I jotted down this note back in December – a month before the family got nailed with Covid – and just re-read it today.
She walked out the front door at 7:40am, just as she does each school day morning. And every time she walks out, if I’m there to see it, I start to imagine what her walk is like: how she walks; what she sees along the way; what kinds of things momentarily hold her attention. Right about now, at 7:43, I imagine she’s approaching the pet store at the corner of Halsey and Throop, or maybe she’s just crossed over Halsey, and is now glancing left over to Our Lady of Victory church, toward that beautiful broken down wooden sign set back behind the wrought iron gate. That sign always catches my eye, and I wonder if her eye wanders like mine.
Today – Thursday December 9, 2021 – she’s running to Brooklyn Bridge Park from school. The team will do some drills, then run back to school and finish up with a weight workout. Then she’ll come home, where she’ll shower, feed Desoto and clean out his litter box, eat dinner with us (after washing her hands of course), do her homework, study, help her sister clean the kitchen, and maybe after that, come upstairs and eat some chocolate chips with me while we watch an episode of Ted Lasso.
I’m so proud of her for the way she’s conducted herself throughout this track season. The coach, who happens to have the bad luck of looking like a caucasian baboon, is actually a competitive track athlete himself. He’s twenty five’ish, and about as self-absorbed as the average twenty five year old: agonizing on Twitter about pretend struggles, etc. As far as the nuts and bolts of organizing a group of high school runners: he’s not what you’d call a capable manager. I’ve noticed that he’s frequently dropped the ball when it comes to the rudiments of being a grownup in charge of teenagers: things like communicating when and where tryouts will be held; or following up later to let kids know if they made the team; or announcing when and where practices will be held for those who are on the team. The week after tryouts were held for example, before there was a regular practice schedule worked out, and with no warning, the coach sent a text message out to a few of the students – not all of them of course – that there would be a practice session at Fort Greene Park that day. He sent the text three minutes after school let out. Most kids don’t dress for school every f***ing day in running gear. There is no athletic apparel go bag tucked away under the physics text book. Also, he’s convinced that M***’s last name is Wong.
But she’s stayed on top of all that, and done it with a kind of aplomb and finesse I wasn’t at all expecting. She’s been fully committed to showing up to each and every training session, working hard, and following the coach’s prescriptions to the letter. She does that without complaining, with a quiet and unassuming acceptance of the full cost of what she’s doing: of having to find the time for her leadership group meetings, homework, tests, and socializing with friends; of the getting home late at night, having to do a twenty minute walk from the G train when it’s pitch black (and she’s hungry); of managing the discomfort of the aches and pains of speed workouts followed up with weight training; of waking up early on weekends just to get to the Bronx armory by 8am so she can race with her teammates. All while bearing a full academic load at one of the most competitive high schools in the country. And… taking care of Desoto the cat. The other morning, when I came down the stairs and saw her in the kitchen, and asked “Did you take care of Desoto?”, she replied without a hint of snark, and not looking up from spreading peanut butter on her English muffin: “Yeah, I don’t come downstairs until I take care of him first.”
She’s fourteen years old, and so far ahead of where I was when I was her age. I imagine her standing at the very tippy top of a needle that is perched at the top of the world, on the highest skyscraper. She’s an amazing student. An amazing human being. I want her to know how proud I am of her.