my gear rested for quite some time in the back of my closet, untouched, waiting. finally something got into me. i want to move, move my body. now!
swimming. biking. running. it looks a little bit like a triathlon is in my future. but i promise, those days are over. still, i love to do all of these activities. hard at first, winded, sore, slow. but each day i see progress. a little easier, a little smoother.
and a lot lighter. of spirit. feels good.
i'm sharing some of my sporting life with you in this monday memories series. last week's story was about playing on the men's lacrosse team in college ...
so after college came grad school and career. not much time for sports.
several years into my job at the long beach press-telegram, i went to australia to visit my cousin who was studying trees there, and planned a trip to the great barrier reef. i figured this is the one time i'm going to australia, i'm going diving there.
reserved a place at a fancy -- and i mean FANCY -- resort in the barrier reef called hayman island. hadn't been on vacation for many years. it was time to treat myself. but the week before i left, i realized this resort would be filled with honeymooners, not the best place to travel solo. there was another option close by, but i was equally hesitant for opposite reasons. club med. i figured it'd be filled with drunk 20-year-olds. hmmm. honeymooners or drunk 20-year-olds??? i opted for club med. and it was not at all what i expected.
this club med was a "family club," on a stunning island inside the barrier reef, with sports GALORE, and i could do them all! (i remember being so grateful to my parents for helping me learn to do any and all sports, even though neither of them were at all athletic.) and the partying was relatively tame. i kept pushing back my departure date, leaving me less and less time with my cousin. i was having a blast. so many sports! and one handsome man.
my last day there, i asked, "how can i work here?" ... they said they might be needing a tennis teacher ... and a few months later, i was teaching tennis at club med lindeman island.
and how did i swing that?! hah!
first i needed to learn how to teach tennis! i had played a lot as a youngster, tennis camp at 14, all that. but hadn't played in years. i found renowned and hilarious teacher vic braden at his orange county tennis academy. christmas vacation tennis clinic for tennis pros. somehow i talked my way into the course.
at work, my boss was on vacation. for a week, my colleagues helped me switch schedules so i could work the 7am shift and leave a little early to race down to tennis class. i learned how to teach well enough for teaching beginners. got a 6-month leave of absence from work. and WOOHOO! became the junior tennis instructor at club med!
i can hardly believe it myself. and have no photos to prove it (just this one doing my daily shift in the tennis & golf shack). but i loved it. i still wasn't a great player, so whenever i wanted to play tennis for fun, i played on the most remote court so the guests wouldn't see me playing ... didn't want them to lose their confidence in me!
but club med was about so much more than tennis. the staff or GOs (gentils organisateurs) not only act as hosts for the guests (gentils membres) during the day, but the GOs also perform in the elaborate shows at night. that's just part of the gig of working there. dancing for room and board and a teeny tiny stipend.
whaaaaaaat? who me? dance?
(remember, i was a total tomboy growing up and didn't do sissy stuff like dance.)
yessirree bob. at club med, i danced. kinda caught the performing bug, you might say.
first week, they had me do an easy gig, not too far outside of my comfort zone. we 4 american staff members dressed up like red white and blue dorks, it must have been the 4th of july.
then a few months later, they had me doing a show. a show. a show? way outside my comfort zone. we rehearsed from 11-12 at night after the nightly entertainment was over and the guests had dispersed. i had to get up at 6am to be at the golf shack. those were short nights at club med.
i was fit enough to dance, but not very graceful. and scared! found it quite challenging to remember all the choreography. but also i found, like team sports, that when i relaxed and got into the flow with my fellow dancers, my body seemed to remember and i could feel my stagemates and move with them. THAT is what i love about team sports and dance, too. being completely in the moment and FEELING with all senses completely open and on, and flowing with the group, making something magical happen.
but i seriously needed more rehearsal. the first show, i forgot my gloves in one number. that's me in the back, facing the wrong way.
facing the wrong way again.
and was pretty much facing the wrong direction most of the time those first few shows. after my very first performance on stage, my boss noted,
hillary, don't forget to smile! you looked petrified up there!
over time, my confidence grew a bit. encouraged to enter the costume contest with a guest, i entered as marilyn monroe with guest dean martin. my partner was a fabulous dancer and spun me around. we won!
so then i volunteered with my roommate cynthia and another gal to do a lip sync to diana ross and the supremes. i was really getting into the performing thing now ...
at the very end of my stint at club med, the sports team had to perform a crazy skit before dinner in which all of us ended up in the pool. i squeezed into a tiny leotard, totally embarrassed by my outfit but that was THE OUTFIT for the role and the costume department wasn't going to change it ... and the show must go on!
back at home, i returned to being behind the camera. watching others. not the one being watched. where it is comfortable.
to be honest, i do miss the stage! and i miss dancing. who'd have thunk it?!
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lessons learned: while i LOVE LOVE LOVE doing photography, i think it's also healthy for me to be in front of the camera. shining out. hey universe, how can i have both in my life?
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ps - the handsome man didn't speak to me when i returned to the island. men! that's ok. there were other fish in the coral sea.
including this one, that i let get away.
i really liked him. kind. nice mixture of humble and confident. handsome. we shared a champagne sunset on the 8th hole of the golf course one evening.
when i got home from club med, he wanted to fly me up to vancouver to see him.
i chickened out and didn't go.
if anyone knows this man, who was living in vancouver bc in the 1990s, please contact me! or forward this to the one that got away.
i'm sharing some of my sporting life with you in this monday memories series. last week's story was about the politics of soccer ...
my junior year of college, i had several guy friends who came to oregon from prep schools back east. with them they brought lacrosse to the left coast, a sport we hadn't yet seen out west. they didn't think they had enough players to start a team, so they recruited me and my soccer friend sheila. i guess they figured, she's tough on the soccer field, so she can play lacrosse with the guys. and they were desperate ...
the whole season for me was a bit of a fiasco!
we practiced much of the year in the rain and mud, and i learned how to wield a lacrosse stick, kind of. then the spring lacrosse season rolled around, and it turned out there were so many guys who wanted to play lacrosse, probably because lacrosse players were smart, cool, and extremely social. it ended up being a huge team.
at that point, i should have bowed out gracefully like sheila did ... but i guess my childhood desire to be equal in the [man's] world still needed to prove itself, so i wasn't about to quit the team. some of the guys, the really serious players, didn't want me on the team. my buddies were mixed, they wanted to have a strong team, but they also stayed loyal to me.
there weren't many teams then, but we found a few to play against in oregon and washington. we had a couple of away games, and the lacrosse teams are so social that the opposing teams put us up for the night before or after the game in their homes. those lacrosse boys know how to have a good time!
when i'd show up on the field in my uniform, it would create a stir in the opposing team. they didn't quite know how to handle me. you see, men's lacrosse is a VERY ROUGH game. completely different from soccer. more like hockey. that's why they wear helmets!
or maybe it was the uniform my teammates got for me. we had to borrow jerseys from our football team, and i'm not sure who decided that 69 was my number. young men being young men, they thought it was hilarious. i was a bit naive, and was just glad to have a jersey.
so the opposing team weren't sure if they should hit me as hard as the guys, or if they should go easy on me. i think most of them were not as rough with me, thank god! not that i played much. i had field sense, but not great ball handling skills. plus i was scared shitless!
in our last game of the season, the college allowed us to play on our main football field. there was a huge crowd watching all those foxy lacrosse players. it must have been a pretty close game, since they didn't put me in ... until the very last few minutes of the game ... when the crowd started chanting "hil - la - ry! hil - la - ry! hil - la - ry!" so our captain put me in.
i think i touched the ball once in those last minutes and didn't do anything spectacular, but at least didn't flub up.
the crowd roared!
we won!
my favorite moment of that season was the post-game party at "happy valley," the home of the greatest guys on our team. i was one of the boys, but i was also one of the gang, one of the happy people gathered in that backyard.
i remember feeling so much love for those guys, for all of our friends, for those great people. so loved and accepted. so much a part of the group. right in the middle of it. not on the outskirts.
so much love at that gathering. and it wasn't just the beer talking, i swear. maybe it was the mix of sunshine and winning and finishing the season and beer and team spirit and love all mixed in together.
you could ask any of those guys and they'd tell you the same thing. it was magical. to be a part of a group, doing what you love, running around on a field, being with those you love. it doesn't get any better than that.
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lessons learned: join groups with people you love. there's so much power in groups of like-minded folks.
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the following year, sheila and i started a women's lacrosse team. much more gentle!
i'm sharing some of my sporting life with you in this monday memories series. last week's story was about swimming when i was a wee one ...
with the years came more swimming, and tree climbing, jumping off big rocks into water, and everything active and physical. that was MY THING. that's what i was good at. i was given a strong body and a desire to WIN!
born in 1961, i learned early that it was a man's world. [it really was back then.] and i wanted to be a part of that world. that world = freedom. and i always wanted freedom. so i figured i had to be as good as the boys. and so i was. [i think this is one of the reasons i became a photographer and a photojournalist, which was also a man's world and an exciting one full of freedom and adventure.]
i disdained anything that was "girlie." no cooking, no sewing, none of that girl stuff. [i love all that stuff now, but then, no way josé.] my mom wasn't so inclined either, which didn't bode well for me learning any homey skills. anyway, i was all tomboy, and happily so.
our neighborhood was full of kids playing out on the streets, and i played with all the boys and one other tomboy girl. chase. tag. kick the can. then later football, basketball, baseball. once in awhile the boys wanted to play with only boys, which i totally get now. but at the time it was devastating. and just made me work harder to be better at sports.
in middle school PE class, we girls had to wear navy blue sleeveless jumpers with little attached skirts and with bloomers underneath, a bit like a tennis dress without the cute factor. humiliating.
title IX legislation was passed in 1972. equal opportunity for boys and girls in high school and collegiate sports.
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance...
soccer had come to the west coast when i was about 12 and i got on the first local girls team. we played against the boys and held our own. our coaches were all men. one coach, a british man, quit on us right before a game! we were talkative, rowdy, inattentive. we were preteen girls, for god's sake, what did he expect?! he had no clue how to handle a gang of girls. we kept playing because we loved it.
running around outdoors after a ball with a bunch of kids = pure freedom.
in high school, i played varsity soccer and basketball all four years. voted "most athletic" my senior year. (excelling as powder puff quarterback may have helped.)
at lewis & clark college in portland, oregon, i stuck with my true love: soccer.
my three roommates helped me get psyched up before games. we'd dance on our desks and sing queen's "don't stop me now" into our hairbrushes.
my team played in the fog and the rain and the mud and the glorious sunshine. travelled all over the pacific northwest in the autumn and saw leaves turning for the first time in my life.
i didn't have the greatest ball handling skills or the most finesse. i even broke my own teammate's collarbone when i went in to steal the ball from an opponent but got her foot instead. but my teammates liked me (except maybe collarbone girl). they even made up a lovingly teasing little song for me. they sang to me one whole season after i handballed in the penalty box resulting in a winning penalty kick by the other team. to the tune of "falderie falderal":
hillareeeee, hillaraaaaaah, hillareeeeee, hillarahahahahahah,
hillareeeeee, hillaraaaaaaah, with handball in the box!
i was strong and fearless on the field. and a good team player. team captain, mvp, all star team, all that. but the best was yet to come ...
at the end of my junior year, we found out that the college washed the men's varsity team uniforms. but not the women's. a couple of us questioned the head of the women's athletic department who fumbled her words and replied, "we always thought the women preferred to wash their own uniforms." hah! yeah, with all our spare time in college, we'd rather wash our own uniforms ... not!
so several of us on the team decided to make a statement. my senior year on the soccer team, we decided to NOT WASH our uniforms all season long. only two of us made it the whole season, sheila and i. we did not wash our shirts, shorts or socks. not once. after playing in the mud and muck, i'd throw my uniform onto a piece of plastic i laid out in my room and not pick it up again til the next game. i'd have to put on stiff-with-dirt socks and all. gross. and i think our teammates and coach weren't thrilled for us to begin a game in dirty clothes. but since i had seen so much unfairness in the world since i was little, i was committed to my cause.
at the end of the season, sheila and i placed our dirty uniforms in brown paper bags with a note and left them on the doorstep of the women's athletic director. we asked that the women be treated equally with the men. we asked that all the women's varsity teams have their uniforms washed by the school, just like the men.
and lo and behold, the following year, the year after i graduated ... lewis & clark washed all the women's uniforms!
who knew the most political act i would ever commit would be on a soccer field?
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lessons learned: go with what you've been given. play fair. do right.
this is the beginning of another series of monday memories (similar to the "RTW trip" series) called "the sporting life." i'd like to share some of my sporting stories with you!
not to be confused with the yesteryear definition of "sporting" which my father explained meant "loose woman." i used to own a boutique stock photography agency called "see jane run" with the tagline "pictures of sporting women." i had to convince my dad that the term had shifted since his early days.
that is not what we're talking about here!
nope. this is just about my sporting life which started as soon as i could walk. or run. or climb. or swim.
even at four years old, i LOVED to swim.
we didn't have a pool of our own, but we had friends, clubs, friends' clubs, and vacations. and my grandma had a pool. my parents took me for swim lessons in chinatown; i guess they had a good pool there. i couldn't get enough of the water.
jumping diving sliding gliding splashing floating
hours and hours were spent in whatever pool we visited, pretending i was a fish. i'd stay underwater for as long as my little lungs could manage. with tummy touching bottom, wriggling along catfish-style for long spells until i had to surface, gasping for air, now pretending i was a dolphin with blowspout.
"adult swim" were dirty words in my narrow vocabulary, bringing a frown to my sunbrowned cheeks.
when my parents called me out of the pool at the end of a long day, i'd lie face down on the warm pool deck and they'd cover me with a sun-kissed towel. i closed my eyes and inhaled the wet cement smell. spent. exhausted. bliss.
born on march 21, first day of spring, first day of aries, on the cusp with pisces ... water is in my consciousness. i dream of water frequently. flying and diving into great bodies of water.
and i was given a strong body. a body made to move.
i was also fearless. i loved to dive, bouncing and flying and diving into the pool. when i was about eight, a coach saw me playing on the high dive and asked my parents if he could coach me to be an olympic diver.
shortly after that meeting, i developed ear problems and had to wear ear and nose plugs while swimming for many years. diving was verboten. the olympics were not my fate. (i was eventually in a different kind of olympics, which i'll tell you about in a few weeks.)
i did join the local swim team when i was about 10 or 12 and excelled in the backstroke, IM (one lap each of fly - back - breast - free) and freestyle.
a competitor was born!
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lessons learned: whatever we loved as children -- when we were at our purest -- is really what we love always. is what makes our heart soar. keep doing that.
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what did YOU love as a child? are you still loving/doing that?