The Dork At The Airport

My beloved sister is fond of calling me a dork.   Today, I might have deserved it. 

Last week I wrote about letting go.  You can read the post here.  Synopsis: I am a teacher where my boys go to school.  My eldest Diego, will have to leave our school after kindergarten is over to attend first grade at the local public school three blocks away.  I am planning on being a strong mom inspiring confidence into my child as he braves first grade in a new, big, public school away from the small cozy one where we are now. If today is any indication of how that separation is going to go … well, it isn’t going to go very well.

Today Diego is going on a one-week vacation trip to Los Angeles, CA.  My mom is taking him to see my sister out on the west coast.  He is excited, and we have been preparing for this.  We even did a special shopping trip to Target (which to Diego is THE best thing ever).  All was going well.  I was perfectly okay with the idea of him going, expanding his horizons, experiencing new things all in a rather known environment given that he is with my mom and all.  For me, I was almost feeling guilty as I was “kinda sorta” looking forward to some quality time with my younger son, and with 50% less work in the evenings I thought I would even score some free time.  My mom raised me and I survived.  Chances are, Diego is going to survive and love the trip too.

Diego saying goodbye to Felipe who was on his
his way to school.

So much to my surprise, as Diego and I went to pick up my mom at her house to take them both to the airport, I felt a tremble in my chin and my vision became blurry.  I was holding back my tears … its one of those things I am really bad at.  Where was that strong mama bear that was going to make sure her son knew he would be fine?  I put on a happy face, played with him, hugged him and kissed him as much as I could.  He was a little anxious as well as excited so we were both clutzy and awkward.  He broke a glass candle, I almost crashed the car.  You know, the usual nervous excitement stuff.

But when we got to the airport I lost it.  The strong mama bear was nowhere to be found.  I tried, but there is this sadness that came from my stomach and in seconds made its way to my eyes and I couldn’t help the tears.  Mind you, I cry very ungracefully.  My whole face wrinkles, my mouth contorts in ways that are very unattractive and I lose total control and have no idea when the crying is going to start or stop.  At that point, my rational self has taken a hiatus and this babbling, emotional idiot takes over.  I act as if it’s the end of the world, not as if my son was given a tremendous opportunity.  I don’t want to act or think this way, but I can’t help it.  I carry all 68 pounds of him and smush him as tight as I can.  He obviously realizes that I am crying but acts brave and courageous.  He takes the role in comforting me and that makes me feel even worse.  I take a breath, pull up my sunglasses, and show him I am crying because I am excited for him and for him to have the time of his life.  That we are okay and will be here waiting for him … in 7 sleeps.  And he kisses me, tells me he loves me, grabs my mom’s hand and they walk away.  I go to my car and become inconsolable.

I know airports well.  I have said my fair share of tearful goodbyes as well as tearful hellos.  I remember at 15 moving away from Brazil and being devastated as I said goodbye to my friends who where with me until I crossed security.  I remember arriving in Boston after a long summer and jumping into the arms of my college boyfriend, so happy to be back.  I also remember running through terminals in heels and running through terminals with a double stroller.  I do know airports well.

I also know, rationally, the advice my friends are giving me.  I have given it hundreds of times to them.  My mind knows he is coming back in a week and this is something I have to do but there is something more powerful than I that is not letting me understand it.  I look at his picture, or at his bed (unmade, of course) and think about how much I miss him.  Of how I would rather have him here, whining about the rain instead of there … away from me.  I want him back now. 

Then I breathe, and I remember feelings aren’t facts, and the fact is that he is so lucky to be going, and I am so lucky that he is my son.  That I am grateful of having two healthy, happy boys and that I just need to let this swell of emotion come and go.  Instead of feeding into it with thoughts of loss, I need to watch them float away.  Cry if I need to, and stop when I can.

From the airport drop off to the school pick up of my second son I had about 1 hour.  I went home, tried to distract myself with the basic goal of taking the crying face off.  When I cry, the whole world knows.  My whole face puffs up.  My eyes get lost in this red sea of sorts and it is impossible to hide the fact that I was crying. 

At school, Felipe sees me and runs to me.  He jumps on me as usual and I hug him fiercely.  I think, maybe I can take him out for ice cream or do something special … just  the two of us on this lonely rainy Miami afternoon.  And as soon as this thought is over, he asks if his friend can come over for a play date right now.  And I say yes, even if all I want is to hold him and play with him myself.  Because my letting go process may not be gracious, and I may not be as tough and as fierce as I thought I was or would like to be.  But the process is underway and that includes sharing my boys with the world, even if it means the world can see this dork was crying.

Felipe (aka Captain America) enjoying his play date

The Bear Down The Hallway

There is a bear at my sons’ school.  It’s a mama bear but no one is afraid of her. She keeps a watchful eye over her cubs and growls if needed.  She lives and works amongst the community and is one of them.  The bear has a name.  It is Ms. Cristina.  It’s me.

Door from which Felipe's screams would emanate from!

I am a teacher at my sons’ school.  It’s one of the many blessings of my life though our first day there was a disaster.  My youngest boy was barely 2 and it was his first time at school EVER.  As any mother out there about to send her child to school for the first time, I was nervous.  I was nervous for him and for me too.  It would be my first day as head of my own classroom.  Felipe, the youngest, must have sensed the tension around me because getting out of the house was so monumentally difficult that to make a long story short my house keys ended up down the elevator shaft and he ended up with scratches on his neck from trying to rip off the car seat.  Not the best start.

I tried to get to school early and I was able to unglue Felipe from my arms to go focus on my new job.  I left him with his loving teachers, but I could hear him screaming  as I walked down the hall.  I had done this before.  Diego, my eldest had already gone through this separation torture.  I knew it would pass.  I knew this crying would end and he would grow to love his school.  But as I walked down the hallway to my classroom, about 20 feet away I could hear him screaming at the top of his lungs “maaaammmmmiiiii”.  I could hear him screaming through the closed doors … and this was not figuratively.  I could literally hear him crying all the time until he would either pass out or someone would take him outside to find iguanas.  Outside he would forget all about me in 3 seconds flat.

Felipe's first day of school EVER

Felipe’s crying pierced my gut and my heart.  I was trying to keep it together as I welcomed 15 3-year olds to their own first day of school.  For many, it was their first day of school ever and what they got was one extraordinarily compassionate teacher.  For about two months, every time I saw Felipe’s class heading my way I had to hide so that he wouldn’t see me.  Eventually I stopped hiding until he would see me, come hug me, and then go back to his line.  This routine has lasted until today, though now he is capable of tumbling me over as he runs towards me and jumps trying to grab my neck.

On the other hand, my eldest son Diego’s class was directly across the hall from mine.  If both of our doors were open, I could catch glimpses of him sucking his thumb.  Not crying, not playing, just watching from the sidelines trying to figure things out.  It was his first day at the “big school” which is what we called it during the summer before the start of the school year.  He is not a screamer.  He is not a crier.  He is my nervously brave faced one and he was doing just that.

Diego first day at big school

That first day of school the mama bear was torn between her heart and her steadfastly responsible soul.  Eventually though, things sorted themselves out, everyone fell into a routine and we have been happily going to school, the three of us together, since.

And then it happened.  I walked outside of my classroom the other day and I saw him.  I saw Diego with his cap and gown.  They were taking their graduation portraits.  “Look mami!”, he showed me excitedly.  Both were inevitable: the tears in my eyes and his graduation from kindergarten.  To us, graduating from kindergarten means changing schools.  The school ends here.  Children move on to first grade elsewhere, and to me it seems like they are going to China.

Of course, he is not going to China.  He is going to the public school three blocks away.  He knows the place and many of his future classmates. But the mama bear in me wants to keep him close, the mama bear is growling at all the things she won’t be able to do and see anymore.  It’s as if some evil poacher has taken one of her cubs captive and is selling him to the zoo in another continent.  The mama bear cannot go with him, cannot control it, and as she rages against the terrible man she becomes desperately sad at losing her cub.  And the cub looks at her with big eyes, scared and nervous but trying to be brave.  At some point, she has to surrender.  She has to stop raging and pass on peace to her cub.  She has to convey to him, as he looks at her being carried away that he is strong, that he is capable, and that his mommy loves and will be with him forever.  I want my cub with me, but I know he has to go.  Not because an evil poacher is taking him away … my evil poacher is time.  And it’s not evil … it's necessary.  I want to do what I can to raise a strong, confident, moral, responsible and capable son that knows his mom loves him.  And that implies letting go.  Calmly.

Diego graduating from Kinder

Signs are everywhere for his need and want of independence.  While Felipe still jumps on me anytime he sees me, the older Diego says hi … sometimes.  He doesn’t like me to kiss him around school.  We made a deal that I can say “hello kindergarten” as he passes by but no kissing, no PDA. 

We went to the public school after hours one day.  We walked hand in hand around and we saw the hallway where the first grade is.  His hand was shaking inside mine.  He was nervous, unsure.  The janitor let us see one of the rooms and he began to see much of the same things he knows, pictures of children he recognizes, and by the time we left nervousness was giving way to excitement.  We go to the public school as often as we can, each time he seems more comfortable with its size.  He is shinning a light on his fear and it is going away.   And I have a feeling that when the first day of school comes around, this time, I will be the one that is crying as Diego heads down the hall.  Not because I am afraid something bad is going to happen to him, on the contrary, I think he will be great!  But because this mama bear won’t be there to witness it.

The Bike In The Kitchen

My blue road bike sits nicely against a sliding glass door of our already cluttered kitchen.  Penelope’s cat food and water bowl lay between the front wheel and the pedals.  Now-a-days there is reason to believe my bike is clutter: it is rarely used and occupies space in a place where more space is needed.

It wasn’t always that way.  I bought my bike in June 2010 right before my first triathlon.  Prior to that I had been sitting on the couch for 6 years. I bought it used for $300 at Key Cycling, my local bike store. Here I was thinking I had made a “ginaourmous” (in my son’s language) investment, and little did I know what I was getting myself into.

It’s a running joke that I asked the owner, Sergio, if I could put a little basket in the front as I still did not have a regular bike to ride around the island.  Yes, I live in an island paradise where we get around on bikes, golf carts and minivans.  He said “no” in an “are you seriously asking me this?” kind of tone.  Okay.  I did not know what I was getting into.

I was terrified.  The bike seemed so light, so thin, so …. wobbly.  My feet were going to be bound to the pedals so that I could go faster, I was going to have to ride up Mount Miami (aka the William Powell Bridge linking Miami to Key Biscayne) and if I wobbled then, I would fall because my feet were going to be *gasp* bound to the pedals.  It was quite funny, in a pathetic way, the first time I rode it.  I fell three times, all of them in the middle of some major intersection where half of Key Biscayne (the half I know, of course) saw me. 

So race day came and off we went.   Nothing went wrong.  On the contrary, everything went great and I was hooked.

Since then my bike and I have been through a lot.  12 triathlons in 2 years from sprints (.5 mile swim, 10 mile bike, 3 mile run) to a half ironman (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13 mile run).  I did it all with my blue faithful used road bike.  There were two things I loved most about training on my bike.  One was riding on a 3 mile loop we call Virginia Key in the pre-dawn hours.  There were few, if any, cars.   I felt the wind, heard the birds, and embodied the quiet.  It was perfect peace.  It was my alone time with the universe and it gave me all the energy I needed to get through the busy day ahead. I also loved riding my bike over the Powell bridge at sunrise and see how the sun would begin to light up the Miami skyline.  It was powerfully beautiful.

But my bike was always difficult.  My teammates and competitors fly by me with their $1500+, light as a feather, perfectly fitted bike.  In comparison, I am riding a heavily armored tank.  To give them credit, my teammates physical abilities are indeed stronger but I can only keep up with them for about 5 minutes.  As soon as we start heading up the Powell bridge (and that is 5 minutes into the training) I am left in the dust.  As my coach points out my bike needs to be upgraded.  I agree.  I understand but I can’t justify the expense.  Truthfully though, neither the speed nor the price tag are the reasons my bike is now clutter. 

The reason is this guy:

 

His name is Aaron Cohen.  I never met him.   He was riding on the Powell bridge, at the time I am usually there, in the pre-dawn spectacular hour I described before.  The time I enjoyed most in one of the places I found peace.  That is where he was hit by a drunken driver who then fled the scene.  Aaron died of brain injuries the next day.  This happened on a Wednesday.  Had it been a Tuesday or a Thursday, the days I ride, this could’ve been me.

There was another fatal accident on the Key Biscayne causeway a couple of years ago.  This was before I started riding.  It was another drunken hit and run of another father of two young children.

Both drivers, both hit and run drivers, live in the same building in the Key: my building.  Well mine before I got married.  The one my parents have lived in for over 20 years.  The building I go to at least once a week.

So in a weird, bizarre, self centered way, I somehow connect all this to me.  Some karma, some way of God telling me “don’t do it, riding is not safe.  You have too much to lose.”

There is this story of a man who had faith and a hurricane came.  I am sure someone can tell it better but the basic premise is this: there was a big flood and the police came around helping people evacuate.  The man told the police he was a man of faith, he would be ok.  The water rose and he sat on the second floor of his house.  A boat came to rescue him and he said, “no thanks, I am a man of faith”.  The water rose some more and he sat on the roof of his house and a helicopter came to rescue him.  He said, “no thanks, I am a man of faith”.  And he eventually drowned.  When the man got to heaven he asked God “what happened? I thought I was a good man, one of faith and you let me die”.  God answered: “I sent you a police escort, a boat, and a helicopter but you weren’t willing to listen”.

No real changes have been made to make cycling safer.  No one is really enforcing more accountability for both drivers and cyclists (because if you are from down here you are well aware of a polarized, hateful squabble between drivers and cyclists).  Cycling activists are doing all they can but change will be slow.  There is a whole lot of work to be done here.  And in the meantime, my bike is collecting dust because I promised my family I wouldn’t ride until change came and it were safer. 

So now I am a driver, and when I drive by the cyclists I look out my window and long to be there, riding.  I want to yell out “hey!  I am one of you too!  I am in a car now but I did ride once!”.  And then I look at the rear view mirror and see my two boys ages 4 and 6.  They are either singing, smiling, or more frequently fighting. But for a moment they take my breath away because the love I have for them is overpowering, so incomprehensible.  I think of the two fallen dads and their kids and my eyes fill with tears.  I don’t want to miss a second of my boy’s life and I don’t want anyone but me to be their mother.  Is riding my bike that important to me?  Is the risk really worth it?  It’s not like I have been a triathlete my whole life, and I do have a crappy bike anyways.  Then I don’t envy those cyclists on the road so much anymore because I have too much to live for.  I can find another way to exercise and I can find another way to find my peace.  And all of a sudden the bike in the kitchen turns more into a trophy, than clutter.  A sign of past challenges conquered.

I do still however, have this nagging inside of me that one day, one day, maybe I could do an Ironman triathlon.  But to do so would entail some riding.  Not just a a little riding but some serious mileage.  The Ironman distance is 2.5miles swim, 116 miles bike, 26.2 mile run.  Unfathomable right now.  But I know the impossible can become possible so who knows.

A type of moment I am not willing to miss

So today I am looking for an indoor bike trainer.  This thing that holds your own bike so you can train inside on the same bike you race.  Its one of those “if you don’t go to the mountain, the mountain comes to you” solutions.   I will be able to at least maintain what I have gained over the past two years of riding my good ole’ blue.  And if all this were to pass, my bike would no longer sit against the sliding glass door in the kitchen.  It would be nicely mounted on the trainer ready to do some spinning probably next to my boys watching TV.  And I will be grateful. 

A Martian in Connecticut

Tanya and I were the only two students in the entire Cluett dorm on a Saturday night in 1990.  Every single other student was away.  Even the internationals with nowhere to go found something to do that open weekend when boarders are allowed to go “home”.  It was us and Ms. E.  We were being disciplined … we were basically grounded.  The details are for another story, but it suffices to say it was due to an inappropriate drunken affair on a previous open weekend.

I parachuted into boarding school my senior year of high school.  I was from Brazil and was living in Morocco before showing up in Cluett Senior Hall at an all girl boarding school in what I considered “the middle of nowhere” Connecticut.  It’s ironic.  I considered Simsbury the middle of nowhere even if to many I was coming from the middle of nowhere.  Compared to the girls around me, many of whom had been friends and roommates for years, I was a three headed Martian.

I was completely unprepared for the experience.  I was rebellious.  And I got into a whole lot of trouble.  Fortunately for me, mail to Morocco where my parents still resided was very slow so by the time the letter stating I was one demerit away from being suspended arrived there and my mom called with the reprimand, it was old news and I had already worked myself out of the situation.  This all just explains the type of 17 year old I was. 

Tanya was in the dorm room next to mine and she was as crazy as I was at the time.  We had gone to her house for an open weekend, lied to her parents, got caught at a bar by a teacher,  and hit and ran with her moms car.  In short, we were in a whole heap of trouble.  The weird thing is that people who know me describe me as the nerdy one, the responsible one or the “good student”.  In my selective memory, I still think of myself like that and many times I was just that.  Other times, such as this one, it was quite a different story.

Figuring out who I was turned out to be complicated.  I did high school in three different countries where the world around my American school spoke different languages.  Fitting into boarding school, the more I think about it, was the hardest of them all.  Maybe my schoolmates did not see me as a three headed Martian.  Maybe the Martian was inside me. 

As I grow older and create my own family with my own values and making my own mistakes, I no longer feel like a Martian.  I feel like someone who can grow and change and mold and be whatever I need to be in order to make my life, and my family work at that moment.  I need to be the brave mother, the sensitive wife, the caring daughter.  I can’t be them all at the same time.  I need to change opinions because I learn, and sometimes my learning curve isn’t all that graceful.  But I know I make an honest attempt to be the best person I can be.  The person the God I believe in, wants me to be.  There are days I fall way short and someone is watching and judges me.  There are days when I totally hit the mark and my pride swells and I judge myself.  All this to say that who I really am is a moving target.

But that Saturday night in Cluett Hall, Tanya and I were sharing a bottle of vodka and talking about robberies and guys and stuff and we decided to take out a Widgi board.  We were going to call on the spirits to clear up all our doubts and teenage angst about the future.

I don’t know if it was my unconscious, my fingers or Tanya’s but that thing moved.  By golly did it move.  And when it did we both screamed and ran around and around the empty dorm screaming our heads out.  I can see it in a movie scene.  Two teenage girls in their pajamas and ponytails, running around an empty dorm with only the hall lights on.  They pass room by room, up and down the stairs, along one side of the building and round to the next.  From the outside, the evil spirit is looking in and following them, waiting for the perfect time to attack.

We ran around screaming for a while and somehow ended up hiding inside Tanya’s closet.  At this point fear and paranoia had completely taken over my already not too sober self.  As I sat uncomfortably on top of Tanya’s shoes it dawned on me.  A spirit would find me in a closet and now I was stuck with no where to run.  So in a faint and trembling voice I whisper to Tanya.

“Hey, the spirit can find us here.  It can see us through the wall”. 

She whispers back “what spirit?”

“The one that is after us?” I answer.

“You are running from a spirit?” she calls out rather loudly.

“Aren’t you?” I answer in a normal tone of voice.

“I am hiding from the robber!” and that is when both of us burst out in a belly laugh.  It was that laughter that comes from inside like a tsunami and takes over, and it is so funny and so powerful that I began to cry and she began to cry so now we are both sitting on her shoes half laughing and half crying thinking we are the best friends in the world.

But we were not. I don’t remember if it was Tanya or my other dorm mate who was expelled before the year was over.  I could check the yearbook but I am not sure where it is.  I do know that some years ago I received a notice from our school that Tanya had passed away.  I don’t know the circumstances, and I didn’t really venture to find out. 

Tanya, as many friendships I have had, come and go and change as I come and go and change.  It doesn’t make these friendships less valuable or real.  It makes them important for the time they lasted.  And for that time, for those months we were together at Cluett, Tanya knew me as well as I knew myself.

That Saturday night in Cluett was unforgettable.  It was fun and though no one else was there to share it with us, it somehow made me feel more part of a place that felt so strange.  Maybe the spirits of alumna past were indeed there, and maybe they summoned not to destroy us as in a cheap horror flick, but to welcome me, the three headed Martian, to the middle of nowhere Connecticut.