Mighty Esme at Bat

There was a moment at National's Park when I took a second to celebrate getting at least one aspect of mothering right. 

Esme walked into the bullpen with five baseballs and a clear goal of pitching the ball over the plate. She watched a number of people throw before her - adult men who pushed the speed clock close to 70 mph and young boys who pitched runaway balls over the protective nets and into the crowds. She saw weak throwers pitch from the grassy midway point and the strong-armed wind up from some 60 feet back on the sandy mound. 

With few exceptions, the older women and girls threw from the grass, while the men and boys strode up to the sand to pitch.

Esme took her balls from the volunteer, walked to the grass and set them down by her feet. She turned around, eyed home plate and threw. The first ball covered the distance easily but strayed far right of the plate. The second edged a little closer and the third seemed perfect to my non-baseball-knowing eyes. She picked up the other two balls and walked back to the sand, doubling the distance required for her pitch to reach the plate. 

A noise rose up from the crowd of onlookers, a murmur of acknowledgment that this, this walking to the sand, was a gutsy move by such a small girl. 

"Whoa!" the man in charge of the event said. "Right on," I thought to myself. 

She threw the last two balls: one of them managed the distance, the other fell short. But none of that mattered. Not really. What mattered is that she's confidant in her own strength, believes in the athleticism of her body and is courageous enough to test it. She's not cowed by gender norms or limited by fear or even inexperience. 

We're not a baseball family. We don't watch it on TV, play on any teams or even throw a ball around in the yard for fun. When someone hit the ball from home plate while we were waiting for our own crack at bat, Desmond shouted "Goal!" Clearly, we were out of our league. But even that didn't stop Esme, Josephine and the others from testing themselves at bat and in the bullpen of a major league park. 

*****

The kids stood next to a North Carolina lake this past weekend and watched Kent and I swim an open-water race. A former collegiate swimmer, Kent did the 2.4-mile swim while I competed in the 1.2-mile distance. The kids know their father relishes this kind of swim; they also know I'm terrified of these races despite having completed a number of them.

"I hope you don't have any anxiety," Tobias told me as I walked back from my umpteenth trip to the bathroom before the race. The anxiety… it wreaks havoc on my belly. 

I like to think they see this. See us challenging ourselves - our minds and bodies and mortal fears - and it inspires them to swim, bike, run, stretch, jump, climb, sweat, fall down and get up again. To keep moving, moving, always moving. 

*****

The kids crowded into a dressing room at a local triathlon store while I tried on racing suits for the upcoming Half Ironman. When I pulled on the first suit and stepped back to look at myself in the mirror, Josephine nearly gasped. "Mommy, you look STRONG!"

"I AM strong," I told her. 

*****

A friend recently shared a story by a woman Cross Fitter that had some take on "Strong is the New Skinny" in the title. It's not a new concept, right? I mean, I've heard it before and it's always kind of irked me because it strikes me still as a way of fixating on how our bodies appear to other people rather than what our bodies can do for us. 

I'm all for being strong, I'm just not caught up with whether you think I look it. It's terribly complicated, really, because, I do like looking fit. I just like being fit even more. 

I care if I can swim an open-water race, brave the strong currents, laugh at the waves and thank god as I pass one buoy, then the next, for the strength of my arms and legs and lungs. Ever mindful, always grateful. 

I care if I can balance on my head, ride through the countryside powered by my own legs and beat the shit out of a would-be attacker. 

I just don't much care whether my body pleases you or not. 

I care whether it can hit a pitch in a ballpark in front of my kids - it can! - and whether that inspires them to challenge their own bodies. It does.

Life List #20: Grow a grouping of purple globe albums

I've tried this several times before, tried to grow aliums like the ones in my rural Japanese village that I fell so crazy in love with. But it never worked. This year, though... Just look!

I love them! 

Love the One You're With

An opportunity presented itself recently that would have put us back in Raleigh. In a beautiful house in our old neighborhood, one door down from dear friends. I tried not to get too excited, but I basically moved our furniture into the house, unpacked our books on the hand-crafted shelves, hung the artwork and stood on the screened-in porch watching the kids climb the trees. In my mind. We were there. Back in a place I never wanted to leave. 

The job fell through. 

So, we're here. As we have been for the last six, nearly seven years. As we will be, likely, another six, seven, 17 years. 

Our neighborhood celebrated its first First Thursday of the summer season this past week. The local business owners threw a party they dubbed "Cirque du Del Ray" with a bike rodeo, hula hooping, yoga, loud music and dancing. The women from Mind the Mat, the yoga and pilates studio where I practice, outdid themselves for sheer enthusiasm and lunacy.

Raleigh is a wonderful place to raise a family, but so is Del Ray, a place filled with love, generosity, eccentricity and fun. On Twitter, I tell people I'm from Funky Mayberry. On the best days, that's what this place feels like.

 

I had a moment on the Farmer's Market parking lot, where the conga line marched and the limbo-ers danced - when I thought how lucky we are to be here. With these people. Maybe one day we'll get back to Raleigh. If we have to wait somewhere, though, we couldn't have found a better place to spend our time. 

Shoe Shopping is Supposed to be Fun

I don't follow fashions or like to shop. So, I need help from those of you who do. 

Over the years, numerous doctors have noted that one of my legs is longer than the other but only one of them thought it was a big deal. The physical therapist I started working with a few months ago agrees and said the fact that my right leg is a full inch shorter than my left is the reason my back has been so bungled up. 

I need to correct the discrepancy by using a lift in my shoe. As you can imagine, though, you can't put an inch-thick lift in your shoe without your foot overflowing the shoe itself. So, I had a three-quarter inch lift constructed, and I have to send any shoe I plan to wear to an online company that builds the shoe up the remaining height. 

I'm still waiting on that shoe to be delivered. It's an athletic shoe similar to the one I've been wearing day in, day out for the past three months. 

Because it's so important to keep my hips level and my spine in line, the therapist wants me to wear my shoes even in the house. 

If you know me well, you know that I HATE this. First, I don't like shoes in the house. Second, I'd go barefoot everywhere if I could. I'm just not a fan of shoes. I'm also not a fan of debilitating pain that keeps me from the activities I love though, so…. shoes. 

I can't bear the idea of wearing athletic shoes and socks all summer. I want to find some kind of sandal that I can build up without it looking ridiculous. With a sandal, I obviously can't wear the insert, so the entire base will have to built up an inch. Get out a ruler or tape measure and imagine a shoe with an inch heel. That's pretty big, right? And if you built that inch onto something that already has some height, well, it would look terrible. 

I've gone to multiple shoe stores and left all of them frustrated and on the verge of tears. I can't find anything. Here's your challenge: have you seen a flat, comfortable looking sandal? I don't give a shit, really, about fashion. I mean, I don't want it to be ugly, but I don't care that it's hip. I'm looking for simple, durable and comfortable. And, flat. Thoughts?

I'm a Cherry Blossom Haiku Cliche

The past several days I flooded my social media streams with photos of the cherry blossoms in bloom round the Tidal Basin. I did the same thing last year. Probably the year before that too, though my footprint on the Internet was smaller. No Twitter or Instagram then. 

If you happen to be my friend on Facebook or follow me on the other sites, I'm sorry. 

I'm not sorry, really. I love cherry blossoms, but I especially adore the trees that ring the Tidal Basin. I'm a Japanese haiku cliche when it comes to them. They're exquisite and so tragically fleeting they practically scream: "Embrace this moment now. After this breath, it's over."

With this wind, they're blown.

With this rainstorm, they're drowned.

Every year, I feel compelled to visit them daily because that's how quickly they change. On Monday, some had started to unfurl and there was an expectant blush on the water. By Tuesday morning, the blush was a blaze and the canopy of pink made magical forts of dirt and sidewalk. On Wednesday, virgin blooms already started to fall like snowflakes. 

It's not that I want to see the blossoms, I do, it's that I'm drawn to bear witness to their splendor before it's spent. For another full year. Or always. What if I'm not here next year? What if they aren't? There are no dreams or plans that bad luck or misfortune can't upend. 

So, I walk beneath the blooms and celebrate their magic, and show you because I can't help it. Look! Look! It's beautiful. This life. These trees. This moment.