… to all the squaws in seejanerun
“There it was, there it is, the place where during the best time of our lives friendship had its home and happiness its headquarters.”
-Wallace Stegner (Crossing to Safety)
I’ve been thinking a lot about teams lately. It seems my whole life I have been on or leading a team of runners. And when I reflect on where each team congregated, or “lived,” I find that happiness does, indeed, have a headquarters. In high school, Coach Mac’s chemistry class was our inside home (during class breaks and after lunch) and McAlpine Greenway Park was our outside home, our backyard, our home XC course. When I coached at UNC, headquarters was the steeple pit. We stretched there, had team meetings there, talked track there, talked smack there, and stayed way too long there after practice because it was the best time of the day, together … lingering in that friendship.
My current team of seejanerunners is more of a nomadic group, a tribe of warrior moms that packs up its tents and travels to different trails around Chapel Hill. We don’t have a home course or a single place we meet each week, but we do have a home for our friendship. It’s called Circle Time … and, cliche as it sounds, I have come to savor my time in circle with a gratitude that can only come from the knowledge of loss.
I have seen moms come and go from our circle, returning to work (to their lives BC - “before children”), going back to school, moving away, moving on … but I have stayed and worked hard to renew and refresh our little home, like the good mother who diligently stacks the firewood each fall or who vigorously strips the beds each spring [imagine me, outside, thwacking the mattress with a broomstick to clear the dust]. For six years I have lovingly tended to seejanerun and I am proud.
But this is our last year together because I am the one moving on. Moving on to where? I don’t know. Maybe back to an English classroom, maybe to a job that pays some real money [at UNC I made only $12,000 a year, a year!, coaching both the men’s and the women’s distance teams), back to a high school cross-country team, perhaps, where I am the Coach Mac in whose classroom the kids congregate.
Whatever the future holds, I want to make sure I savor the present. I want to tell my friends I love them and I want to thank them for being my home during the best and hardest (damn, has it been hard) time of my life as a mom.
I want to sing out a warrior whoop of thanksgiving to all the squaws in seejanerun!
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(Note, I’m trying to write this without sounding too much like Master Po in Kung Fu): Reading this, the principal impression poking through is restlessness. Is that what you’re feeling? Maybe runners are wired that way. And for those who are, a lot of life doesn’t allow for it: you can’t make your kids grow up faster or slower (or even go to bed on time, in my case). But I’m sure you’d be a swell teacher and a terrific HS coach ( . . . I had a brief gig as a HS teacher and coach, and aside from the early 80’s private school starvation wages, it was a great time). Good luck. Will read with interest.
Comment by Eric — 10/25/2006 @ 10:49 am
Amen.
Comment by Marion — 10/26/2006 @ 6:27 pm
Joan,
Can I impose on you to comment on this post?
http://scootersweightloss.blogspot.com/2006/10/predicament.html
(It’s a coaching issue.)
Wayne
Comment by Scooter — 10/26/2006 @ 9:38 pm
“What do you mean the Angle of Repose?….it is some meeting, some intersection of lines; and some cowardly, hopeful geometer in my brain tells me it is the angle at which two lines prop each other up, the leaning together from the vertical which produces the false arch. For lack of a keystone, the false arch may be as much as one can expect in this life. Only the very lucky discover the keystone.”
Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner
Let there be no doubt, Joan. WE have discovered the keystone. Amen to us.
Comment by Donna — 10/27/2006 @ 8:52 pm
Joan,
Thank you very much for the input on my blog. Part of what you’re suggesting is a bit of an attitude change in the program, which is not entirely mine, but I do believe you’re right. As the season is over, I’m not sure I want to give her a “walking is unaaceptable” message right now, but as our spring program gets rolling, I will be sure that message comes through loud and clear, and not just to her.
Comment by Scooter — 10/28/2006 @ 4:42 pm
Joan,
Please coach a HS XC team! (CHS) They need you and would grow so much with you as their coach.It is your calling.
Comment by T — 10/29/2006 @ 7:21 pm
I played a song for my janes this morning, to thank them for all the amazing work they did on our Pumpkin Run.
http://www.ralphsworld.com/music.htm
scroll down and click the Play button on Many Things to Know and give it a listen.
Comment by Joan — 10/30/2006 @ 8:29 am
[...] Damn, I think Eric got it right again. I am restless. I’m reading a biography of Woodie guthrie right now and Leadbelly’s description of The Blues nearly jumped off the page: “The blues is like this. You lay down some night and you turn from one side of the bed to the other, all night long. It’s not too cold in that bed, and it ain’t too hot. But what’s the matter? The blues has got you and they want to talk with you.” [...]
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