Multiple Rewrites

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

“I want to hear about how your coaching differs from our training back in the day,” I said to my former Stanford teammate Dave, the head swim coach of a club team in Pittsburgh.

“You know, I was telling someone after Trials that if I was my coach forty years ago, I may have made the Olympics,” he said.

I nodded as we walked away from the pool into the parking lot. I believed him. A former swimmer of his is competing in the Paris Olympics this week.

“I hear you,” I said, yet an understanding passed between us. Former teammates and I have wondered off and on over the decades since we swam competitively how we would have done with what coaches and athletes know today about training nutrition and recovery.

“All we did back then was grind and work ourselves into the ground,” Dave said. He was right. It was what we did. It was all we knew because it was what our coaches knew. They dished out ridiculous workouts and seemed to take pride in pushing us too far. There were too few rest days, no nuance or adjustment for individuals, and no focus on nutrition. We had no idea how to feed or train our bodies well when we were asking so much of them. Nobody knew what they do now.

I have spent the last month in Pittsburgh. This was my first real city try-on, and I love the fit. I arrived at my third-story walkup Airbnb over a UBreakIFix knowing nothing about Steel City except that it kept showing up on Google searches when I put in the criteria I was looking for in my new home. As I pack up and prepare to leave, I am buoyed. I am hopeful. I hold the thought that has passed through my consciousness no less than 12,000 times since I embarked on this search for the perfect couch that this-is-the-worst-idea-ever-and-that-I-will-never-feel-settled-and-at-home-again less tightly. (Catastrophize much? Why, yes. I don’t mind if I do!) Pittsburgh deserves its own installment and will get it. Suffice it to say, the bar has been set. Pittsburgh is a place where I feel comfortable without any of it being familiar. I will leave knowing I can return. Pittsburgh has provided solid ground. My heart is grateful.

I know all the iterations of Home I have experienced inform my decision of where to land next. I know what doesn’t work for my soul—ridiculous traffic, no walkability, unfriendly people, busy energy, and sky-high cost of living. I recognize somatically what does—walkable neighborhoods, a great yoga community, scruffiness, and beautiful green spaces.

Back in the 1990s, I went through a phase of reading everything by author Ursula Hegi. Her books were magic to me, especially Stones from the River. It is the story of a woman with dwarfism navigating WWI and WWII Germany who is brave in the face of immeasurable evil. The novel’s ending is ineffable. It caused my head and heart to explode because it accomplishes what great literature can—remind us of our collective humanity and connect us more deeply with ourselves and our fellow humans. I saw Ms. Hegi speak at UC Irving not long after I read her book, and someone in the audience asked the question that was on my mind, “How did you come up with that ending?”

“I rewrote it fifty times,” was her answer. I remember being incredulous. Fifty times? What? How is that even possible? My naïve, twenty-something self, who had only a sliver of life experience and was prone to quick judgment thought this was preposterous. Why would it take someone that many times to get it right? She must be doing something wrong.

Thirty years later, I understand.

She would not have been able to write that magical ending without the previous forty-nine. It took as long as it took to get there. I can assume that versions twenty-seven or forty-two were good and would have satisfied her readers and publisher, yet it would not have been what it was. Every rewrite unfolded into the next, leading her to the ending that the book needed.

The Olympics are on in the background as I write, and swimmers are posting times nobody could have imagined forty years ago. Would training techniques and times be what they are today without the pendulum swinging so far into overtraining that there needed to be a course correction? I don’t know, but I believe that iteration mattered and informed where the sport is today. Each step builds on the other, even if some of those steps suck.

I would not have known to look for a Mid-West Friendly place if I hadn’t lived in Northern MI. I would not have known how much I enjoyed four seasons if I had never left Arizona or stayed in California. I would not have had a blueprint for a neighborhood I loved were it not for my short stint in Cincinnati. I would not have known how much being in a walkable neighborhood matters if I had not experienced the opposite living in Knoxville, TN.

I have no idea what number re-write or step I am on. I am getting closer. I know that. As much as I want to put down roots, spring my stuff from storage, have a permanent address, relieve my brother of his crash pad duties, and start building my community, I feel like I am in less of a rush. I want to get it right. My four weeks in Pittsburgh have shown me what is possible. That is enough to keep me going, although there is no way I am doing this fifty times.