Many moons ago, when I was six or seven, I was selected for gymnastics. This wasn't optional, as long as one had the right height, weight, flexibility and disposition. A few weeks into the adventure, however jaw dropped I was at the slightly older girls who could twirl around the bars and do back flips, my parents found a way to get me out of it. It had become very clear why Romanian gymnastics were great, there was a fair amount of smacking packed with training. I think I didn't get much of it, but my stories about less fortunate mates seemed conclusive. Now don't you go aww, poor you and all that. It was the same deal in all countries that meant anything in gymnastics back then, as proven by some of our famous trainers back then escaping to the US at a later point and making that team a magical winner. Also, it was clear that regardless of my drive, I wasn't the material that gives a national star, not to say, heck, a world champion.
Not too long after, I was selected for Ceausescu's mass games to celebrate our labour day in August. That wasn't optional either, as long as one could move, and I think I enjoyed the experience quite a bit. But my parents found a way to pull me out of it in a few weeks or so, again, and they were right to do so. Something had happened that was serious enough. I might have fainted for the first and last time yet, in the unforgiving heat of the Romanian summer, rehearsing full days in the row at a time. In my mind, these experiences somehow suggested that I was a bit of a wuss, and that I had kicked away chances to debatable stardom, but I didn't think too much about it, to be fair. My knees were always an open wound, and I was pretty good at kicking boys' asses in football and whatnot, climbing trees and bossing others around, like a proper tomboy. One that never broke a limb, too.
I am quite sedentary today, and my most engaged sport moments are in front of the blue screen. When the whole team went out for some simple tennis coaching a few weeks back, I was sore for at least a week, and not that impressed with my performance. My knees refuse to work with me on a daily basis. I am a few sizes larger than it suits me, or is comfortable, my back has been an issue from primary school, and most serious walking and such gentle activities overheat me to no end. When we moved house over a year ago, something heavy fell on my big left toenail and the pain of seeing it through still wakes me up at night. Funny enough, the other large toe caught the condition, too, and it's been crippling, to say the least. And these are just the minor deprecations I can mention. Still, across the years, when I put my mind to something sportsy, it came out right. And God knows I tried a few things, from power aerobics to bikram/ hot yoga, from climbing mountains to running long distances, from basketball to badminton, from rollerblading to dancing long nights in the clubs of my youth. But nothing stuck for more than a couple of years, and I figure I just didn't try the right thing. With more than half a lifetime ahead of me, surely something will come up.
Reality is that the right activity at the right time gives me a proper high, like runners often claim, but few things have been appealing enough for long enough to make me want to wake up early, train, and get all psyched about the right gear.
Meanwhile, my long affair with the Olympics took an unlikely turn when volunteers were called for the Opening Ceremony (unlike the other volunteers who are more or less rushing papers left and right, backstage). I didn't think much before enlisting, and I wasn't told much after, either. I made it to the audition today, and somehow worked through all the fun pain we were given. Dancing, jumping and, ahem, acting. I was far from rested—in fact, we're off work for a week as of tomorrow for serious fear of exhaustion. Soon into the proceedings, a moment came when my limbs just didn't listen anymore, and did their own weird things. I could barely comprehend, not to mention decode in reasonable time, most of the instructions. I could barely see the instructors. I was at the back of the class, literally volunteer 201 in a casting session meant for 200. Casting session 51 of 200, too. All around me, beautiful, mainly young and exercised bodies exuded something I could remember from days past, like a vibrant mist of energy and vitality that I didn't feel I could convey. I'm now remembering all classes of muscles I didn't feel in a while, and knowing that tomorrow I will struggle to get down the stairs. But I hoped, like any cheeky creature, that their desperation in casting enough people and my ability to carry on beyond reason would be a match made in heaven.
The part of town where the studios are, not that far from Stratford, is desolate if not dead. I fumbled alongside a six lane road after all that ended, desperate for air, and of course, a smoke, while learning to walk again with dancestruck, spaghetti limbs. Off a bridge, I looked at the Olympic Stadium. It wasn't a bad thought to imagine I'd be standing there, a bit fitter than today, blinded by the spotlights, all 35 years of me among thousands and thousands of similar pawns. Creating human chains between the greatest athletes of the world, I hear. It wasn't a great thought, however, to think of myself back in that warehouse, where this and that didn't work and nearly everyone else seemed better for the role. Where bmx riders, ballerinas particular on point work, serious rollerbladers and drummers (!) stayed behind to show off some of their special skills. Once I peeled my eyes off the limelight and walked up and down that dreary area for half an hour, failing to get a cab, I got myself on the Tube, and headed to a pub where my team was having drinks with a candidate who had spent the day with us.
I proceeded to have a few beers (pints, no less), a commensurate amount of smokes, and a bit of junk food. Once home, I had a bath that didn't go higher than the solar plexus (in line with some nebulous memories that that's how you treat some insults to a body with the flexibility of a rock), and let my toenails uncurl and develop the excruciating level of misery they accomplish when submerged. I had two large glasses of sweetened water in hope I wouldn't have to crawl tomorrow, but painfully flex a muscle or two in an appearance of going places on hind legs. I told Chris more stories than he could take, and that was censoring myself. There are many interesting aspects of the afternoon, to a manager and to someone who produced large events. And then I picked up my phone, and there it was, the thing I didn't think I would see, and which was supposed to take some 72 hours. Only three hours after I had left the premises, I had been invited to a second, role-specific audition. I had to scream a little and postpone the jumping with joy, what with being in a bath and frankly, broken. Chris rushed back upstairs, partly annoyed and partly curious, and I gushed over my accomplishment and how it didn't make much sense in light of my earlier performance, and the seeming falling apart of my body.
Now I could still fail, in many ways, or end up being a stadium sweeper on the closing ceremony of the Paralympics, at best. Didn't they have sweepers in the Beijing choreography? But one thing is sure: throughout the years I learned much more about what a wuss is and is not, and while I can't remove bloody Black Swan images from my head, especially since of late my various joints took on loudly cracking (which always startled me unpleasantly in other humans)... I'm happy I pushed through today. Maybe you'll have a tiny extra reason to turn on your blue screen next summer :)
Labels: london2012
OR Not Quite What I Was Planning, Revised and Expanded Deluxe Edition: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure 
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