The Loser Who Won In A Garden

My son Diego thinks he is a rock star.  Being one of the oldest children at our school has fed his rock stardom, and at six years old the kid jams a mean air guitar to his preschool audience.

So it was no surprise that he was convinced our school was going to win something big at the Fairchild Tropical Garden Challenge.  It was also no surprise that he convinced me to drive him and his brother to the awards ceremony held on a rainy Tuesday afternoon in Miami.  The Fairchild Challenge is a yearlong project where each school plans, plants, maintains and uses a garden as a learning tool.  There is more to it than that, and if you are interested, you can visit them here.  Our school goes up to kindergarten, and being the eldest ones, Diego’s class led our gardening efforts.  They came up with their own country: Kind-er-landia.  It had a flag and they even had a national anthem to the tune of “we will we will rock you” which Diego helped create.

A group of us head to the awards ceremony with the spirit of rock stardom in all of us.  I too am convinced we were going to win.  After all, didn’t my prodigious son help create an anthem?  Hadn’t I invested hours both as a parent and as a teacher to that garden?  The entire school participated - we even had eighteen month olds watering the flowers. How cute is that?

We get there and the place is PACKED with hundreds of kids.  We find a space near the stairs leading to the stage.  The award ceremony starts and we get ready to inherit our rightful place on that stage except our name is not called.  I start noticing that though some individual awards are age-based, the ones Diego qualifies for are school based.  And the schools present are bigger than ours and they are ELEMENTARY schools.  That is, their eldest students are fifth graders competing with our eldest class of kindergarteners.  I am taking this personally. Who the heck do these 5^th graders think they are anyway? 

It finally dawns on me that we don’t have a chance, and after close to an hour of seeing other schools win, doubt finally enters Diego. 

“Mami, what if we don’t win?” he asks me.

“I don’t know son,” I answer.

This is my cue to scramble for some wise life lesson that my son will soon be painfully learning.  This would be his first major disappointment and I want to be ready.  I think: we learn more from failures than from victory; the joy is in the journey not the destination; the important thing is to compete and have fun.  New lessons to him – stale to me.  A consolation pizza party sounds much better.

And then comes a category that is basically the “thanks for trying really hard but you didn’t get the big prize” category.  Sixteen schools would be recognized for their effort.  It was an “A for effort” award.  In my arrogant, annoying, sometimes cruel mind I label it “the loser award.”  And of course, we are one of the schools called.

Deer in headlight Diego

The announcer says only two representatives per school are allowed on stage and Diego’s hand immediately, without hesitation, goes up.  His teacher has no choice but to let him go with an equally eager friend.  They get up there, two kindergarteners with a deer in headlight look amongst a sea of “graders” holding their glass-framed diploma.  He comes back to our group, regains control of his nerves and returns to rock stardom.  He won’t let go of the award. I bet every picture taken has Diego in it.  He is emphatically proud.

The kind word for what I feel is compassion but really I feel pity.  Here is my poor kid feeling so proud of an award that just means he participated, not that he won.  In my mind that does not make him a winner.  I don’t say anything and let him bask in the victory that at least in his own mind, exists. 

The awards ceremony ends and our name is not called again. By now it is late.  It is past dinnertime and almost bedtime. As we are getting ready to leave, a rainstorm blows through Miami. “Great.” I think, “Why on earth did we come all the way here? To lose and now to get soaked?”

Not letting go of award

Our car is parked pretty far away - we need to run through the garden to get to it.  How more miserable can this be?  We begin to run and the rain starts to get stronger.  The laughter that comes from Diego and his buddies running around this garden on a torrential storm is divine.  It comes from inside and fills me with joy.  It is pure, and innocent, and contagious.  It is so monumentally moving that I almost cry.

I realize that today I was the only loser.  Diego really is a winner.  He never stopped believing in his potential, he got up on stage to get his award, and now he was rejoicing in the rain with his brother and friends.  He really is a confident rock star.    He lives in the moment and does not doubt his achievement with the garden just as he doesn’t doubt his running in the rain.  He simply revels in it.

On the other hand, I was there complaining about getting wet, disappointed with what I labeled as a loss.  I belittled my son’s achievement because it didn’t match my expectation of what should’ve happened.  I lack humility.  He got up there, said thank you, and is celebrating in a natural, wonderful way.  I struggle with the ability to accept a compliment, a praise, or an award.  I lack the graciousness of just getting up there and enjoying the moment instead of judging it.

My son was my teacher today.  I learned I did not have to protect his ego nor coddle his upset.  He didn’t have any.  Instead he taught me how to handle mine.   In the rain I stop, I let go of judgment, listen to the squealing laughter and laugh myself. I sing and jump and splash in a puddle with them because we are happy. Because just by being present at that moment,  by letting myself be taught by a six year old, I am a rock star too.

Mami rock star in the rain

The Fast Lane On The Right

In the fast lane on the right

I quit my triathlon team about once a week.  Sometimes twice.  I have perfectly reasonable reasons to do so.  I work, I have children, I now have a blog and triathlon training takes a serious amount of time and commitment.   I have the words I will tell my coach and this is it: I am tired, I am cranky, my kids deserve better, I quit.  Except that this all happens between my ears, in my mind.  My husband will sometimes hear it but pays no attention to it.  He “hears” it but does not listen – after all, of the hundreds of times I have told him I am quitting it hasn’t happened yet.  Chances are that it won’t happen this time either.


Triathlons means I need to train in three sports: swim, bike and run.  For swim practice my team meets on Mondays and Fridays at a public pool nearby.  We are divided into lanes, and contrary to driving, the faster you are the further to the right you go.  So the fastest lane is on the right side of the pool.  I am not sure this is universal in swimming but that is how it works for us.  Somehow or another I have made it to the right lane.  I wasn’t there before – it was one of my teammates that almost literally threw me into it.  And to make matters worse, I don’t keep up with the rest of my “lane mates”.  These are fast swimmers with nicknames such as “Iron Beto”, “kicktastic Julie”, and Mickey who doesn’t even need an intimidating nickname.  She just rocks.  In true team spirit though, they push me to go faster than I have ever gone before.

Yellow cap in the middle of the pool

Every Monday, or so it seems, if I am not quitting the team I am at least getting out of the fast lane.  I go determined to move over to the left at least one lane.  I have perfectly reasonable reasons to do so: I didn’t sleep well, my cat woke me up, I did my long swim over the weekend, I don’t want to start the week feeling tired. And again, all this happens between my ears.  When I get to the pool usually right on time at 5:59am I am told “Cris, lane 1”.  I sigh. And I dutifully walk to the right lane and jump in.

My mind is a terrible neighborhood to walk around by myself.  It can take me in all kinds of directions and distort whatever I see. I think reality, much like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.  What is “real” is tainted by who sees it.  What I find appalling someone might find normal.  I thought it was appalling to eat at a table with your hands, and then I learned living in Morocco to use only my right hand when I ate exquisite meals sitting down at a fancy restaurant.  I have learned that many of the things I judge I end up doing.  I judge a parent yelling at a child, and then turn around and yell at mine.  I used to say I would never use a TV as an electronic babysitter and guess what my kids are doing right now?  I see God’s sense of humor.

I used to judge a lot more before.  I’ve grown up a little.   I used to be afraid that you didn’t think I was smart enough so I would put someone down to make me feel smarter.  Or funnier. Or wiser. You get the picture.  I didn’t realize I was doing this.  I was judging out of fear.

Triathlon training helps keep me humble.  I only compete against myself as most of my team is faster than I am in all three sports.  So when I quit my team in my head I have to look at myself.  What is it that I am afraid of?  Not keeping up? Being late for school? Feeling tired in the afternoon? Losing my patience with the boys at dinnertime? Dropping one of the many balls I juggle? 

But as soon as I get out of my head, as soon as I show up at that swimming pool on Monday morning I am gratefully no longer alone.  Something comes over me and I just focus at the task at hand and swim on Mondays, bike on Tuesdays, run on Wednesdays and so forth every day of the week.   Once I chit chat with another human being at an ungodly early hour who is probably on the same boat as I am, I no longer regret not quitting.  I realize that I am where I need to be.

I need to push myself and sometimes fail. I need to know that if too many strong swimmers show up one morning, I am the first one to be bumped to the left.  But if I get to the pool and am indeed sent to the fast lane on the right, I go there.  And if someone else judges me because I am too slow to be on the fast lane it may just be that they are too scared to try to get there themselves.

Tri2One at the pool

And so it is with life.  Woody Allen said “90% of life is just showing up.”  I am not a huge fan but I am beginning to think he was right on this one.  I just need to physically make it to where I have to be.  I have to let go of the fears, of the insecurities, of the tiredness or laziness and just go.   Because really … there is no doubt I AM going to drop the ball once in a while regardless of what I do.  It would be unrealistic and indeed arrogant to think otherwise.  So why not just show up?  That sounds easy enough.  This morning I showed up at the pool and decided to continue training.   If too many balls come down at once then I can revisit and quit again … next week.

The Censor And The Sea

"My" long swim beach

Some people enjoy long runs.  I don’t.  I enjoy long swims.  Fortunately for me I live on a beach and get to swim back and forth from ocean post to ocean post for a couple of miles each weekend.  Sometimes I swim twice in a weekend. I don’t get bored.  I hear my breath.  I look at the fish.  I search for stuff in the sea grass bed below me.  There is a sense of oneness with nature.  Of peace. Of calm.  And I love it. It is swimming that I find my voice, I work out situations, I meditate and I “write” my blog posts or at least  I come up with a story to tell. 

Today I thought about my grandmother Daisy, now 94, who has written on her journal every single day since she was fifteen years old.  When she left Cuba, her diaries where the one thing she made sure she got out.  To my knowledge she has never let anyone read them.  As she explains it, she writes events as she sees it at the moment, and at some moments she may be upset at someone and she wants to feel the liberty of writing about it.  She would feel bad if years later, someone read something they didn’t like or agree with and get upset.  She is afraid of what others might think of her given what she wrote.  But imagine, a whole lifetime is documented every single day.  World wars, civil wars, births, deaths, and family dramas all documented through the eyes of a single person.  She says she wants her diaries burned once she passes away.  I sincerely doubt anyone will let that happen.  Daisy censors herself.

I began blogging because I love writing and hadn’t done it in a long time.  I thought I wanted to get back to it and if I made a “public” commitment to writing then the chances of my keeping it up would be greater than if my stories stayed private.  Putting up the first post was interesting.  I was concerned about what someone out there would think.  I thought “I can’t write about this or that because so and so will think something or other”.  I was afraid of hurting someone and of being judged.  My husband Joe encourages me.  He wisely reminds me there will always be people out there that won’t like me or what I write regardless of what I do.  There will always be critics.  So what?  There will always be people that I don’t like nor do I like what they write.  I am also a critic:  one with nothing to hide.  I let go of much of that initial fear and while swimming I discovered a list of fun stories to share.   Mostly about how my experiences in my youth, and the many mistakes that came with it, has helped me become who I am today.  How the past shapes the future.  How I unconsciously try to either relive or run away from the past.  Deep, literary genius stuff.

So when someone who cares about me suggested I think twice about what I write I got stumped.  After all, this person pointed out, I am a teacher in a small community and still represent the school … even if in my blog.  Let’s say I write about something crazy I did in high school. We have all done at least one crazy thing in high school, but a parent at my school might read it and judge “how can someone like that be teaching children, especially at a Christian school”.  I get it.  I understand.  But I don’t like it.  As I began talking more about this I heard teachers at the public school cannot have Facebook pages, or colleges see kids Facebook pages and that influences admissions, and even employers asking for Facebook passwords from potential employees to see what is behind the private settings.  What the heck!  (notice my constraint in that exclamation!) That is crazy.  But from what I understand it really does happen. 

Now all of a sudden, that super funny story about when my sister Bia and I were backpacking in Europe during the summer of 1990 … is no longer suitable for my blog.  Or that one, or that other one, because to be on the safe side I have to stick to parenting stories.  I can’t go wrong with that.  And although I love my children more than anything, there is more to me than being a mom.  Or let’s say, the mom I am today is shaped by a whole slew of stories that someone else may deem inappropriate.  My mistakes and mishaps were mine and I learned from them.  To pretend I am a holier than thou seems fake, and if I have to be fake then I might as well write fiction.  Not that there is anything wrong with fiction, it’s just not what I wanted to do when I started my humble blog.  Or to be private and safe, I could write a journal, like my grandmother.  I could even write under a pseudonym to be private since then no one would read it at all given that most of my readers are my friends. 

So I am stuck.  Stuck because there are people out there who judge others instead of looking at themselves.  Because it is easier to see how someone is unfit to do something whether it is going to college, getting a job, or being a teacher, instead of looking at what really causes their upset.  Because someone’s moral standards might be so high that no one, at least no one who is honest with themselves and with the world, will ever be able to meet them.

And for the hour and a half that I swam this morning looking at the ocean floor I thought of tons of anecdotes and am not able to write about any of them.  Sure I will be able to write them later … I could probably figure out a politically correct way of telling the same story with less details.  Yet for today, the story that kept creeping into my thoughts as I blew bubbles underwater is the one I am writing now. This one, about the lack of a more appropriate one.

With Felipe after today's long swim