Face the Wall or Bust!

When I woke Mina this morning, she was wearing an old wrap-around dress of mine from my more corporate dress days, a contribution to her dress-up box. Mina was completely naked underneath the ill-tied dress. She likes to be free, she says. The best part is that wasn't what she was wearing when I tucked her in last night.

Y'know, parenting is a trip. There's no such thing as auto pilot or having it down or I got this completely. I mean, I'm working with complex human beings, as complex as me. How they process and handle things can be a world apart from how I do or the other child; or maybe exactly the same and it could be something I need to iron out myself. Sometimes it all feels natural; zone-like. Other times, I'm improvising like a motherfucker. Like when I realized that Maya has been shrinking a bit in the face of her biggest challenges. It has been a subtle shrink, barely detectable. Her personality is so upbeat and her social life is so on point right now it took me a minute with close examination to realize her shit hasn't been as together as would seem. Believe me, it ain't a major slide or anywhere near drastic -- I mean, she's juggling a lot right now -- but maybe it could have been a tipping point, or a crossroads of a possible, total Fuck Off. I don’t want to wait to find out. There's been a tiny slip in her grades; she's been blowing off difficult reading for honors English; she's been shirking her solo basketball skills practice. Her phone/text game is tight though! And her friends worship her. Boys flock and flounder around for her attention. She treats the boys perfectly; as her goofy, beautiful self, as a homie; "No, I don't want to date you. Let's stay friends!" But in the shadow of her social stardom, a tiny storm cloud looms. And I was all sitting back, admiring her sense of responsibility and the ease with which she handles everything when I happened to notice the lining of the storm, hidden, and I was like, Oh shit, that's my cue, right? I gotta get back in the game, full-press. She broke down a bit when I confronted her. First, she did a nice little teen push back by getting defensive about her chores, another thing she’s slightly blowing off. She told me I was overreacting about not being able to get to them all at the exact time I wanted them done and damnit, she was right. I told her so. I told her I was sorry for overreacting. But the meat of the whole problem -- the slipping and the shirking -- has been fear. A sort of freezing up when things get harder than she thought they'd be. Her English class for example. This teacher is no joke. He's challenging them at a near college level, I think, and she's freezing up more and more because of it. She's locked up, feeling unable to do good enough work or give any worthwhile analyses for this guy. I think she's doing well, but she's feeling the pressure instead of enjoying the challenge. More subtly, she has not been working on the more challenging skills in basketball -- improving her dribble left and right, shooting rhythmically and repetitively -- for fear of not making JV any way. There are only four spots for JV next year and she wants it so badly that she has sort of iced herself mentally. And on top of it all, she's pushing back on chores because, well who wants to do chores? So, man, I could only reinforce that facing all these challenges is the only way not to feel squashed by them. Fuck it; bring it on Charles Dickens and double-team defense. If you can't fully understand the language of Charles Dickens, then understand some of it and do the best you can, right? If you don't make JV, fuck it, at least leave your heart on the court trying. There is absolutely no relief in hoping it all goes away. I know she wants to impress her teacher and I know she so badly wants a spot on JV, but really giving it her complete all for herself is what matters to me. I know she will not be able to top that personal sense of triumph no matter the outcome. I hope she believes me until then. I told her I wish I had given her the genes that made us prodigy-naturals at things, but I don't have that. I only know about working hard. A lot of times, hard work makes me really good at things, and sometimes it makes me just ok. It's her lot too. I think it's a curse to expect to do well at everything you walk into. She has a little bit of that. She doesn’t understand why everything, at any level, isn’t at least kind of easy. The discomfort of realizing that this just isn’t the case is confusing to her. The thick wall of a really tough challenge holds her back. Very gently I asked her, "When was the last time you gave a 110% at something?" She was crying and said, "Tae Kwon Do." I said, "That was so hard, wasn't it? The tests, the tournaments? And you thought you wouldn't get through them, secretly, right? It seemed too much. And when you did, when you did well even, how did you feel?" And she cried and cried.

Y'know, facing it and giving 110% never gets easier, does it? I mean, sometimes it down right sucks ass -- it's so hard! -- but the best thing about being older is knowing what it means to one's sense of self, to defining who we are as a person. I love it/I hate it/Mainly, I love myself for it. Man, I hope it clicks and holds with her. She's so far from mediocre. I mainly wanted to let her know that. Extraordinary is heavy sometimes especially when you have to work at it. It takes a lot of courage.

I had a very similar talk with Mina the week before.

I often think about the speeches I give the girls. Like when I thought I was going to throw up on the spin bike this morning. Or when work seems too much sometimes, or when the (extra)chores get on my nerves, or when my writing waits patiently, again. Just the mustering of energy to be brave can feel too much. I started a new story. The novel became so demanding, and I was making myself feel badly about it until I just faced up and started a story, started to just write. No need to squash all the love out of something just because it's a challenge. My point is, I can't give such heartfelt speeches if it means nothing to me too. It means a lot. I know how important this kind of stuff is.

Speaking of extraordinary, our girls varsity basketball team is playing in the regional CIF final playoff game tonight! If we win, we go on to play for state. State! This is the farthest our girls team has gone in our history. We're all getting on the party bus to travel to Orange County to watch & cheer. Then, I'll give the president of the booster club the $650 you guys helped me raise for the program. Thank you so much. I'm so proud to be able to give that to him today. I run the 10K on Sunday. It's supposed to rain this weekend so that will be fun, on the muddy trail. Can't wait to tell you about that. Or about our win tonight.

Face the Wall or Bust, y’all.

Basketball Bug

When we used to go to a lot of Tae Kwon Do tournaments, almost every time one of us would get sick afterwards. Bug-sick. Throwing-Up-For-Hours Sick. The longer the tournament lasted, the higher the probability was that one of us would be hugging the bowl by the next day. We called it TKD Sars. We also had TKD Sars amnesia, where we'd be so pumped for the tournament beforehand that we would never remember this phenomena until someone was throwing up afterward, like clockwork. We considered packing medical masks in the girls' gear bag to wear around the arena during tournaments. We planned on getting those designer ones people were wearing in Hong Kong when the real SARS first hit the scene. Mina wanted a Hello Kitty one and Maya was going to paint big red lips on her's. I would get a denim one and Husband, he didn't care as long as he didn't get the the damned TKD Sars. But we never remembered those either.

Over the weekend Maya participated in her first two-day basketball tournament with her club team. Tons of parents and siblings were crammed together in a gym watching middle schoolers ball it up . . .and this morning Mina is throwing her guts up. Every twenty minutes I hear a little girl version of hard-retching toilet bowl echos, and I rush to her side. Basketball Sars!

Other than that, the tournament was great. It was a learning experience for Maya because it's hard to conceptualize or explain the big difference between practicing and real-live game action until you get out there and play some games. Maya doesn't really understand yet why she gets so nervous or freezes up a bit or loses confidence, and I try to tell her that we practice hard day in and day out just so the freezing and the nervousness and the lost confidence subsides, even a little, once a real game begins. That's true with anything, right? Not just with sports certainly.

The tournament was at Lynwood High School which is arguably one of the tougher neighborhoods in LA. But the Lynwood of today is not the Lynwood I remember 20 years ago. Back then the school was desolate and barren, an almost forgotten place where the frustration of kids left a mark, on the neighborhood and towards the community of people. But today, the high school is entirely and beautifully rebuilt. The community shows life and revival, from the little I saw. I was inspired by the transformation.

In the gym, three courts were running games simultaneously. Mainly middle-school kids ages 12-14, boys and girls, though there were a couple games of 12 & Under girls. These are the best games to watch. You see teeny, tiny superstars in the making and 12 year old girls who have experienced rocketing growth spurts and the basketball court may be the only place where they feel comfortable about that. We have a girl like that on our team. She's 13 and 6'0" -- a big girl, not lanky -- and we shout her praises every time she uses that strong body of hers to muscle the other team in the paint. At the tournament, her dad who is easily 6'7" and her two older sisters, both over 6'2", cheered her on loudly from the sidelines.

On Maya's team, there is a cast of characters. I'm writing the feel-good movie script in my head right now. In the based-on-a-true-story movie version, the team is lead by a sincere and talented coach who knows that basketball is a way to inspire young women to achieve their dreams and build confidence. She's a passionate coach who believes in hard work and team work. The team begins its season on a losing streak. The first few games are difficult because there's no synergy, they haven't gelled yet. The main character is hard on herself for not being better, for freezing in games, for feeling lost sometimes, but her family encourages her because after a lot of practice it will click for her; not only the ability but the purpose. Have fun for godsake, they tell her. Other characters on the team include: The big center who might feel pressured by her tall dad and tall sisters. A very talented 12 year old Russian point guard who was probably too good too young and who now might not know how to bust up to another level of talent. Her dad yells instruction in Russian from the stands. There is the Korean guard - probably the best girl on the team -- because she's all heart and speed. And all hair. She has the fiercest hair cut I've ever seen, adults included, and she rolls up her baller shorts then pulls them down a bit, she rolls her jersey into her bra straps and pulls her socks up high. The girl is fly! (The narrator of the story wonders if it is appropriate to ask a 13 year old where she gets her hair cut.) There's the rock solid forward who plays all blue-collar like: reliable and strong. There's the wild yet still lax guard who is so athletic and still so chill she doesn't hardly ever break a sweat but can still bound up higher than most, when she feels like it. And then there's the main character's nemesis. You gotta have one of those! This forward believes she's God's gift to the team. She's cocky and has a handle for days, meaning she can split two defenders with her dribble more confidently than her teammates. She has a natural ability that she likes to flaunt, but what she flaunts best is her attitude. She blasts her teammates when they don't catch her rocketed passes or when they turn over the ball; she rolls her eyes when they don't make a shot. She argues with the refs in true NBA time-wasting fashion and when Coach pulls her from the game for talking back and other offenses mentioned above, she plops down in a pouty HRMF! on the bench and crosses her legs and arms. It's Nemesis 101, I tell ya. In the first game of the first tournament, Main Character and Nemesis get to bickering on the court because even if Main Character doesn't feel so confident yet, she still doesn't want to take shit from that girl. Coach benches them both. In the end of the movie, the team gels and Main Character's hard work and confidence click. She and Nemesis find respect and a possible friendship. And though the team loses the Spring League Championship by one point, they've all learned invaluable lessons about being a team and about themselves! And scene.

Pure entertainment, I tell you.

I got up this morning at 5:30 to take my regular 6am spin class. I strapped on my new heart rate monitor that Husband bought me yesterday at Costco. As I excitedly fumbled with the straps around my ribcage, Mina appeared in the bathroom doorway. She was rubbing her eyes. "Mami, I don't feel so well," she said. A day of Basketball Sars barfing was about to begin. I held her hair back as she sang into the bowl for the first time and I checked my heart rate. A calm 71, it read.

At the tournament, Coach tries to pull them together.
Lining up against Lynwood.
Working it out in her head.
Back to practice. This is the sunrise from our patio this morning. I lifted Mina so she could see it. It didn't make her feel better, but she thought it was pretty.

Dusting Is Fun

Maya's basketball season has started at school. After practice, after all the drills and running are done, Maya, and a couple of the girls and some of the coaches want to play a fun game of Knock Out. Knock Out is when anyone who wants to play lines up at the free throw line. The first two in line have basketballs; the first shoots but if she misses and the second player then makes it, guess what? The first is knocked out. Last week, I showed up before Knock Out and Maya begged for me to play with them. One of the main coaches mumbled to another coach, "Yo, Maya's mom can ball," which he knows because we went to high school together. And secretly I was all pumped that my legendary basketball skills were not just tales that I tell in the most longing of ways. So Maya begs and I'm standing there in jeans and flip flops and a nice sweater and shirt. Another coach says, "Naw, Maya. Your mom wants to go. We'll play next week." Maya ignores this and says, "Mami, seriously? You don't want to play Knock Out?" And I take off my purse, walk to the free throw line and say, "Run it." Mina stands in front of me and I let her take a few shots before I knock her butt out. The coach I went to high school with, Shamel, says, "Dang, just knock out your own child." I said, "She shoulda made it." Then I proceed to knock out everybody, Maya, players, coaches. Shamel slaps my hand on the way out. "You still got it, girl," he says. I feel a little like a meat head, all pumping my fists and strutting around, beating children at basketball, though there were grown-men coaches playing too. Next I'll be arm wrestling Lupe and kickboxing infants.