Track baby

This is a "braided" essay for the Intro to Creative Writing class I took freshman year (Spring 2011). I had to weave together three different ideas - I chose the Olympics, babies, and being the daughter of a track coach. 

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Sometimes the combination of the spinning, the torque, the whip, the grip of smooth soles is just too much. It’s too much to remember to switch your feet at the end, to start your spin with a slight hop to get the right trajectory angle at the finish, to release the discus from the index finger. Once it leaves numb hands, the act of watching it fly away as either a success or failure ends in a slight smile or shake of the head.

Men’s discus was included in the first Olympics of 1896. My first Olympics was in 1992. Well, my first year of life was also in 1992. My dad would pick me up out of my soft pink crib, cradling my swaddled newborn body down to flick on the summer track and field events, watching ­­­­­ Attila Horváth and his 226 foot discus throw as my watery cries subsided at two in the morning. I’m not sure why the sight of a huge Hungarian man and his discus yell calmed my week-old self.

My dad gave me a one armed hug when he dropped me off at college, after we heaved my many suitcases, shower caddy, bed sheets, and decorations up the flight of stairs. He quickly walked to the car, looking off as if the trees across the road were of incredible interest to him.

There’s always something different wrong each time I throw. In field hockey (and other sports, I’m sure) it's called “pass and pray” when you don't think about where the pass is going to go and if anyone will actually receive it. You just hope it will happen. I go to track with the intent of improvement, but more of a hope that it’ll just happen. Gazing up into the clouds while everyone else is practicing their spins, I act as if I’m just imagining what I have to do—no need for any of this “going through the motions.” The fifteen seconds I'm in the circle ends quickly, with a shrug of the shoulders if it's all right and a grimace if it just shot off into the woods.

Last year my dad told me that he won the Meet of Champions the last year throwing discus. I asked him why he didn’t tell me that seven years ago. If I had known in fifth grade that my dad was actually sort of cool I might considered myself as a little discus prodigy.

I get nervous around babies, especially those that are so tiny they are borderline dollish. Toddlers are fine, with their little personalities and capability of interaction. But as long as a baby isn’t able to toddle, I’m not interested. Their miniature wrinkly fingers and soft foreheads are just asking for damage, with their poor squinty eyes and untouchable delicateness. Once they are able to crawl my aversion is lessened—once they can fend for themselves. Or at least they can waddle around on the floor, gaining speed and also acquiring a bit a rug burn.

The excuse of “just a bad throw” is used often, glancing at my intense college coach to see if he gives that quick nod or if he’ll shake his head in disgust; but he has those reflective sunglasses so I can never tell if he’s looking at me or not. He probably wonders why I always stare at him, intently looking for any sign of praise or correction. Or maybe he’s never looking back at me—I wouldn’t be able to tell. His eyewear only reflects my wide eyes, searching for anything I can grab onto for stability.

When babies start walking: increased danger. That’s when it’s time to invest in some of those cupboard clips—the kind that secure the wooden doors shut so that Baby doesn’t down a bottle of anything poisonous. You know it’s bad when they’re gaining inches, creeping up on the next milestone. Struggling to shuffle along the chestnut wood, baby shoes clunking along shining tiles.

When my dad came to my first college track meet I told him not to do anything to embarrass me. He promised he wouldn’t.

My dad told me that I shouldn’t whip my arm around to throw before my feet were placed correctly. I promised I wouldn’t. 

Sometimes I look at the creases in the palm of my hand, my knobby knuckles and purple painted nails and wonder how these are the same hands that I’ve had since I was born; the same fingers that were once wrinkly and reddish purple—evidence of my dangerously delicate baby stage.

He’s always loved to watch the Olympics—hollering from the couch when unbelievably huge athletes with rippling muscles throw a seemingly impossible 230 feet.

My fingers are numbed by the thick chill of a March Saturday morning. My sleeve is yanked up over my fist as I breathe hard little huff huffs on my immovable, bent fingers. Prying them open, I roll back my stiff shoulders and position my feet the way I would set up my fifth grader feet—always the same. Whirling through the motions with little focus on everyone watching me through the clanging iron cage, I release it. Index finger still tingling, I squint. Standing motionless in the circle with my arms limply dangling, I watch as my discus cleanly soars up and arcs down before the clouds hit the tree line.

Sometimes inches are important. In baby steps they seem like the world as baby waddles towards the fastened shut cupboard. Usually inches mean improvement. Progression, advancement, evolution—a new personal record. Inches are simply numbers combined to distinguish between a school record and just an average toss; tiny notches on the measuring tape.

I tell him I didn’t hear what the distance was and he smiles, squeezing my shoulders. I tell him I forgot to switch my feet, and also to spin quickly when I hit the wheel. I wonder if ­­­­­ Attila Horváth from Hungary’s father yelled at him if he didn’t get that extra inch. I don’t think he would have given his son a one-armed hug and said, good effort; we’ll get ‘em next time. If he did, he probably wouldn’t have said it in English. Or maybe he wouldn’t have been able to fit his arm around Attila’s shoulders by then.

Throwing the hammer last year - April 2012