Hail begins to fall from the sky at the instant that the ten girls take off their sweats at the starting line for the 1600 meter run. It doesn't matter much, though, since it's already been pouring for twenty minutes. Water has seeped through the canvas of my multi-colored Converse sneakers--worn in honor of Rainbow Day for the pep assembly--and when I turn my head to see the starting gun, water flies in all directions, as if I were a shaggy Newfoundland emerging from a pond. The gun goes off and I curse my slow reflexes as I squeeze the stopwatch. It's the first track meet of the year.
I almost didn't stay. Beginning at 10:00 AM, a series of thoughtless pranks, ridiculously childish antics, and chaotic moments leeched away my faith in the youth of America. Even a pep assembly that featured performances by the musical theater class and the color guard--odd performances that usually fill me with delight in my unique urban school--did not cheer me. This Youth (in archetypal capitals) which I define by what I keep reminding myself is a narrow demographic in a difficult stage of life, had failed me once again, and I was tired of being walked on as I waited in line at the Starbucks four blocks from school.
I was tired of teaching and the invisible, degrading insignificance of it all, like when I played on a baseball team and they would send me way out into right field while the more talented kids played the exciting infield. Except, back then, there weren't twenty kids in the infield who were shouting at me because I wouldn't give their cell phones back at the end of the day. I'd unfortunately made it quite clear, though, that I would be attending the track meet. With a martyr sigh, I drove back, vowing to stay for two races only.
I watched all six heats of the Boys 110, then three of the girls 100. I was turning to leave, when I stopped by the concession stand, where the junior class, those students I taught as freshmen during both of our first years here. We chatted about fundraising and classes and the pep assembly. These are the kids who give me valentines and flowers at the end of the school year. They gave me dinner, not the usual hot dog and popcorn fare of high school sporting events, but delicious chicken and broccoli noodles that one of their mothers cooked for the occasion. Feeling warmed and cared for, dreaming that perhaps our country won't fall apart when I'm old, I walked across to the finish line, where a bevy of students and retired teachers were huddled with stopwatches. And that's how I became a timer and managed to stay at the track meet for two hours longer than I intended.
As the races run by--110 Men, 100 Women, 4X100 Men, 4X100 Women, 1600 Men, 1600 Women--I am visited by ghosts of my own track meets. For each race there is a memory, because I ran them all in three years on the track team, at least once for each race. The 100 meter I ran as a ninth grader, when I loved that it was fast and light, and it was over in less than twenty seconds. The same with the 4X100 relay, when I ran the first leg because Mr. Spann made me learn how to use starting blocks in middle school. Then the dreadful 1600 meters, the mile, for which these ten girls now waited. That one was junior year, when I was tired and really a cross country runner at heart, bored with laps and wishing that the track was more scenic. The whole afternoon, with the "last calls" on the PA system and the nervous jogging between football goal posts, recalled a part of high school I never think about. I can still remember the silly skits we performed in Language Arts class, or the zillions of flash cards I made to study for AP European History, because those classes--some of the best of my education--visit me every time I plan a lesson. But only this direct contact with a track meet can make me remember the nervous, poised excitement of the short time when I was an athlete.
Beside me stands one of my ninth graders, a girl from my first period class who seemed shy at first, and now slyly mocks the popular boys who always come in late, and recently turned in a colorful comic book account of moving to the United States from Ethiopia. My students and I are quiet in first period, which starts before most of my friends wake up, and our calm reserve often prevents me from becoming as acquainted with these students as the loud bundles of drama and noise that arrive in later hours. So I don't know her well, this girl standing next to me. In fact, I'm not even sure why she's waiting around.
"What's up?" I ask, turning to her.
"I'm next," she answers. She stands on one foot then the other, her neon orange spikes glowing in the grey afternoon.
"Really? What's next?"
"The 400," she sighs. A deep, mournful answer, and I understand.
The dreadful 400 was the race in which I truly became a runner, when the coaches convinced me, once and for all, that I was too short to be a long jumper like I wanted, but I could be a competent runner if I put my mind to it. "Here's a race," they prodded. "Just run this one. Only one lap. It'll be over before you know it." They didn't dwell long on the fact that it was twice as long as the longest race I'd ever run, and forty times as long as the long-jump strip which was my favorite. Just one lap.
I remembered setting the blocks and dreading it. Running out a few times, light and alert and even feeling graceful, but dreading it. Waiting for the gun and dreading every meter, dreading every long, slow curve. The first race was the hardest, of course, when I was shocked at how endless that one lap could seem. Later, when the 1600 meter was standard fare, I would run a 400 at the end of the day, in a relay, with the casual affection that I had for cross country and all other team running. But when I was a ninth-grade sprinter, like this anxious young lady awaiting her race, no race could be more intimidating.
"That's a hard one," I encourage. "I'm impressed. You're going to be incredible!"
"No. I get too tired. I start out OK, but then, at the end, that last stretch... I just get tired." She shakes her head in the rain, shrinks into her blue sweats a little.
"I know. I did, too." The girls are on their last lap, and the boys running the 400 meter are beginning to line up. One more race, only a minute or two long, and it'll be her turn. I try to think of something that will make her feel better about the race to come. "Hey, in five minutes, no matter what happens, or how hard it is, you'll be done! Pretty exciting, eh?"
She smiles and shrugs, jumps up and down to warm up. I remember, again, that horrible moment when you know that you have to leave the damp, warm thickness of cotton sweats and stand, tense and quickly soaked, in the pouring rain. So terrible and exhilarating, to be alone in a lane, to stare down its gentle curve and know that you can't escape it until you've run the length and arrived again where you began.
I wish, in the rain and the hail, that I could be philosophical and make this into a metaphor for teaching, how sometimes there are tiring straightaways which must simply be charged through to the end, how I need to remain, poised and alert and graceful, in this lane for now. But all I can think about is her race, and how now we share this experience, ninth grade and the 400 and the rain. And for now, after hours of breathtaking isolation, it's enough to redeem the day.
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