous tough sport; athletes follow the black line on the bottom of the pool for hours a day, minds busy either focusing on what they're doing (the hope) or spinning wildly through their their to-do list, and their recent social interactions (top of mind for HS swimmers). We swim until our arms are too tired to lift the fork at dinner, until our skin bleaches and peels, until exhaustion becomes familiar.

Coaches write their best, most focused workouts each day, including strength and resistance training, stretching, sprinting, distance, stroke and drill work. We preach technique until we're blue in the face, only to be interrupted by young faces arguing over the playlist emanating from our phones. SZA, Disney, Taylor, etc. seem far more important than the correct catch and pull of the stroke - at least until these final championship weekend when the fast tech suits come on and young faces transformed by nerves.

On deck we agonize over taper, or "resting" workouts, planning the descent in yards for weeks, urging kids to eat enough, sleep enough to rebuild muscle tissue and throw off the overwhelm so typical in high school. For some swimmers (usually upperclasswomen) the taper hits perfectly and time drops away as a result, leading to joyful celebrations by coaches and shocked delight on the face of the swimmer.

For other swimmers, the taper doesn't work or their nerves take over. Arms and shoulders tight with nerves can't move as quickly, and the swim doesn't look fluid or strong but frenetic. Coaches agonize over those swims, wondering if the athlete needed a few more days of rest, a day off, another pep talk. On a weekend when we had 29 best times and multiple drops of many seconds, all I could think about was the one swimmer who had a rough meet. "What could I have done differently?" was a refrain for days after that.

So the season ends tonight and we will have tears of joy, tears of sorrow, looks of delight and looks of disappointment. For all of the varsity athletes, practice will resume again on Monday for their club teams but for the coaches, a well-deserved 8-month break will begin, and we will ruminate repeatedly on what worked, who swam well and how to help those who didn't.

Apologies

 Apologies for the void in production of blog entries, I am drowning in all things high school swimming! (Pun absolutely intended). My voice went missing a week ago, my sleep schedule is off and my dreams haunted by the question of which girls need more taper (rest). Our team has four meets in one week and the meet lineups are driving us to distraction. Perhaps on Sunday I can rest for a half-day, before composing the final weekly email to parents and the last meet lineup. That's right, our season is close to the finish line, and perhaps soon I can wrestle with words again, find creativity in my brain instead of swim sets and sendoffs. My husband and son will be glad to find dinner on the table and their wife/mother more emotionally stable. It's coming, all, I promise!

New Year, New Outlook?

 A friend of mine posted on social media that his resolution for 2023 was "set the bar low."  My eyebrows raised of their own accord, and I stopped mindlessly scrolling to read in more detail. Did he mean to give up? Schlump away my January in PJs and pizza boxes? While that sounded appealing, I couldn't in good conscience click "like" until I read more.

"Set the bar low" was a missive cloaked in click-bait, of course. My friend meant to accept what is and appreciate all the good that exists in the present state. Offering encouragement to love yourself as you are, to appreciate everything you can about current circumstances; he even asked readers to lower the bar for family members. "Don't expect much," he said, but enjoy all of the quirks and idiosyncrasies that evolve. 

That last sentence holds challenge and appeal for any mother. If I could lower the bar for my 16-year-old, would that look like more chips and salsa in the bedroom? More spilled chocolate milk on the stairs? Or would it give me space to enjoy the unique sense of humor, the endless sports trivia, and blur the edges of a harmless snack-food addiction?

The  New York Times recently offered the best advice from its readers over the year of 2022. One of my long-time favorites emerged: "be where your feet are." The reminder to be in the present, free of expectations, worries, regrets, echoes out a part of the "low bar" post. They both urge us to let go and live. But the more I read the words and the more I write about them, the harder this advice seems.  Why is it so much easier to spin up the anxious, forward-looking movies in my mind than to appreciate the present moment? 

So I'm going to attempt to set the bar low and stay where my feet are in 2023. Despite the humble words, I suspect it will be difficult. But difficult's my happy place - a hard-to-achieve standard for the year to come. Now that I've warped my friend's words into a terrible challenge, I'm finally resolution-ready.