Glimpses of Green and a Broken Nose
Everything about the house where I grew up with five brothers and sisters was tall: the four stories of steps, the high ceilings, the pointed roof. We lived two blocks from San Francisco’s Presidio, where the U.S. Army had planted eucalyptus and cypress trees on what were once dunes and marshland. I didn’t know about the dunes when I grew up, only that on the other side of a stone wall was a world where many days we lost ourselves in a tangle of trails, woods, and playground.
We used to climb fire escape from the deck on the second floor, pulling ourselves to the top of the roof, where we had a view of the Presidio and the line of roofs leading up to it. I have always sought these views as a means of rejuvenation from urban life. After I moved to Santa Cruz, it was the ocean that revived me from the life we live near the corner of a busy intersection. And once she turned eleven, when I loaded my surfboard into the van, Carly was often with me.
When she was still training for her black belt in Tae Kwon Do, Carly signed up for a tournament in San Francisco. It would be the last time we stayed at my childhood home before my parents sold it and moved to a warmer town nearby. I strapped our boards to the car so we could surf a spot up the coast on our way to the city. But the waves were big for Carly and she got scared. I paddled her back in before catching a quick unproductive session myself. As we walked back to the van, I told her that frustrating days where you did nothing but paddle made you a better surfer, that even the days without a wave were good.
The next day at her tournament, she missed the gold medal by a tenth of a point and spent the rest of the day waiting to spar. Finally at the end of the day she and her opponent took the ring, heavily padded. Not a minute into the match, her opponent threw a roundhouse kick, going for the three point head shot, and kicked Carly in the nose. Carly went down.
We pulled her from the ring, carried her to the tournament doctor, and applied ice. She was crying, but her nose wasn’t broken. I drove her back to my parents’ house, rented a movie, and ordered Chinese takeout.
While Carly was watching the movie, I opened the door to the deck on the second floor of my childhood home and looked up at the sky. The fire escape beckoned. I climbed onto the ledge I had always used to reach the first rung, but I had trouble pulling myself up to the second rung, even though I was probably stronger now from surfing. I pulled myself up on the second try, hands stinging, stocking feet wrapped painfully around the metal rungs. We used to climb onto the shed roof of the dormer window from there and hoist ourselves up to the top of the gable roof, but that night standing on the fire escape in my stocking feet, even the shed roof looked too risky. I would have to be satisfied with peering over the fences into the neighbors’ yards.
As I climbed back down the fire escape, it occurred to me that my parents were some of the last people I knew left on the block. At one time we had known more than half the families on both sides of the street. Some had since died, but most had moved away. A new generation of families was moving in, and my parents were moving on to a warmer climate. I lowered myself from the fire escape and went back inside.
When I tucked Carly into bed that night she said, “Why did the tournament have to end that way.”
I almost launched into a lecture about how the endings we don’t anticipate are the ones that make us stronger. But I’d already given that speech the day before walking up the beach with our surfboards. Besides, to her getting kicked in the nose was all there was. That was the lesson, and I would learn it from my daughter. The now was all there was, and it was more than enough.
We used to climb fire escape from the deck on the second floor, pulling ourselves to the top of the roof, where we had a view of the Presidio and the line of roofs leading up to it. I have always sought these views as a means of rejuvenation from urban life. After I moved to Santa Cruz, it was the ocean that revived me from the life we live near the corner of a busy intersection. And once she turned eleven, when I loaded my surfboard into the van, Carly was often with me.
When she was still training for her black belt in Tae Kwon Do, Carly signed up for a tournament in San Francisco. It would be the last time we stayed at my childhood home before my parents sold it and moved to a warmer town nearby. I strapped our boards to the car so we could surf a spot up the coast on our way to the city. But the waves were big for Carly and she got scared. I paddled her back in before catching a quick unproductive session myself. As we walked back to the van, I told her that frustrating days where you did nothing but paddle made you a better surfer, that even the days without a wave were good.
The next day at her tournament, she missed the gold medal by a tenth of a point and spent the rest of the day waiting to spar. Finally at the end of the day she and her opponent took the ring, heavily padded. Not a minute into the match, her opponent threw a roundhouse kick, going for the three point head shot, and kicked Carly in the nose. Carly went down.
We pulled her from the ring, carried her to the tournament doctor, and applied ice. She was crying, but her nose wasn’t broken. I drove her back to my parents’ house, rented a movie, and ordered Chinese takeout.
While Carly was watching the movie, I opened the door to the deck on the second floor of my childhood home and looked up at the sky. The fire escape beckoned. I climbed onto the ledge I had always used to reach the first rung, but I had trouble pulling myself up to the second rung, even though I was probably stronger now from surfing. I pulled myself up on the second try, hands stinging, stocking feet wrapped painfully around the metal rungs. We used to climb onto the shed roof of the dormer window from there and hoist ourselves up to the top of the gable roof, but that night standing on the fire escape in my stocking feet, even the shed roof looked too risky. I would have to be satisfied with peering over the fences into the neighbors’ yards.
As I climbed back down the fire escape, it occurred to me that my parents were some of the last people I knew left on the block. At one time we had known more than half the families on both sides of the street. Some had since died, but most had moved away. A new generation of families was moving in, and my parents were moving on to a warmer climate. I lowered myself from the fire escape and went back inside.
When I tucked Carly into bed that night she said, “Why did the tournament have to end that way.”
I almost launched into a lecture about how the endings we don’t anticipate are the ones that make us stronger. But I’d already given that speech the day before walking up the beach with our surfboards. Besides, to her getting kicked in the nose was all there was. That was the lesson, and I would learn it from my daughter. The now was all there was, and it was more than enough.
posted by Victoria Tatum at 10:37 AM
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