Whoa! Determination!

Winston Churchill said, "Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts." I don't know what he was talking about, but it's also true in roller derby.


This last Wednesday, the team was doing some hip-whipping drills. This is when everyone skates in a line fairly close together and the person at the back of the line weaves through, propelling herself by pulling really hard on people's hips. When done correctly, the person weaving through will pull hard enough to almost make the other girl stop.


So imagine this is your, oh, maybe fourth derby practice ever. Or maybe it's your third practice since getting injured early in the fall, and you hadn't been skating very long then. Now imagine you're concentrating on keeping up with girls who've been playing for four or five years and you're thinking about skating fast enough, crossing over, looking behind you, and suddenly someone skates up and jerks on your hips nearly as hard as she can. And then you're on the ground. And then you're getting yelled at to get up, catch up, get back in line, stay an arm's length apart, cross over, skate faster, look back... next girl comes up, you're on the ground. Then do it again! 


It nearly brought tears to my eyes to see these girls keep getting up, keep catching up, keep getting better, and just plain keep going. And the frustration and determination! None of them complained a single word. None of them quit. And they'll all be back.


If I had joined an already established team, gone to practice a few times, and gotten pulled to the floor repeatedly, I probably would have been like, "Pshw. I'm outta here. I'm not coming back for this agony. No way I'll ever make it to being the one knocking people over."


But really, I just can't believe these girls. They want to play so badly. This is how it should be.

Homesickness for the place you're in

This season can, for me, be summarized by a feeling of homesickness. Every year until grad school, I moved back and forth from Vermont to Yellowstone, throwing in a couple seasons in Wisconsin and Minnesota every once in a while. And the weirdest thing was feeling homesick for the place I was at! In Yellowstone, people move a lot - it's just the nature of the Park Service. When my friend Alexis's family (my true second family) moved to Alaska but I was still back in Yellowstone the next summer, I had a vague feeling of homesickness the whole season.

That's how I felt with the Dixie Derby Girls this whole year.  I was there the whole time, but so many things were missing, or I was missing so many things.

Chronological recap
March 6 at Big Easy: Missed signing up for this game after mistakenly thinking it was for the newest girls only
March 19 home scrimmage v. Vette City: Busted my knee on the first jam when my kneepad slid off. The first jam! Hobbled around for weeks with a giant fluidy lump and felt sorry for myself. Bought better kneepads.
March 27 at OK City: See above. Still couldn't walk well. Probably cried during game time while I was sitting at home still feeling sorry for myself.
April 10 at Biloxi: Best game ever! Woohoo! Hit better than I ever have during the second half, thanks to a few words from Snidely saying to stop listening to the coaches and just do what needs to be done (sorry, coaches).
April 17 home v. Panama City: Home season opener. Blowout. I felt bad for the other team playing so poorly. No fun to watch and hardly fun to play.
May 1 at Houston: Dad visiting from Vermont. Stayed home.
May 15 home v. Hard Knox: Played in this game but don't remember it. Could have been the one with all the drama on the bench that I tried to not to remember (and succeeded)?
June 12-13 at No Coast and Green Country: After nearly a year of unemployment, got a job. Not able to take time off for days and days of endless driving briefly punctuated by bouts.
June 19 home v. Big Easy: Out of town for a wedding. Back in time to watch the last part of the second game.
July 17-18, Rocket City Rumble: Game v. Tampa. Ugh. We got killed. I didn't get to play much. But when they did put me in, I scored a bunch of points (comparatively speaking, since collectively we certainly didn't score a bunch of points, maybe like 20).
Game v. Memphis. Lots of miscommunication on the bench. Pretty happy with my semi-effective and comparatively penalty-free performance. (Again, comparatively speaking, since, like, half our team was ejected). Emotionally, the beginning of the end.
August 28 home v. Tallahassee: Played well. Had fun. Sad we lost.
August 28 home v. mixed team: Played well. Had fun. Sad the other team wasn't more competitive. Loved skating with the new girls!
September 11-12 at Panama City and Tallahassee: Drove to Minnesota for a wedding and to see relatives.
October 23 at Chattanooga: Pregnant. Found out a week earlier. Had a feeling about it and briefly considered not peeing on the stick for another week so I could still play. Somehow, responsible part of brain won out. Too exhausted to even go watch, anyway.

Emotional recap
So pumped about new season!
So disappointed about stupid injuries.
So happy to have a derby wife! Bettie PageTurner! Triple yay! (I know, an unsocial person like me...?)
So happy about Sky Pi joining derby and becoming awesome! Yay, Lutherans!
So sad about lots of things. Teammates say terrible things to other teammates that can't be undone, and the people saying the terrible things wouldn't unsay them even if they could. As Code of Conduct committee chair, I got to hear all of it. It was so difficult. It's still so difficult. (Imagine how you felt in middle school when people slighted you. Now imagine that in a real-life situation but with people that you actually care about. You know, unlike your former classmates whose names you probably can't even remember.)
So happy about Sindy Sawblade joining derby and becoming awesome! Yay, more Lutherans! (Ha ha.)
So sad about more terrible things being said. We can handle the sticks and stones, but the words hurt so much more. And they're not even intended for me.
So happy about baby! Yay! Baby! (Many fears that this kid will be like me. Many prayers that he or she will be inclined toward Jeff's temperament. The lyrics of Brad Paisley's "Anything Like Me" kind of haunts me. See previous post for details.)
So sad about not playing next season.
But so happy about coaching freshmeat! Woohoo!

And that's my official recap for the season. It might seem like I abandoned this blog, but really I've been deciding (for months, whew!) whether to stay with DDG, which is like home but also like so much homesickness. People always say that home is supposed to be a place of happiness and coziness and all good feelings all the time, but DDG and this past season, I think, are more like Kathleen Norris's vision: "Home ought to be our clearinghouse, the place from which we go forth lessoned and disciplined, and ready for life." I'll be in the same place this year but it will be a whole different feeling.

"Roller derby is too dangerous!"

Age 14. Where am I in this picture? Hint: Right next to Aaron Mutchie.

Age 17. Jumped off the back of this Bronco while it was moving. My tough-guy friends laughed.
Then they were sickened by all the blood and wouldn't help me wipe it off. (I know, Mom, I said I just fell on the gravel. I know you didn't believe me, but I didn't want you to worry.)

Age 18. Climbed into this closet and was stuck about 15 minutes while my friends pointed and laughed. Much photo evidence of this nature - climbing into small spaces and getting stuck.

Age 19. I used to ride my bike a lot. My favorite was riding over rocks and sticks and curbs and slanted surfaces to see how much air I could get. (This, with like a $10 yard sale bike.) A little too ambitious this day, but I did ride another 3 miles or so back into town after busting my face.

Ages 16, 18, and 20. Ran marathons.

Age 20. Swam across this river to climb into a cave on the other side, in March, while camping. It had snowed the night before.

Age 21. Climbed cell phone tower in winter in Minnesota without gloves.

Now, someone tell me that roller derby is too dangerous and that I'm going to seriously hurt myself. I'll take that (much more) calculated risk.

Roller derby riddle

What do these things have in common?

songs
Vienna by Billy Joel
I Wanna Go Too Far by Trisha Yearwood
I Take My Chances by Mary Chapin Carpenter

poem
Swearing, Smoking, Drinking by Susan Browne

novel
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Failure

"There are no failures - just experiences and your reactions to them," said teacher and coach Tom Krause. He also said a bunch of other motivation-y things that teachers and coaches tend to say. I disagree - there are failures. And then there are successes because of them.

Sometimes we say that petty thing because it's so easy. Or we don't do that simple 30-second thing that would make our husband, kid, friend, neighbor feel so good because we just don't feel like it. Or we only give 85% at work because it was a long night. Or because the work isn't that interesting. Or not challenging enough. Or too challenging. Or we complain about our coworkers or families because they're just not living up to our standards.

Last weekend we had the Rocket City Rumble II and it was a resounding success. Mixed with failure... ahem... I mean experiences and our reactions to them. The tournament went smoothly (thanks to HBICs Bettie PageTurner, Zombie Kitty, and many many more), the games were mostly competitive, the hits were hard, and there were no major injuries.

But... we didn't play our best. We didn't keep our cool. We had a record number of penalties and ejections. We came in sixth place out of six at our own tournament. Our team didn't act like a team or feel like a team.

That was the experience. What's our reaction? Should we talk to death about the failures because it's easy? Forget to tell our teammates when they're doing well, even if we think they only do one thing well out of a hundred? Skate 85% because we're not having a mostly winning season this year anyway. Or because we might as well wait till next year to get serious now. Or because we don't have the luxury of 3-hour practices like other teams do. Or enough practices per week. Or too many. Or should we complain about our teammates or coaches because they're just not living up to our standards?

Tom Krause has another cheesy quote, and I agree with this one: "Courage is the discovery that you may not win, and trying when you know you can lose."

So let's be brave. We already know we can lose.

Right now I feel like our team is me on the floor in this picture, everyone cringing and looking away. But we'll be that #78 Tampa girl, skating away successfully, mission accomplished. Just gotta be courageous. And keep doing those things that are so easy but so easily overlooked - encouraging, persevering, giving 100%, and all those other feel-good sentiments that mean nothing on the page but everything in person.

(Thanks so much, specifically, to Zan Axe, Legally Bombed, and Lucia SlammerMOre for your positiveness this weekend. I want to be like all of you when I grow up.)

Hobbies characterize who you are

When you learn a new language, right away you learn how to talk about the activities that you like. This is how you find people like you, people you could be friends with.

A big trend in job interviews is talking about hobbies and interests. Presumably your interviewer is extrapolating what kind of person you really are. You know, on the inside. Your hobbies and interests characterize you.

When you're a kid, you dream about making your interests into a career. My second grade presentation was about my future career as an author. By middle school, I equally wanted to be a copyeditor.

What do my hobbies, interests, and small pleasures say about me?

Crocheting.
Reading.
Appreciating good document design.
Drinking tea with a bit of honey and milk.
Cross-stitching.
Being at church.
Sewing.
Keeping a journal.
Folding laundry.
Taking long bubble baths and sipping white wine.
Writing real, paper letters.
Playing croquet.
Editing, with caveats.
Going for leisurely bike rides.
Washing dishes by hand.

In what ways do my hobbies, interests, and small pleasures not at all represent who I am, you know, on the inside - in the ways that matter?

What kind of person do your hobbies say you are?

This blog is about roller derby.

Read me like a book

This one thing has bothered me all my life. It's my face.

I recently started a new job, and a big part of it is using highly sophisticated equipment and software that's not yet particularly intuitive or user-friendly. I've spent hours revising one of the software manuals. I've spent hours trying to use the software to do aforementioned revising. And I've spent hours trying to figure out snags myself.

This is where my face bothers me.

My boss walks into the room, asks how things are going, I say fine or good or okay or pretty well, and he says, So what's the problem? Last week, suspecting it was my word choice that tipped him off to my stuck-ness, I said, Great! This is really coming together.

I must have come across as sarcastic.

One day he said something like, Well, I know there's something wrong. I can tell by your face.

The other day at practice, Minnie Militia said that people are always telling her she looks angry when she's skating. Apparently that's just her face. I'm pretty envious.

During a practice scrimmage a few months ago, I got some nice rink rash across the top of my hand, and in the two seconds before I could get off the floor and keep skating, one of the refs called off the jam for injury. I asked her why she called it off since I felt fine and was getting up, and she said my face made her think I'd broken a bunch of bones or something. Little tiny rink rash!

I've been practicing my stoicism for years. Also, my "mean face" for the track. You wouldn't know it, though. My face gives away my true feelings.



"Let the stoics say what they please, we do not eat for the good of living, but because the meat is savory and the appetite is keen." - Ralph Waldo Emerson