I have become zee proud mama.

I'm psyched to have been elected one of the co-captains of the Nuts for next season. I love my team and I'm stupid excited about being chosen to take on such an important gig. I'm leaving a number of league jobs I've held for some time, and I'm ready to take on something new.

However, with this comes one major loss: I can't be freshmeat mama anymore. Being a team captain means that I become a coach and I represent my team at the draft. Thus, I'm one of the people responsible for making every round of cuts during freshie training. Since the Mama role is all about shepherding and comforting the freshies through the cuts, the two gigs are mutually exclusive.

Looking ahead to freshie training, I feel a little strange. I'm a Project Runway nerd, so I'll use a PR metaphor. I feel like I've spent two years being Tim Gunn and now I have to become Michael Kors. I used to be the one ushering them towards assessments and watching from the sidelines with my "Go Freshmeat!" sign. I hosted freshie get togethers at my house so I could hang out with the new skaters far away from the stress and sweat of practices. It was an honor to be the official "cheerleader" for team freshmeat. I loved every second of that job and I'll always be grateful that the coaches let me create it.

This season I'll get to coach freshie practices and continue to push them to kick butt during assessments. I'm a teacher to the core, and I'm so excited about being able to run drills and show freshies the skills I've learned from all of the outstanding coaches on the league. That's one of the most exciting aspects of this new turn in the road. I've wanted to do this forever, and I can't wait to start.

However, I'll also have to keep my eye on the freshies who are falling behind. I have to be ready to agree to cut the ones who fall too far. If we'd had cuts when I was a freshie, I'm sure I wouldn't have made it through. It's going to be hard as hell to look for the me's of the group this winter and to tell them and to say "better luck next year."

It's better to leave a job on a high point than to wait until you're burnt out and doing the people you help a disservice. I'm leaving this gig after two memorable, meaningful, and extremely happy years. I'm stepping down when I'm in love with it. Because of this, I'll only take good memories with me.

Next season this job will be in the hands of two great people who will make it their own. Steve pointed out that I'll get to enjoy watching these two wonderful soon-to-be-vets pick up the torch, and that I'll be even more proud to see how they transform the role now that it's their turn. He's right, there's no prouder moment than seeing the people you've watched since they were newbies take on the roles you've passed on to them.

Maybe this will be more like that season of Project Runway where Tim Gunn had to step in and judge the final collections at the last minute. I hope so. I'll always be rooting for the freshies, even as I have to take a turn in the judge's seat.

What do these three images have in common?

  

All three photos feature a captain. 2011 is going to be an interesting season.

You're older than you've ever been and now you're getting older.

I've often heard from older friends and relatives that the older one gets, the more people look to you for the answers. However, this comes at the cost of having fewer and fewer people to whom you can look when you need answers to questions of your own. As the season winds down and people start leaking out their retirement plans, I'm starting to realize that this is exactly why I feel so strange and unsettled right now.

When I was a freshie, I knew I needed to be a sponge, and I acted like one. I listened and practiced and tried to learn everything, and thus had little time to think about anything else. During my first year on the Nuts, I was one of very few new(ish) people on a team of very experienced vets. I spent the season simply doing what I was told, and had the luxury of not having to think at all because I was so surrounded by good advice. By the time this season rolled around I was in the upper-middle experience-range of the members of my team, and I started to feel confident enough with my playing that I could question things and believe in my own ideas. I'm ending the season feeling comfortable enough to offer opinions and advice without feeling like a pushy, sophomoric jerk.


I still have questions, though, and it seems like every day I learn that another of the vets I relied on to answer them won't be around next season. This sounds horribly morbid, but I feel like I'm starting to get old enough to attend the funerals of my friends instead of just mourning my older relatives. The protective layer of super vets is getting thinner and thinner by the day and I wonder who will guide and mentor me when I'm feeling scared and small next season.

It's hard to watch one's heroes ride off into the sunset. I guess that line "be your own hero" from Whip It applies like hell here. I've always dreamed of growing up to be like a lot of these spectacular women who are poised to become BDD's next group of alumni. I guess my goal for next season is to rebuild myself to fill the spaces that these heroes will leave behind.

Wow. Thanks, world.

My laptop's hard drive failed and my screen broke. The timing of this is simply stunning.

Ephemera.

I'm sitting alone in the gallery with the foundation of the quilt exhibit and I'm feeling rather emotional. Some of this happens every time I see the quilt now that such a large section is assembled and hanging. A lot more of this is because of the things I brought into the space today - one bin filled with all the envelopes in which the squares from out of state came, along with a mountain of ephemera dating back to the moment roller derby and I first met. I'd forgotten how much stuff I'd saved over the past three seasons, and all these feelings are cascading out of me in a way that's hard for me to process.

I found the flyer from the first bout I ever attended, when I knew down to my bones that I needed to do this. I found the invoice for my first pair of derby skates. I found the tag from the first BDD shirt that housed my newly approved derby name (back when twoevils only took a week or two to approve the names). I found letters from Mt. Auburn confirming that my right knee's x-ray came back "normal" along with prescriptions for PT and a diagram for a particularly complex knee exercise. I found birthday cards and thank you cards from freshmeat I "mama-ed," and these cards brought me to tears. I found pins and programs and wristbands and stickers from countless bouts.

I feel like I'm digging through a whole life's worth of memories, but it's only been three years since I started. The thing is, derby careers are so terribly short. It's hard on your body and your mind, and I know that we're all burning like candles doused in rocket fuel. We're giving off all of our light RIGHT NOW with such ferocity and there's only so much of us to use up before we burn out and it all ends. We do this sport at the price of our knees and our backs, and for some, our friendships and our marriages.

Today a few of my close friends and favorite skaters in a few different leagues told me that this is their last season. They're leaving because they know that their light is burning out. Reading these messages when I'm literally ankle-deep in piles of derby memories is tough. It reminds me how much I'll miss these people who have helped shape my derby life. It also reminds me that I can't do this forever, and one of these days I'll have to prepare my good-byes too.

My greatest wish is to retire when I want to, not when I have to. My second greatest wish is that I'll want to retire a long, long time from now. I love this sport with a fierceness that I've only felt for my immediate family and my dearest, oldest, truest friends. I love derby more than chocolate and sleeping late. I feel a deep level of affection for it like I do for my dog and cat. One of my favorite MassArt professors phrased it so elegantly: "This is my church, and these are my vestments." At first, it sounded a bit strong to my thoroughly non-religious ears. However, as crazy as it sounds, I've found a very powerful faith through roller derby - faith in myself unlike I've ever had before.

Roller derby might just be a fun, rough game on wheels, but to me it's so much more. Roller derby has made my outside match my inside. Through it I've learned a comfort with myself I've always needed but never knew was missing. It's almost as good as falling in love, and like love, I want to hold onto all of this for as long as I can.

The before time.

I cracked open my old myspace page and transported all of my derby-related blog posts to this one. For anyone who is curious, go ahead and look back at the newly-made-earlier beginning of this blog to read about my trials and tribulations beginning with derby tryouts.

Oh, the memories... I'll do my livejournal ones ASAP.

Good Skater

At the end of last season I wrote a bit about my triumphs, regrets, and hopes for the coming year. Among my hopes was a derby fantasy I've held since I started, and one I realized this past Saturday. I got MVP. Holy crap.

Ok, so how do I explain why this is the biggest deal to me in the history of ever...

If you look inside, most of us still see ourselves like we've always been, whatever that image hinges upon. For some, it's the ugly nerd in high school who no one ever wanted to ask out. For others, it's the dumb screw-up kid who teachers always said would amount to nothing. For me, it's the "Bad Skater" who would never be anything special on the track.

You may know someone who has been very obese his or her whole life, but recently lost a ton of weight and is now pretty hot. Hell, you may have had this experience yourself. Either way, you know how the newly-babe-status person still carries him or herself the same way as before the weight loss? Yeah, it's a lot like that.

I was weirdly nervous before the bout, and I don't really remember most of it because I was totally in my own head the whole time. What I do remember is the after party. I was standing in the crowd and I heard my husband call the MVP for the Cosmos (congrats Rocky!). Then he called the MVP for the Nuts, and suddenly everyone was looking at me. ME. In Steve's words, number40KDREADNOUGHT.

There are a lot of rockstar skaters who collect MVP trophies like Fresh Eddie Fresh collects skates. There are some lucky skaters who are so self-aware that they don't need anyone to tell them that they're good at what they do. For those people, MVP is probably a nice bonus after a great bout. They'll smile and accept the award and go on with their evening feeling pretty good, but won't see themselves any differently than they did the day before. It was a really big deal to me, though. Getting MVP was easily the single proudest moment of my derby life.

Why do I care so much? Because it's one of those "Good Skater" marks that I've arbitrarily made in my own head. It's a pair of size eight pants that reminds me to learn to stop carrying myself like I'm still a size twenty-six. 


Edited to add: The MVP trophies this season take the form of skate wheels. I skated on mine today and kept thinking about the circumstances under which I got them. It was nice to look down and see them under my feet at the beginning of every jam. Our jam coach came up to me today and told me that this MVP has been a long time coming. That really touched my heart too.

I've been carrying a warm little spark of pride in my heart since last weekend's bout and it feels pretty neat. Ok, not just neat. It feels absolutely wonderful. I'm going to make every effort to fan it into a flame, because this warmth sure beats the cold, dank, little cave I allowed myself to live in for so long.