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minxyI have been thinking, as I get ready to move (again) about the kinds of things I’m leaving behind and the kinds of things I will find in my new place. My Mom, at one point, wondered what kind of sport I’d find myself practicing back East. I said, somewhat tongue-in-cheekily, that it would probably involved the reservoir lake twenty yards past the front door of my house.
Today is the 37th anniversary of Title IX. I am going to turn 32 a week from tomorrow. I have always been an athlete, since my Dad taught me to throw a football (I grew up in the Midwest.) While I have adjusted to my brain occasionally having fits and starts and migraines and shutting down, which took a little bit of readjustment of my sense of self, I am deeply, deeply grateful that my body has remained uninjured, unbroken, and strong enough to allow me to remain an athlete into my fourth decade.
Today I am reminded that I should also be grateful for the laws that have insisted that I have a right to play this hard.
My brother has called me hard-core; it’s possible that he’s right about it, but I’ve never run a marathon, or anything, I go that distance in a boat. I’ve kind of always wanted to participate in a triathalon, but my last housemate soured me on that a little, and I’d really only be in love with the water portion of the race anyway. I’ve played softball and volleyball and whatever over the years, but it always comes back to water.
I learned to swim when I was but a wee little thing in a bowl-cut hair style. My Dad says I had absolutely no fear of the water when they showed me a pool for the first time. Then they showed me how to swim with technique at 7 years and saw me lead my backstroke with my shoulder, stretch my arms to make myself a bullet in the water, and they set me to racing. My brother came along for the ride for a while there, but he only liked backstroke best because it let him wave at the crowd.
Of the two of us, I was the athlete for a long time. My brother preferred to draw, until he discovered lacrosse and brought it with us as we migrated from the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest in high school.
More than the little suitcase of medals I still have from my racing days, though, what I remember most is the dedication and persistence that practice took. What it felt like to increase your pain tolerance and practice harder so the race would feel better. To sprint so hard you could proudly talk to your coach about how you kinda felt like you might throw up. Oh, the validation those coaches provided. I still remember the year I got initiative and asked to train for a particular race (the individual medley, if you were wondering) rather than just waiting to be told what I would race, and how excited they were to put me in the exhibition lane. I went back to my hometown once, years after I left, and my coaches recognized me from across the natatorium. Then again, they've known me since I was 7. I should find some photos of myself during that time when I'm home in a few weeks, you guys might be interested.
In college (I went to a women's college), sports became my job, and the way I learned anatomy, and how to take charge of a situation where someone is hurt. How to talk to a determined athlete about not going back on the field because she would make the ankle worse, reason with her, and finally lay down the law that no, she could not finish the game, but she could maybe play in next week's. I learned to take care of injuries, plan a rehab, make judgement calls.
I missed playing, though, and sitting there on the sidelines got me out of the habit and out of the shape (I have never been a gym rat, I can make myself go for a few months, but then I'll lapse.) In graduate school I was challenged in the noggin in ways the like of which I will probably never be again. I went up a dress size or two (I don’t ever really gain or lose weight, though. Part of being an athlete in a lifetime way is realizing how heavy muscle is. I am always 175 lbs, and I love to announce that proudly, just like I announce my age.) I studied non-stop for three months to pass exams that smart people around me had failed. My heart soared and was broken. At some point I realized that I can get so caught up in my job and my mind and my thoughts that I don’t sleep.
I was an athlete, yo; I love sleep. So I took a friend up on joining a fairly competitive sprinting boating team, and I loved it. I got addicted to that time on the water where everything became rhythm and endurance and twenty people working together to move a dragon-shaped boat faster. Everybody knew me and expected me to be there, called me out if I missed a practice. It’s like walking into Cheers and having everyone call ‘Norm!’ only I’m not Norm, obviously, and instead of working on my beer gut, I burned off the calories from lunch, and dropped a dress size.
I learned to fall into the sound of the drum, let it stop my mind from going in circles about my job or my dissertation or my heartbreak or my advisor. I could sleep if I’d spent an hour with my boating team, and it was as much the ability to meditate (for versions of meditate that involve clearing your mind and not thinking) as it was the physical use of muscle and determination.
So when I moved to California, I found a boating team within a week of getting here. Endurance, this time, a distance sport (I dropped another dress size. I’m the same size I was in high school now, but sexier because I’m older.) I’m back into 3-hour practices familiar to me from my years swimming. I have definition in my arms and shoulders that Olympians would envy (and has gotten me a date occasionally), again, familiar to a swimmer. I discovered that the migraines my Mom also got knocked by in her early 30s win in the off-season and disappear during the racing season (due to regular aerobic exercise, I’ve found). The ocean is a new love, but I’m pretty sure it will still be there when I’m looking for a place to settle down finally in a year or two. Plus, my next house is right on a lake, so I can get a boat and take myself out on the lake every morning if I want to, though the absence of a coach and a team will be hard.
I learned to do this in such a religious way because I was allowed to play sports as a girl. My swim team as a kid was called something sweet and feminine while the boys were simply the Men’s Swim Team, and my town had sincere arguments about whether or not you could print a woman’s given first name or whether you had to use Mrs. (husbands name), but they let me play team sports. And I was in the Midwestern suburbs, where it's safe to let your kids bike to practice and parents donate lots of money to the sports programs and fully half of the girls played sports at any given season, even the really gawky girls.
It was a gift, to be on that swim team. My coaches have so significantly influenced how I lived my life that I can’t believe, in this moment, that I’ve never bothered to tell them so.
For the record, playing sports influences my health, how I manage my migraines, my stress, my happiness. I’m militant about playing sports because I’m similarly driven in my job and being both lets me be relaxed the rest of the time.
It’s not just allowing girls into the gym. It’s allowing us on a team, it’s giving us great coaches and teaching us to drive, push. Make the decisions to go faster, be strong, take care of our bodies and respect what they can do, not just how they look. I could have learned all this another way, and it's probably synergystic with the way I was raised in general, but I can't imagine growing up without playing hard, at this point. It's part of my toolkit and my sense of self, and I'm damned grateful for every single benefit it continues to bring me.
My mom can’t swim.
Cofax's post on Title IX
Today is the 37th anniversary of Title IX. I am going to turn 32 a week from tomorrow. I have always been an athlete, since my Dad taught me to throw a football (I grew up in the Midwest.) While I have adjusted to my brain occasionally having fits and starts and migraines and shutting down, which took a little bit of readjustment of my sense of self, I am deeply, deeply grateful that my body has remained uninjured, unbroken, and strong enough to allow me to remain an athlete into my fourth decade.
Today I am reminded that I should also be grateful for the laws that have insisted that I have a right to play this hard.
My brother has called me hard-core; it’s possible that he’s right about it, but I’ve never run a marathon, or anything, I go that distance in a boat. I’ve kind of always wanted to participate in a triathalon, but my last housemate soured me on that a little, and I’d really only be in love with the water portion of the race anyway. I’ve played softball and volleyball and whatever over the years, but it always comes back to water.
I learned to swim when I was but a wee little thing in a bowl-cut hair style. My Dad says I had absolutely no fear of the water when they showed me a pool for the first time. Then they showed me how to swim with technique at 7 years and saw me lead my backstroke with my shoulder, stretch my arms to make myself a bullet in the water, and they set me to racing. My brother came along for the ride for a while there, but he only liked backstroke best because it let him wave at the crowd.
Of the two of us, I was the athlete for a long time. My brother preferred to draw, until he discovered lacrosse and brought it with us as we migrated from the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest in high school.
More than the little suitcase of medals I still have from my racing days, though, what I remember most is the dedication and persistence that practice took. What it felt like to increase your pain tolerance and practice harder so the race would feel better. To sprint so hard you could proudly talk to your coach about how you kinda felt like you might throw up. Oh, the validation those coaches provided. I still remember the year I got initiative and asked to train for a particular race (the individual medley, if you were wondering) rather than just waiting to be told what I would race, and how excited they were to put me in the exhibition lane. I went back to my hometown once, years after I left, and my coaches recognized me from across the natatorium. Then again, they've known me since I was 7. I should find some photos of myself during that time when I'm home in a few weeks, you guys might be interested.
In college (I went to a women's college), sports became my job, and the way I learned anatomy, and how to take charge of a situation where someone is hurt. How to talk to a determined athlete about not going back on the field because she would make the ankle worse, reason with her, and finally lay down the law that no, she could not finish the game, but she could maybe play in next week's. I learned to take care of injuries, plan a rehab, make judgement calls.
I missed playing, though, and sitting there on the sidelines got me out of the habit and out of the shape (I have never been a gym rat, I can make myself go for a few months, but then I'll lapse.) In graduate school I was challenged in the noggin in ways the like of which I will probably never be again. I went up a dress size or two (I don’t ever really gain or lose weight, though. Part of being an athlete in a lifetime way is realizing how heavy muscle is. I am always 175 lbs, and I love to announce that proudly, just like I announce my age.) I studied non-stop for three months to pass exams that smart people around me had failed. My heart soared and was broken. At some point I realized that I can get so caught up in my job and my mind and my thoughts that I don’t sleep.
I was an athlete, yo; I love sleep. So I took a friend up on joining a fairly competitive sprinting boating team, and I loved it. I got addicted to that time on the water where everything became rhythm and endurance and twenty people working together to move a dragon-shaped boat faster. Everybody knew me and expected me to be there, called me out if I missed a practice. It’s like walking into Cheers and having everyone call ‘Norm!’ only I’m not Norm, obviously, and instead of working on my beer gut, I burned off the calories from lunch, and dropped a dress size.
I learned to fall into the sound of the drum, let it stop my mind from going in circles about my job or my dissertation or my heartbreak or my advisor. I could sleep if I’d spent an hour with my boating team, and it was as much the ability to meditate (for versions of meditate that involve clearing your mind and not thinking) as it was the physical use of muscle and determination.
So when I moved to California, I found a boating team within a week of getting here. Endurance, this time, a distance sport (I dropped another dress size. I’m the same size I was in high school now, but sexier because I’m older.) I’m back into 3-hour practices familiar to me from my years swimming. I have definition in my arms and shoulders that Olympians would envy (and has gotten me a date occasionally), again, familiar to a swimmer. I discovered that the migraines my Mom also got knocked by in her early 30s win in the off-season and disappear during the racing season (due to regular aerobic exercise, I’ve found). The ocean is a new love, but I’m pretty sure it will still be there when I’m looking for a place to settle down finally in a year or two. Plus, my next house is right on a lake, so I can get a boat and take myself out on the lake every morning if I want to, though the absence of a coach and a team will be hard.
I learned to do this in such a religious way because I was allowed to play sports as a girl. My swim team as a kid was called something sweet and feminine while the boys were simply the Men’s Swim Team, and my town had sincere arguments about whether or not you could print a woman’s given first name or whether you had to use Mrs. (husbands name), but they let me play team sports. And I was in the Midwestern suburbs, where it's safe to let your kids bike to practice and parents donate lots of money to the sports programs and fully half of the girls played sports at any given season, even the really gawky girls.
It was a gift, to be on that swim team. My coaches have so significantly influenced how I lived my life that I can’t believe, in this moment, that I’ve never bothered to tell them so.
For the record, playing sports influences my health, how I manage my migraines, my stress, my happiness. I’m militant about playing sports because I’m similarly driven in my job and being both lets me be relaxed the rest of the time.
It’s not just allowing girls into the gym. It’s allowing us on a team, it’s giving us great coaches and teaching us to drive, push. Make the decisions to go faster, be strong, take care of our bodies and respect what they can do, not just how they look. I could have learned all this another way, and it's probably synergystic with the way I was raised in general, but I can't imagine growing up without playing hard, at this point. It's part of my toolkit and my sense of self, and I'm damned grateful for every single benefit it continues to bring me.
My mom can’t swim.
Cofax's post on Title IX
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 05:25 pm (UTC)I didn't have a time, so I was in lane 7, and my mom swears I was a foot shorter than any other girl in the race. I was almost a minute slower than everyone else, but I finished. And when I touched the wall and stuck my head up, the whole place was clapping. At first it was embarrassing, but then I looked back over the pool and all I felt was this amazing sense of accomplishment. I could conquer anything.
And I'd just like to say thank you to everyone who over the years fought for Title IX.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 05:40 pm (UTC)I didn't realize it was the 37th anniversary of Title IX! Although that's probably why they printed that essay that inspired my post, now that I think about it.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 05:41 pm (UTC)Just like that. That kind of support is just awesome, too, I love that they cheered for you. And cheering in a swim meet is it's own kind of thing, since it's white noise when your head's under water, but when you surface the reverb is bouncing encouragement from the whole universe, it seems.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 05:49 pm (UTC)I'd been thinking for a while about how to explain my boating problem since so many people find it so extraordinary, so it's really nice to take the opportunity.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 09:46 pm (UTC)I was invited to go out for girls' basketball, because I was tall, and I was told I should go out for swim team, because I was strong, I guess. And my friends joked that I should go out for football, because it was the dawn of the days when girls actually thought about doing that sort of thing.
But I had no interest in team sports. No experience of them. I took swimming, ballet, acrobatics at the Y, rode my bike, rollerskated, jumped rope. Played catch with my big brother and shot hoops on the playground during recess - in the winter, that is, because the basketballs were all reserved for the boys during good weather.
The girls' gym at my high school was the pits, while the boys' gym was The Pit, where all the basketball games were played, with balcony seats all around it.
Anyway, long ramble, life changed after Title IX and go you for living that dream!
no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 10:10 pm (UTC)In my high school we did have two gymnasiums, the old and the new, but they used the older for J.V. practices or gym classes. The teams used the nice gym. In the pool, that translated to a three hour practice each day, two hours in the pool, one hour on dry-land. The mens and womens teams would overlap when one team or the other was on the dry-land workout, and offset practice by one hour. This would switch each week. Does that make sense? We'd have a week with an hour break after school, followed by one hour dry-land and two hours in the pool when the boys got out, finishing at 6:30. The next week, we'd jump right in the water after school and finish with an hour of dry-land before heading home at 5:30.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 11:19 pm (UTC)*pouts* I'm still pissed that my senior year, when the girls who didn't take band were learning to play tennis every day in gym class, we 2nd class citizens were stuck in something laughingly called "Advanced Badminton". We didn't even have a teacher present. Tennis is my very favorite sport, and I've never even hit a ball. *pouts some more*
no subject
Date: 2009-06-26 12:57 am (UTC)It's interesting to me for another reason - to learn how women in sport has been treated in different places. I didn't know about Title IX. I am British and 25, and so wasn't in school that long ago. I was good at athletics - originally high jump and short/middle distance, then later, long and triple jump. I was allowed to practice at break, but when it came to the competitions, triple jump was "only for boys". I was never given a reason, but I've since read an old coaching guide (you know those terribly pompous-toned, old, stiff, British things?) that claimed girls would do damage to their pelvis or something. Perhaps there was something in it, but it smacked of sexist bullcrap, even back before I was as aware as I am now. I recall being pissed, cos I could've trounced my opponents, and probably half the boys while I was at it. *g*
Today, as far as I can tell, girls from my old school can take part in the triple jump for those competitions, so we're getting there. :) It's just shocking that it's all so relatively recent.
A picture I saw, probably around the last Olympics, of a woman training hard while wearing Islamic dress brought tears to my eyes. Firstly for her, for her strength and perseverance, getting to that stage against all odds. And secondly, for the hundreds of thousands of women who are living in places that have so far to come, in so many areas, of which the freedom to get sweaty and be respected in sport is just one.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 05:07 pm (UTC)Its awesome that you were able to do sports - I never was only cheerleading.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 05:52 pm (UTC)I could never cheerlead- my balance is not that great. Part of why I appreciate the water, maybe, since gravity plays a bit less of a roll. *g*
no subject
Date: 2009-06-25 04:27 am (UTC)