Face-Timing with Olivia

It started out with an early morning text from Olivia. She wanted to know if we were up, if we would facetime with her. This was at 7am.

A facetime request that early in the morning definitely makes your hackles go up (as my mother would say). I wondered if anything was wrong. Why does my mind immediately go in that direction? Why not think she has amazing news to share?

We called and connected. She looked fine. She sounded good. And then she told us that at crew practice that morning, in the middle of the harbor, the coach asked her to stand up from her position midway down the boat, straddle and walk over the girls to the front seat (trading seats with the former occupant), called the Stroke Seat. This is a seat of distinction in a crew boat. It’s where you put the oarsman who can follow the cockswain’s game plan and it’s the front seat in the boat, the seat that the seven other rowers look to for stroke rate.

Olivia tells a good story. She was laughing as she described trying to climb to the front of the boat without ending up in the water. And she still had a big smile on her face when she told us that once she sat down she asked her coach to confirm that this move was just for this practice, and not for the big regatta coming up that weekend.

And it was both heartbreaking and heartwarming to watch her smile disintegrate into sobbing tears as she told us her coach’s reply: they were moving her to Stroke Seat for the regatta.

That’s my daughter, that particular moment. She has embraced her boat, her coaches, her girls, those daily 4:30am workouts, with unrivaled enthusiasm. She has called to tell us how great it felt to do hill repeats until she thought she was going to throw up. She has told us about rowing eight minute time trials on the ERG machines with the girl in front of her literally throwing up between strokes--apparently that’s a badge of honor, something to strive for! She has worked so hard at crew--a sport she had never seen or participated in before arriving at Chapman. I have honestly never seen her so excited about anything in her life as she has been about being on the crew team. And this is not a girl who hides her emotions.

Back to that particular moment. She was simultaneously overwhelmed at the confidence her coaches were acknowledging in her, and scared to death that she might disappoint the girls. What a wonderful reaction. I think it says so much about who Olivia is. She is a hard worker and a team player. She appreciates the team aspect of crew--there are no standouts in a crew boat, no spotlight players who get all the glory. Everyone in the boat has to work together equally or the boat doesn’t go forward in a straight line.

I know she will not disappoint her team, her coaches, or herself. She will do what she always does--work harder than she thought possible, push herself past her own perceived limits, and do it all with that giant, beautiful smile that comes when she knows she’s where she should be.