Our Littlest Athlete

I’m in Vancouver this weekend, where signs of the impending Olympics are everywhere. Most of these signs reflecct the staggering security budget: helicopters buzz overhead and rigid-hull inflatables zip along the waters in Coal Harbour. As well, we’re all supposed to be “practicing”for traffic challenges, and although the last several weeks haven’t changed commuting habits as much as planners had hoped, the more persuasive lane closures, detours, and no-stopping areas –and the resultant traffic snarls — may yet coax folks out of their cars and into buses and SkyTrains.

More celebratory changes are noticeable as well. The most obvious to us would have to be the bank of searchlights installed at the waterfront just a block below us. About eight lights on this side of False Creek and another eight across the water meet in the skies above to sweep patterns in the clouds. Our apartment faces away from these, but I wonder what the nuisance factor is for those who live with the searchlights in their livingrooms. Still, walking back across the Burrard bridge last night, I had to admit they lend something of a party atmosphere to an already beautiful part of the city.

And soon the party will begin. Athletes are already here, scattered about the city and even over on Vancouver Island, working out in whatever facilities they’ve arranged, and the spectators and journalists are beginning to arrive as well.

But for our family, the most important athletics happened Friday evening, and centred around a milestone event for one little girl:

After a pyrogy dinner (best price ever $11 for a huge plate of pyrogies, cabbage rolls, and Ukrainian sausages) at the local Catholic church hall, run by the Ukrainian Ladies, we went back to our daughter and SIL’s place nearby. Bronwen had suffered some office politics all week, so we picked up a couple of bottles of Masi Compofiorin to help commiserate. Nola, who had chowed down a surprising stack of pyrogies, was changed into her pjs and was motoring around on hands and knees enjoying her audience. Persuaded to show us a few steps as a new walker, she quickly noted that we clapped for her. She liked that. She got up and took a few more steps. We clapped again. She liked that even more.

Then, for at least ten minutes, the girl could not be stopped! Either pushing herself up to a wide-legged stance and staggering towards a likely target, or getting someone to help her balance before launching, she would then move right across the room at close to running speed. Each foray took ten to fifteen steps, and most of them featured an increasingly precarious gait. In fact, we would have been more worried if we weren’t so busy applauding with each finish.

And is this girl ready for the podium?! Oh yes! Not only was she a glutton for our applause, but she began clapping for herself as well. Never having taken more than five or six steps consecutively before Friday, she made crossing after crossing, grinning broadly, flashing her gorgeously gap-toothed smile, each time finishing by clapping happily for herself, barely balanced on wobbly legs.

And her dad said something wonderful: “I wish she’d always do that.” I think when he said it, he originally meant just that it was such fun to watch that he hoped she’d keep up the clapping after walking. But it seemed to change in the saying, change to a wish that his daughter might always be pleased with her accomplishments. Of course, while it became a richer wish in that bigger hope, it also became tinged by the parental knowledge that Nola would certainly suffer the same self-doubts as the rest of us, that there would be times that the world might knock her down. But it also made of that cheering room a little world in which she could learn to cheer herself on among folks who love her.

As I said, that was our Olympic moment, right then, right there.

Funny. I’ve raised four children into wonderful adults, watched all four take their first steps, and I’ve tucked away some precious moments from each little one’s life. Before that my parents and Pater’s raised our many siblings, and their parents before that. None of us could ever find those steps old-hat, though. They’re thrilling no matter how many times we’ve seen them happen, no matter that all the billions of walking humans on this earth have already taken them, even no matter that they will start a little person walking into challenges we’d love to protect them from forever. Indeed, given the challenges that accompany those first steps, I’d say it’s no wonder we want to look to athletes for an illusion that control and discipline and ambition can help us go Higher, Faster, and Stronger. As if that might be enough. . .