Too Small to Row?

Of all the high school sports I could have tried out for, I chose the one in which I had zero experience: crew.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

When I decided to join the team, I knew almost nothing about crew. All I knew was that I wouldn’t have to take a P.E. class and that the team was co-ed which, as a 14-year-old girl at an all-girls school, was enough. Early mornings? No problem, I thought. Full body work out? Easy! Ice cold water with leeches? Wait a minute …

So, needless to say, I was in for a huge surprise. I still remember my first day of practice. I reluctantly rolled myself out of bed at 4:30 a.m., wondering why I had been stupid enough to think early mornings would be easy. My dad drove me to practice and I sat in the car, grumpily staring out the window, drinking hot chocolate and wishing I had tried out for soccer instead. I was thoroughly unprepared, wearing tennis shoes, track pants and a huge sweatshirt to keep myself warm.

Practice started at 5 a.m. My teammates and I lined up on the shore by the boat house; a motley crew to be sure. We tried to focus on the instructions given to us by the coach, a stern-looking woman greatly lacking any sense of humor, but we were too distracted by the varsity boys and girls carrying boats to the water, strolling right in as if the water was warm.

Then it was our turn to carry the boats, which, as it turned out, was much harder than the varsity teams made it look.

“Ready, and up,” our coach shouted, and we raised the boat above our heads.

At 5 foot 2 and 100 pounds, I wasn’t a whole lot of help. Even standing on tip-toe I couldn’t hold up the boat, not even when it rested on everyone else’s shoulders. I just stood there with my hands high in the air, pretending to help so that the coach wouldn’t yell at me.

“You should be a coxswain,” everyone on my team kept telling me. “You’re the perfect size.”

What they really meant was that I was too small to row, but I was determined to prove that, despite my size, I still had power.

“Now, after you put the boat in the water, you want to get in fast and wipe off your legs,” the coach said. “There are leeches in the water and they’ll stick if you’re in too long.”

We started to laugh, thinking she was joking, but her face remained stoic. No, she wasn’t joking. There really were leeches in the water.

Slowly, we hobbled along, carrying the boat down to the water. Those of us without proper water shoes had to walk barefoot, cutting our feet on the sharp shells that littered the shore.

We reached the water’s edge and just stood there, confused as to how to turn the boat around and place it safely in the water. The coach, who was growing increasingly impatient, told us to just drop it in.

So we did and, with a giant splash that drenched all eight of us, the boat was almost ready to go. After loading the oars and pushing off the shore, we were on our way.

I still remember how it felt for the first time, my oar powering through the water, occasionally getting caught on a wave and popping out. Before long, we managed to row in unison; fast, vigorous strokes that pushed our boat forward in an abrupt jerking motion. I hardly even noticed the shooting pain from the shell fragments stuck in my feet or the burn of using my entire body to power each stroke of my oar. Everyone on the boat was smiling with glee. We were doing it! We were moving, and we were going fast!

And then came the boys’ varsity team, passing us in seconds without even breaking a sweat.

So, okay, maybe we weren’t going that fast. But for our first time out on the water, we weren’t half bad.

Unfortunately, our luck ended there. My boat didn’t win a single race the entire year. Half way through the season, our coach pretty much gave up on us, choosing to just let us circle around the bay rather than offering us guidance for improvement. But we didn’t care; we had more fun than anyone else on the team. It wasn’t about winning, it was about camaraderie, and nothing bonds a group of girls together tighter than waking up before the sun is out to brave leeches, ice cold water and a coach who completely ignored us.

I didn’t join the crew team my sophomore year; once was enough. But looking back, the year I was on crew was the year that I grew up. I joined the team as a way to avoid responsibility and meet boys, but I left feeling proud of myself for accomplishing something, even though I never took home a medal. So maybe they were right; maybe I wasn’t cut out to row and should have been a coxswain instead. Regardless, I achieved what I set out to do: I proved that I had power simply by not giving up.

I learned that life isn’t about winning or losing. It’s about sharing the funny stories you remember years later.


Photo credit: Sport-Graphics.com
2001 Southwest Regionals, Sacramento, California
(I can be spotted second from the back looking in the wrong direction!)

To Those I've Met Along My Way

By the time I moved to Eugene, Oregon in 2005, I had lived in England, Italy and various places around the San Francisco Bay Area. I was only 19, but I considered myself well-adjusted and able to turn just about anywhere into “home.” But Eugene was different. Eugene was dark and cold and unwelcoming. I had never felt so lonely.

I found the move especially jarring because of how different Eugene was when compared with everywhere else I had lived, especially the Bay Area. While living in California, I would often take the train to San Francisco and spend hours wandering aimlessly around the dirty streets of Haight Ashbury and the Mission district, meeting interesting characters and sharing experiences. Most of the people I met were just tired of being shunned by the world and needed someone to reach out to them and listen to their stories. Once I became that person, I knew they wouldn't harm me. In turn, each and every one of them taught me valuable lessons that I will remember for the rest of my life.

People travel in and out of our lives, yet sometimes it is those we only meet for an instant who can truly change us. The way we treat other people, even total strangers, can have a lasting impact on both their lives and on our own.

It had been more than a year since my move to Eugene - a place in which I had originally thought that I would meet an abundance of new people and have the sociable “college experience” - before a stranger acknowledged me: a man who needed human contact just as much as I did.

I was walking home from school on a cold October morning when I saw him: a Native American man, probably in his late-thirties, with long hair tied in a ponytail and dirt stains on his clothes. He was leaning against a newspaper stand on the busy street corner.

“Hello,” he said, immediately making eye-contact. His soft, friendly eyes were surrounded by harsh wrinkles.

I greeted him back and he asked my name, to which I replied “Jessica. What’s yours?”

He looked stunned for a second, then reached into the chest pocket of his tattered jean jacket, pulling out a long silver chain. As I looked closer, I saw a pendant attached: a small silver horse with its legs outstretched, as if it was running to get away, no more than a quarter of an inch in size.

“Since I moved to this town, no one has told me their name,” he said. “I’m White Crane. Please take this. I want to thank you.”

I shook my head, uncomfortable taking jewelry from a stranger, but he reassured me.

“I want you to have this as an exchange for friendship,” he said. “The next time you see me, just say hello. It’s lonely when no one says hello.”

He held the necklace towards me and dropped it in my outstretched palm.

I carefully tucked it into my pocket as we continued to talk. He told me about his tattoos and his mother, and before we parted ways, he told me that he would do anything to protect his friends.

I never saw him again, but I will never forget him. For the first time since I moved, I didn’t feel lonely any more.

Many people have touched my life along the way, and while I probably wouldn’t recognize them if I passed them on the street today, the lessons they taught me will stay with me forever.

During my high school years, a homeless man approached me outside Amoeba Records on Haight St. He told me about his life and asked if he could recite a poem that he had written himself but never before shared; a beautiful poem about how everyone has an angel in this world. From him, I learned that everyone has an important story to tell, and I was motivated to become a journalist so that I could tell those stories for people whose voices would otherwise go unheard.

When I was eighteen, I met a 30-year-old musician on an hour-long train ride. He told me he sensed a sadness within and said that in order for me to be truly happy, I needed to make a drastic change in my life. He played me the most beautiful music on his Discman, filled with love and passion, then told me that the singer grew increasingly paranoid and jealous, eventually killing his wife. Two days later, I found the courage to finally leave my abusive boyfriend.

The influence we have on others is undeniably strong. Lives can be changed forever by our interactions with the people that we meet along the way. These people came into my life for just a moment, a brief flash before they were gone, yet I will never forget them. They have helped to make me the woman I am today.

As I write this, sitting at my cluttered desk in Eugene more than a year after meeting White Crane, the horse necklace hangs on the wall above me, a constant reminder to have faith in myself and in others. One day, when I am ready, I hope to pass it on to someone else: someone who needs it just as strongly as I did on the day I met White Crane.