Boston – Rant and Roll

A certain place and time

It’s so crazy to sit down and think about all of the “I was there when…” moments of your life.

In the twenty-nine years that I’ve inhabited this planet, I’ve lived through a couple of these.

For instance, I (obviously) will never forget where I was on 9/11. I woke up to my regular morning DJs talking about the fact that a “small, commuter jet” had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers.

I had just entered the kitchen when the second plane hit the second building.

I won’t ever forget the morning of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011, the Thai tsunami of 2004, or the Boston bombing attacks of 2013.

I remember Donovan Bailey winning the 100 meter track finals of 1996 like it was yesterday.

I can close my eyes and re-live the relief, shock, and unbearable happiness that surged throughout my tension-wracked body when Sidney Crosby scored the Olympic game-winning goal in 2010.

I (oh so strangely) remember when Kim Campbell beat Jean Charest for the Progressive Conservative Leadership in 1993. I was eight years old, and had stayed up the entire night watching the conclusion of the convention (because obviously I didn’t have parents and Canadian CSPAN was the next best thing.)

I will always recall the intense flood of incredulity and glee when I found out I had been accepted into the UBC creative writing program, or when I was shortlisted for a Rhodes scholarship.

I treasure the heart-bursting joy from every job proposition I’ve ever accepted over the phone.

I remember my first kisses like they were yesterday.

For some very strange reason I remember exactly where I was when I found out that Heath Ledger had passed away. I was in the basement of the UBC student union building, checking my email on one of their truly awful PCs.

These contraptions were held together by nothing more than food crumbs, pizza grease, coffee stains, and sheer will power.

I was using a Yahoo email address back then, and when I signed out I was re-directed back to the site’s landing page. There was his face, a snap of his pre-Batman life, framed by the years of his birth and death.

I recall feeling awkward by just how saddened I was to read this news.

I vividly remember the morning that the United States invaded Iraq. It was the spring of grade twelve and I struggled to make sense of the massive print, splayed across the cover of the Globe and Mail. I can recall thinking to myself that this decision seemed so completely arbitrary and out of the blue. Where in the heck had Iraq – IRAQ? – come from? Weren’t we just talking about Afghanistan?

There are of course moments I wish I didn’t remember: emails sent; words said; secrets betrayed.

These are few, but they cut. Sometimes I’ll be out for a run, and the memory of these moments will hit with such strength that I feel as though all of the breath has been knocked from my body.

Oddly enough, one of my most vivid “world changing” moments is the night that Princess Diana died.

The detail in which I remember this evening is staggering.

August 31. 1997. Sunday night.

Patricia Beckerman was sleeping over. Jessi’s friend Emily was also staying the night.

We’d spent the entire afternoon swimming in our neighbour’s pool. Lois didn’t ever use her backyard, so she loved having us and our friends over for the day. My hands felt like two giant prunes, and I couldn’t stop brushing my fingers tips across my cheeks and nose.

Everything smelled of sunshine and sunscreen.

We’d eaten pizza for super, and my mum even allowed us to drink pop with our ice cream.

We were just about to put on a movie (Anastasia!), but we had to change the TV to channel three in order to press play.

Channel three was CBC, and the news was on.

This was strange as it was not yet ten o’clock. The woman at the news desk was looking so grim. Peter Mansbridge then entered the shot, and he looked like he’d just burst into the studio and clamoured into the nearest suit.

But really, he seemed sad more than anything else.

And then we heard the words.

“Princess Diana has died tonight in Paris.”

And for some reason this news absolutely destroyed me. I didn’t think twice about Diana prior to her passing, but holy crap did the ensuing weeks (and omnipresent media coverage – how apt!) ever throw my pre-pubescent self for a loop.

I bought every Newsweek magazine, cried fat salty tears, and stayed up the entire night through watching her funeral procession.

I was sure I would marry William and help mend his broken, broken heart (while mending mine too in the process.)

To this day it still baffles me why I had the reaction that I did.

But there are some things you just can’t explain.

There are some things you just have to say, “I was there when.”

I shall desire more love and knowledge of you

In Act Two Scene Seven of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, the melancholy Jacques begins his monologue with the line: “All the World’s a Stage.”

To this day, this is one of old Willy’s most famous and oft quoted lines and, of course, like so many of Shakespeare’s brilliant quotes, has become interwoven into our everyday parlance and vernacular.

Aside from humanity’s daily play-acting and always-dramatic machinations (think of how your “work” self might differ from say, your ‘home” self, as well as the ever-degenerating circus we like to call International Politics) there are many people for whom the world IS a stage, both personally and professionally.

I am of course speaking of thespians, or actors, or dramatists, or however else we (or they) would like to be classified.

Actors make us believe in make believe.

Through this proclamation – that all the world is a stage – they actually make us forget this (easily parodied but always present) reality.

This is one hell of a paradox, but is ultimately the magic of great theater (or cinema, or whatever other artistic medium a performance might take.)

Brilliant actors have the power to transform – not only as individuals on stage in character, but transform all of us who sit watching, entranced.

When I was in grade twelve I went to a production of the Daniel McIvor’s Marion Bridge.

For three hours I sat barely breathing, enraptured by three women who commanded the stage with such understated and yet overwhelming brilliance.

The play is about three Nova Scotian sisters – a nun, an actress, and a truck driver – who are all coming to grips with the sickness, and eventual death of their mother.

It is an uproariously hilarious and deeply devastating work of art.

Driving home with my then-boyfriend after the final curtain call I cried harder than I can ever remember crying up until that point in my life.

It was as I had stumbled upon and then cracked open a long-forgotten and deeply hidden store of unrelenting sadness.

When I think about that drive, all I can remember is the taste of my fat, hot tears, and the sensation of my deflated body wracked by a heart-shattered palsy.

My poor boyfriend just kept looking over at me and asking, “Are you alright?”

And while all of my answers were just different iterations of blubbered wails, all I really want to tell him was that I couldn’t be more right.

I was all right.

Second.

Of late, I’ve been moving. Gifted with an abundance of extra energy, I feel like an ever re-generating battery, charging about in search of my lost bunny ears.

This dynamism has manifested itself in early morning pre-work runs, and late-evening workouts (as I watch old episodes of QI on Netflix.)

Yesterday morning I ran the farthest I’ve ever ran in one outing – twenty-three kilometers. I recently signed-up for my first full marathon (Boundary Bay on November 2^nd) so I figured it’s time to stop faffing around and get serious.

I even fell at 12.5km, but picked myself up and carried on my way.

I want some serious mileage under my belt by the time that starting gun is fired.

(Because I secretly, though not-so-secretly, really, really want to quality for Boston at this race.)

However all of this activity can make it hard to find the quiet moments.

So I’ve been using these long training sessions to work on my ability to just “be” with myself.

I’ve been really trying to focus on this whole mindfulness thing.

I’m trying to be fully engaged – both mentally and physically. (Much like the aforementioned Jacques, only my wealth of optimism stands much less depleted.)

I’m trying to really feel everything.

Which is hard.

Third.

Dance parties ALL OF THE TIME.

Which is easy.

For Boston

I’m having a hard time finding what it is I want to say.

I started Running when I was ten years old. I capitalize the R because anyone in my family will tell you that I have been running since the moment I started to walk.

My formal training didn’t start until the summer after grade five when my dad would take me out with him on short routes on Saturday mornings.

I absolutely loved this time we spent together.

Those minutes, hours, kilometers, miles, defined by an intimate ease, a shared love. Moving our legs in unison, marking our way in the world with nothing but a simple stride.

Sometimes we talked, sometimes we didn’t.

We’d run the length of Jericho beach, past the old concession stands, and the gleaming, gorgeous, newly erected “Beach Cafés.”

We’d watch the gulls swoop and glide overhead, listen to the roar of the surf, hear the shrill trill of an approaching bicycle bell.

Our sun-baked skin, glistening in the heat.

Our quiet breath, constant.

Arriving home my skin would smell of sweat, and sunscreen, and the sea salt air, and my shoes would crunch underfoot, coated with a golden sand.

I would stand exhausted in the middle of the entranceway, feeling the remains of the run course throughout my legs, my arms.

With each pump of my heart: around, and around.

Around again.

Seeing what has happened today in Boston has struck a chord inside of me and – I just don’t know.

I don’t know as a human being.

As a sister. As a wife. As a daughter. As a friend. As a runner.

I just don’t know.

I have run so many races.

I have loved each experience so much that I’ve always found it hard to properly communicate what it means for me to participate in these events.

They are camaraderie.

They are fearlessness.

They are grit.

They are endurance.

They are excitement, and heartbreak, and exhaustion, and triumph.

They are love.

They are human beings getting together and doing something that they love.

Together.

Running may be a predominantly solitary sport, but come race day, those other runners are your peers.

They are your friends.

They are your support, your energy, your kick, your drive.

They encourage you, they test you, they make you run harder, and faster, and longer, and better.

They make you better than you ever thought possible.

And for someone to see this, and decide that they are going to take this away – that they are going destroy a peaceful event that serves as a support and conduit for all these amazing traits of humanity – well, it breaks my heart.

And I see these pictures everywhere and I cry.

But I also know that nothing can come from my tears.

So I think about how one day I will have a child.

And I will teach them to be a kind-hearted, open, supportive, loving person.

And I will take them running with me.

We’re such good sports

Gather round friends!

Let me tell you a story.

When we were sixteen, my doubles partner Kristy and I were invited to compete at that year’s Boston Open which was being held at MIT.

Important background information: I used to play competitive junior national badminton. YES I AM AWARE OF HOW NERDY THAT IS SOUNDS – YOU DON’T NEED REMIND ME.

This invitation was very, very exciting news for us.

One, the tournament was taking place on the cusp of Spring Break, so our attendance was basically guaranteeing us an extra long vacation from school, plus the opportunity to spend said extra days IN BOSTON BLOODY MASCHECHUSETTES.

(OMG! I JUST SPELLED MASCHECHUSETTES CORRECTLY ON MY FIRST TRY!)

Ed. update: Okay, obviously I didn’t spell it correctly. But why the fresh hell did it not come up on my spell check? What weird Canadian word of ours is MASCHECHUSETTES!?

Ahem.

MASSACHUSETTS.

Two, we were just at the point where our parents were letting us go to away tournaments by ourselves, and we couldn’t think of anything more fun than bopping about Harvard in between our matches SANS CHAPERONES.

And third, as highly competitive athletes, we wanted to bring our special brand of Canadian kick-ass States-side and see just what kind of damage we could bring to old’ Beantown.

I honestly cannot describe to you how excited I was when our parents gave us the okay to go.

And when I say that the trip was totally bonkers, that, my friends, is no lie.

1.) Flying to Boston on the redeye Wednesday night, deliriously tired, I turned to Kristy and said, “Look how close the moon is!”

She just stared at me, before responding, “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THAT IS THE WING LIGHT.”

Good times! Also, this trip took place pre-9/11 so we actually got to go visit the cockpit and chat with the pilots. Can you believe it?

I can’t.

2.) When we arrived in Boston we were picked up by our homestay family, only to quickly learn that we wouldn’t actually be staying in the city proper, but a suburb located approximately forty-five minutes (to an hour) outside of the downtown core.

This was a surprise to us.

3.) Normally homestay families provide meals (usually breakfast and dinner) for the entirety of the athletes’ stay. We were gifted a bag filled with a dozen frozen bagels and a giant fruit salad from Whole Foods.

I ate quite a bit of dried cereal bought from 7/11 over the length of the weekend.

And by cereal I mean penny candy.

4.) Upon arrival at the house we were told that we would actually be driving ourselves to the tournament. Our billets had recently won a car in a fundraiser raffle, and we were to use this car to transport ourselves to Boston and back. We liked to refer to it as the cardboard car.

We had two pages worth of directions, one “new” drivers license (Kristy) and one “learners” license (me) between the two of us.

Driving in that first morning was harrowing and a half.

Oh, hello giant semi-truck encroaching in our space in this turnpike!

5.) I forgot all my shorts at home and had to play the entire weekend in the spandex shorts I would normally wear under my regular shorts to keep my muscles warm between games. Because of this some guy wearing a “YALE” t-shirt sat at the back of every court on which I played, watching my every move.

To this day I just refer to him as the YALE CREEPER.

6.) One afternoon we went to a coffee shop at MIT and the flirty barista gave us a GIANT plastic bag filled with six years of Canadian coinage.

7.) I beat an ex-junior national champion in my quarter final singles game and she threw one of the most impressive post-game tantrums I have ever witnessed. Broken racquets and everything.

8.) On our last night at our homestay, their son Don asked Kristy if she wanted to go down to the river and watch the moon with him. She politely declined.

9.) I started reading Catcher in the Rye while in Boston and finished it on the plane ride home. This EXPLODED my brain and as such, I spent the next three months pretending to be Holden Caulfield anytime I wrote ANYTHING.

10.) I made it to the semi-finals in singles, and we also made the semis in doubles. All the rest of our time was spent shopping (I bought a number of sundresses and peasant shirts – remember them? – at Target), walking around the campus, laughing at everything possible, and just generally being the silly, sixteen year old girls that we were.

Twelve years later I remember this trip like it was yesterday. We still laugh about it anytime we get together, and goodness knows the myth of the cardboard car will live on and on for the remainder of my days.

I would also love to return to Boston.

But this time, I’ll stay right in the heart of the city.

In a hotel, with a view of the moon.