An evolution of sorts.

I have always been something of an egomaniac when it comes to writing, so in high school, when my first three attempts at college essays were flat out rejected by my AP English teacher (I believe her words were something along the lines of "I'm not even going to comment on these. Try again."), I grew to be a little angry. My first attempt wasn't memorable - I couldn't tell you now what it was about.

My second, rather ironically, was about second chances. My mother had cancer the summer before my senior year in high school, but we were unbelievably, almost embarrassingly

 fortunate, and she's fine now. My best friend's mother died on September 18th, 2001 from cancer. The essay was about coming to grips, for the first time, with what appeared to be the supreme and unforgiving randomness of Life (yes, with a capital L). The idea that it didn't matter why things happened - only that they had, and you had no choice but to fall on your knees and thank God before moving on in your altered Life. It wasn't good enough. 

The third was about a consignment shop I had been working in since I was...I don't know, 12 maybe? I volunteered there sometimes on weekends but mostly during the week in the summer. There is one experience that I remember more clearly than any other I had there, and that is what my essay was about. One day this lady came into the shop wearing a sweatsuit that was stained and clearly in need of replacement - holes, tattered hems, etc. She came straight to

 the jewelry counter and tried on a bracelet made of silver and pearls. The money that she used to buy the bracelet could have bought any number of outfits in that store to replace the one she was wearing - but it wasn't what she wanted. The essay was about the idea that desire, while sometimes seemingly irrational to those standing on the outside, always makes perfect sense to those of us in its grip. 

And finally - the fourth. I was so angry by this point in time that I decided to give up on trying to write something moving and meaningful, and I just laid it out there. I can't even tell you how angry the tone of the essay was -but in the end I think that's what made it work.

It was about rowing. By this point in time, I had been rowing for 3 years and was approaching

 my 4th season of high school rowing. I wrote about why I rowed - which may seem pedestrian - but is one of the most passionate things I think I've ever written. I wrote about how I hated getting up at 5 o'clock in the morning. I hated wiping out on the ice-covered docks at the beginning of spring. I hated having a tiny, type-A, obsessive compulsive little bitch (that isn't confined to one person, but rather to coxswains in general) scream in my face as I exhausted my body while they sat - SAT -  in front of me covered in fleece jackets. 

And then, I wrote about how it was all worth it. It was worth it to watch the sun rise over the monuments every morning from the Potomac. It was worth it for the first 10 seconds of every race. 

I will never be able to adequately explain this to someone who has never rowed, but that feeling is like nothing else. Your body is tensed up like a coil, gripping your oar, waiting to release everything you've got. The starter's impassive voice over the loudspeaker says "All ready. 3. 2. 1. Row." What no one else can hear is the coxswains in each of the boats whispering fervently into their mics "set this boat. set the goddamn boat. if you do not set this boat before we start you are going to lose this race. SET. IT. UP." (setting the boat is the idea of making the boat even so that you're not leaning to either port or starboard...it's surprisingly, excruciatingly hard). So the starter says row - and your entire world explodes. 

Typically there are 6 boats in a sprint race, lined up one next to the other. If you are one of the better boats in the race, you're in the middle...meaning that you fully experience the start, because in front of you and behind you in your OWN boat, people are moving as fast as they can, driving all the power from their legs into the water, kicking the boat along. Next to you on either side are boats in which 9 more people are doing the exact same thing you are. The water is splashing, the oars are clicking simultaneously in their oarlocks (oh, God, that sound, when all the oars clicked together, it was...exalted), and I promise you, there is nothing else in the world aside from that moment. Nothing else exists. You are - for those few moments, those first ten seconds

 - capable of anything. 

If I didn't do an adequate job of explaining it above, I'll just tell you this - racing is what makes all the early morning practices, all the effing roadtrips, all the weekends apart from your friends, all the PAIN - worth it. Wholly and fully. So it must be pretty good, right? 

I haven't raced in 6 years and I remember those feelings the same as if I raced yesterday. 

I've been thinking about rowing a lot lately because I'm trying to get those feelings back - trying to commit myself to something in the same way - and having a bit of trouble. I'm trying to run. The problem with running, though, is that you don't have 8 other people running around you at the same time, along with whom you have to match your pace and power exactly. You don't have that self-obsessed little hellion screaming in your face that if you do not keep running she will kill you. I have my internal coxswain now - who doesn't, really, in all aspects of their life - but it's not quite the same. I'm trying, though. For what it's worth. 

Putting this on the blog feels a little bit like cutting out a piece of my heart, cupping it in my

 palms, and offering it to you silently. I look at pictures from those days and I grieve. I think it's the same way with runners and swimmers as it is with rowers - it doesn't matter that I haven't raced in 6 years. I will always be a rower. 

For your viewing pleasure...this picture was taken during a head race in Charlottesville the fall of my first year at UVA (a head race is much longer than a sprint race...endurance rather than speed). I was bow at that point (the very last person in the boat, or the first person to cross the

 finish line):

This winter some things came up in conversation with my friends Paul and John that - for lack of a better term - blew their minds. They weren't things about me that I hid from them in any particular fashion, I guess they had just never come up before...until this summer. One was that I love horror movies (we were talking about the Saw series in particular). Another was that I love rap music. I would say most of the time when I'm listening to music, it's rap, or hip hop, or some other form of nauseating pop music. Don't get me wrong, the transcendent musical moments of my life (you know what I'm talking about) are all to quality music - DMB, KoL, Incubus, blah blah the list goes on, but generally, I listen to rap. And I think I just figured out why. 

Rap is like rowing in a musical form. It has the driving beat, the power, and the anger. It allows you, for a few moments, to become something you might not always be. Which is why I listen to rap music at this point in my life when I'm trying to become something I have never really been - a runner.