The Ampersand topic
this month is "Why the obsession with..." so I figured I'd be completely mundane
and obvious with this one. Besides, I'm tired of writing about the war news, the
other obvious topic - though I was reassured yesterday to hear Paul Wolfowitz, one
of the more hawkish members of the Administration, say that war will only be used
as a very last resort. If they keep remembering that, we may still be OK. It's
when they start sounding like Teddy Roosevelt in his days as Naval Secretary, when
he really thought war in itself was a Good Thing, that I get nervous. I do like
the idea of a new resolution with an actual deadline date attached. Arguing over
what's long enough is stupid -- set a real date.
Anyway, back to the
scheduled topic.
I won't write about books either, because I don't
consider them an obsession but a way of life. I read. It's what I do, other than
sleep. I read books, magazines, diaries, online articles, these entries as I type
them, technical stuff for work, emails, comics, and more books. I always think of
somethig a former coworker said about his daughter-in-law: "She sings. It's what
she does -- it's very nearly who she is." That's how I read.
Anyway,
back to the scheduled topic.
I suppose the reading thing comes from
an obsession with words in general, to the point that after coming across the word
href="http://nielsenhayden.com/electrolite/archives/002348.html#002348">"eucatastr
ophe" in the middle of yesterday, I actually looked it up in the unabridged
dictionary last night. In general I'm terrible about remembering things from one
part of the day to another, but this was a word thing so remembering was easy.
(Though as it turned out, the &^*^&% word wasn't even in the biggest dicker I
have.
Anyway, back to the scheduled topic.
Yes, the
obsession with rowing does fall below the obsession with words for me, and maybe
even below the obsession with war for politicians. But it is the one where "why?"
is a hard question. I know why I read; the benefits have been and are enormous.
I'm not quite sure why I row. It leaves me tired, sore, and less alert than i
should be. It requires me to get up well before an hour that normal people
consider obscene. It's bitter cold in winter, even in Arizona, and annoyingly hot
in summer, even at 5AM. It tears up my hands. And I'll probably never win many
races because I was just born with the wrong body for my sport. (Don't tell me
about the 5'4" woman on the Aussie National Crew, or about your 5'6" daughter
who's captain of her college eight. There's a reason they keep writing articles
calling them "the hardest working people in rowing". I have a job, quite a
responsible one. I don't have time to be the hardest working 5'2" rower anyone's
ever seen, and anyway I don't think I want to.)
So why don't I quit?
Fear, partly. I'm afraid if I quit that all the endurance and cardiovascular
fitness I've worked on so hard would fly away like a wee skylark. I don't worry
that I'd get fat (I'd probably lose weight, in fact) but losing my fitness, such
as it is, would be worse. I worry that I'd never seen Rudder. He's hoping to go to
Nationals this year (he DOES win races). If I kept a normal schedule and he kept a
rowing one, we'd never be awake at the same times. I worry that if I quit,
everyone would think I was a weenie, and by "everyone", I mostly mean, in my
solipsistic way, "me".
So what do I get out of it? That's harder. An
extended local family, some of whom annoy me even more than my real family. The
aforementioned endurance -- not a ton of it but a lot for me. The feeling of
knowing I'm good (though not fast!) at something most people can't do at all.
Sunrises over water. Another set of jargon. Something to strive for. A shared
interest with my husband. And there was my old friend the moon this morning......