Swimming and mourning

If you don't follow competitive swimming, you might have missed the news about Fran Crippen, the 26-year-old elite swimmer who died in the 10K World Cup open-water race near Dubai a few weeks ago.

I never met Fran, but I know people who knew him. He's the same age as one of my sons. And my boys were competitive swimmers, though never at Fran's level.

I was talking yesterday about mourning my father, but Dad lived a long life. He was 95 when he died, and, frankly, by the end all the systems weren't working that well. He couldn't see much or hear much, getting around was a bit of a challenge, and he was becoming forgetful. He didn't look his age, but he probably looked 85.

Fran was so young; he was just at the beginning of his life. (And while I mourn my father, I can't really imagine the pain I'd feel if I lost one of my children.)

Here's the thing about serious athletes--they are used to pushing themselves to failure and beyond. I don't think you get to be an Olympic quality athlete unless you have an incredible work ethic and a high tolerance for pain.

I haven't heard if they figured out what went wrong that day in Dubai, but I hope if there are more safety measures they can take to prevent this from happening again, they take them. I don't think it is realistic to expect the athletes to stop themselves when they are in trouble.

Here's a link a couple of my friends with sons connected to the University of Virginia's swim team posted about Fran: http://www.virginiasports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=17800&ATCLID=205022430

November Mourning

The Catholic Church--and perhaps other Christian churches--sets aside time in November to remember the dead. All Souls Day follows All Saints Day (which follows Halloween). Our parish has a Mass of bereavement, and since my dad died this year, I got an invitation. And because mourning is a longish, complicated thing, I decided to go--and Mr. M very kindly went with me.

The service was very nice, but I was glad I brought tissues. In some ways I'm at peace with my loss--Dad was 95; he'd had a long life, but the quality of that life was declining and we were facing some hard decisions about his continued independence. But in some ways, the pain is still raw.

I feel a jumble of emotions: love, regret, sadness, nostalgia. Now I'm no longer anyone's child. At my age, having raised four children of my own, it seems that shouldn't matter, but somehow it does. Mourning my dad--and my mom--is mixed up with mourning the passage of time, my changing position in life, even the changing nature of the world I live in.

College Football

Here's the marching band getting ready to parade through campus before the football game.

I went to the University of Notre Dame, so I had a large dose of college football. Back then we got season's tickets because we were students. I'm pretty sure I went to all the games my freshman and sophomore years. Junior year I think we had not very good seats behind some very tall guys. By senior year I'd stopped going.

Do I hear a collective gasp of horror? Yes, I know it borders on sacrilege, but I just wasn't that into football. I'd rather walk around the lakes and hear the roar of the crowd in the distance than be in the stadium.

I'm still not very into football. I enjoy the band and the pageantry. And the energy in a college football stadium can be fun. But all too soon I get cold and bored--and my butt and back get sore from those metal bleachers--and want to go do something more interesting. So I took a pass on this game. I would have stayed to watch the band, but the swim parents' breakfast was starting, so I had to go.

A Little Fall Color

This picture hardly does the scenery justice, but here is one of the views I saw as I was walking up to campus last weekend.

Halloween Painting

When I was in Boston, I called Caroline Linden to see if we could get together. She said sure, after her daughter finished painting a window.

Say what?

Apparently her town has an interesting Halloween tradition--kids can sign up to paint pictures on windows of participating shops. Above are three examples. The artists have a certain "window" of time in which to do their painting, and then the judges survey the entries and pick the winners.

As you might guess from the photo, these paintings took some effort. We saw a few of the artists at work. First they taped out the area they wanted to paint. Then, if they wanted a background like in the three pictures above, they had to paint that and let it dry before coming pack to add the rest of their picture.

Very cool--I wonder how the idea got started?

Oh, and not to worry. At some point after the contest, the organizers wash all the windows clean on artwork.

A Close Encounter of the Bad Kind

So on Friday, my first day in Boston, I ran into a car.

Here's the deal. I hadn't gotten enough sleep, I was a little stressed from travel, and I was in a hurry. I was walking up to campus to catch the men's intra-squad swim meet, but I'd missed lunch (the flight was at lunch time) and I was hoping to get something to eat along the way. I saw the walk sign at the next intersection and ran to make it. I got about a step or two into the intersection when--wham!--I collided with a car.

It was as if the car had sprung up out of nowhere.

I was fine, so I picked myself off the front passenger-side fender and walked in front of the car to continue across the street. I turned to the driver and said something like "I had the walk sign." (The whole conversation was civil--no yelling or anything. Just as if we were discussing the weather.) And he said--he was a guy maybe in his 40s--well, he'd had a green light and I hadn't looked. Which was true. I'd forgotten the most basic rule of street crossing--look both ways before you cross--so I said, "sorry" and finished crossing the street.

After the initial shock and befuddlement wore off, I was irate. I thought to myself, hey, I was the pedestrian. Pedestrians have the right of way. So what if I didn't look? Drivers can't hit pedestrians in crosswalks. And how did he know I didn't look? He must have seen me coming. (Or maybe he just assumed I hadn't looked since I ran into his car.) I was going to call this blog "Crazy Boston Drivers."

But the fact of the matter is that I had far more to lose from that encounter than the driver did. Frankly, the thought of getting hit by a car is a complete nightmare. So here are some points I need to keep in mind.

1. Look both ways before you cross the street. It's a bit ironic that I made it through England without getting squashed and then run into a car when I'm back in the right-side driving States. As far as I know the driver wasn't talking on a cell phone. He did stop. (I was a bit miffed that he didn't apologize or ask how I was, but the encounter may well have given him a near heart attack.) I wasn't on a cell phone, I just was stupid. But given the number of folks, both walking and driving, who are also talking or texting---well, it's a wonder there aren't more accidents.

2. When I'm a pedestrian, I think I feel too assertive. Yes, I might have the law on my side, but if I also have a car driving into my side, the law will be cold comfort. In the battle between pedestrian and car, the car always wins. The driver might end up in jail, but the pedestrian ends up in the hospital or the morgue.

3. I need to be more careful when I'm behind the wheel. I'm driving a multi-ton death machine. I don't think of my car that way, but if it connects with a person, that's what it becomes. Even if the pedestrian is a complete idiot and even if I haven't broken any laws, I will feel terrible if I hit someone. I need to remember that wherever I need to be is not more important than someone's life or health. And I need to be careful not to drive with my brain on autopilot.

Saturday I was walking back from campus, trying always to cross with the walk sign after looking both ways, when I heard cars honking. The light was green, but the first cars weren't moving and the cars behind them were impatient. When I got up to the intersection, I saw the problem. A man with a cane was hobbling as fast as he could across the street. Now that I'm supersensitive, I've noticed that some of the walk signs don't give even an able-bodied pedestrian adequate time to navigate the roadway. Folks with handicaps or age-related infirmities have a huge challenge.

We all need to chill and think of the other person. I'll try to do that when I'm back in the driver's seat.

Flying solo

By the time this posts, I should be off to the airport to fly home to D.C.

I've often told people I'm used to traveling by myself. This is technically true. Most of my trips during the year are to writers conferences, so usually Mr. M stays home. But this trip to Boston reminded me that while I usually travel alone, I am anything but alone when I arrive. I almost always room with a friend, and I have plenty of friends to hang out with during the day. I love seeing folks and catching up with them at workshops, over a meal, or at the bar. And I often meet with my editor and my agent. Writers conferences--at least romance writers conferences--are noisy, busy, crazy, people-filled events.

This trip I'm much more alone. Yes, I saw swimmer boy--and other swim parents I've seen over the four years swimmer boy's been on the team. I even got a chance to see my writer pal Caroline Linden and her family. But I spent a lot of time by myself. Not that I don't spend a lot of time by myself at home, but that's different.

So while I was glad to come, I'm glad to go home, back to the familiar surroundings, familiar routines, and, yes, Mr. M.