The last time I took the track for a bout was almost a month ago. I've been grateful for the break in what has otherwise been a blistering pace this season.
Maybe I needed this time, these three long weeks, to really reconsider things. After our June bout, I felt just a little bit heartbroken about derby. Not that that's unusual - generally, people who never get a little bit heartbroken about derby aren't putting that much into it.
One of the last jams of that bout stands out to me. Our jammer was stuck in the back of the pack. Our pivot had us walling in the front. I took the outside of that wall and stuck to them like glue, holding the wall together.
That's when the voices started, and I wish I could say they were only in my head. The jammer was yelling for our help. The pivot wanted us to hold fast in the wall. One voice from the bench screamed for me to drop back. Another swore at us for not doing anything, for not fighting harder.
My brain turned roughly the consistency of uncooked eggs. We had set it out once when we argued before about who should give orders on the track - the pivot is the voice you listen to. But it's hard to listen to you when there are so many other angry voices telling you to do other things. Can you just sit and watch them pound on your jammer? Isn't it better to listen to the pivot, who presumably has the strategy that you need in mind?
Though it's hard to feel like a good player when I compare myself to some of my very talented teammates (a bad idea), I know I've come an awfully long way since I started skating. I know I've trained hard, and I know I've gotten better, even if I also know that I'm nowhere near as good as I want to be.
After that game, I was in a total funk. Our team leaders felt as though nothing had gone right in that bout. I knew it hadn't been perfect, but there were at least some of us who were trying. I wanted to regroup, logically discuss our mistakes, and move on. But I felt like a chastised Catholic schoolchild waiting to get rapped on the knuckles with a ruler.
Last week, I saw my first derby wife at open skate, along with a lot of my old teammates. People I had bouted with ten months ago looked to me like they hadn't skated in more than a year. She ignored me completely, even though she talked to everyone else, making it plain that she has always, and will always, blame me for Belles 'n' Bombshells falling apart. Bittersweet medicine, that.
I needed San Fermin in ways I didn't even know I needed it. I really wanted to go last year, but just didn't have the money to make the trip. This year, I was damn well determined that we would go, even though I knew funds would be tight (though admittedly, not as tight as they actually are).
I was nervous. I knew before we ever got out of the car on Fulton St. that it was going to be hard to skate on the New Orleans streets. Trying to hobble over cobblestones on my toe stops didn't make it much better. We got to our ambush point a little after 7 AM; the run was set to start at 8.
Somewhere around 7:30 I guess, it started to make sense. I was, quite literally, standing outside of New Orleans' World Trade Center, dressed up as a bull in skates, holding a wiffle bat, with which I was about to beat people. People were stopping on street corners to stare at us and take pictures.
Finally, whistles blew. A slew of white-clad runners streaked around the corner, some in elaborate costumes (Richard Simmons, Elvis, flamenco dancers, even a duck). And then they blew the airhorn to release the 6 BCR skaters.
I sped onto the street, screaming and menacing people with my bat. Adrenaline flooded through every part of me as I realized that people were yipping and screeching as they saw us come flying through. In the middle of the streets, I was walloping people as hard as I could with a stupid black plastic bat in a ridiculous tutu with fuzzy horns, and it was the best I had felt about skating in a long time.
Nobody on the streets cared if I missed a block. They ran like hell when they saw me. Screams of "OWWWW!" and "SHIT!" were like music to my ears. This whole thing was derby through and through - camp and cheese, and power. It's not often that women get to feel like they're making the men run from them.
I couldn't stop talking about it on the way home. I babbled nonstop about how this one event could really show a community's spirit and style, about how thankful I was to have found derby, because without it, I'd probably weigh 300 pounds and be skulking around the house miserable.
Two days from now, we'll be packing up the car to head to Nashville, where we'll play their B-team in a pick-up game that a good number of our team will not be attending, in spite of voting for having it. Our roster was down to nine before we got subs - doable, but probably miserable.
One thing I hope I can pack with me is that joy that I rediscovered in New Orleans, my favorite city, while doing my favorite thing. It's too bad there's no tangible way to pack it in the car.
The bottom line is that I know my teammates get frustrated with me. I know that sometimes I make really boneheaded moves out there on the track. But, if I'm to be honest, the three bouts I played in during my first season, I learned damn near nothing. BCR has given me the first real and dependable season I've had, and I'm trying. Dammit, I'm trying. I'm certainly not the best blocker out there, but I want this, and I love it, and I hope to god I'm not the only one who sees that in me.
This season has been hard. It's been a season that tests whether love of the sport is enough. Can loving the sport make up for all the times you screwed up and cost your team a point, or even more than that? Can loving the sport make up for the times your teammates snap at you and hurt your feelings because they're frustrated too? Can loving the sport keep you playing and trying even during a hard rebuilding year, when you know your teammates are wishing you were someone else?
Yes. It can. In spite of the negativity beast's best efforts, love of the sport triumphs. My teammates, my team, my rink, my sport, I love it all. Even if I'm a total screwup sometimes, even if I miss blocks and I can't figure out why my performance isn't what I want it to be. No matter how frustrated, I'll still be here, because of how I was reforged in that sticky New Orleans heat: my body and mind are happiest and healthiest when they're cruising around on eight wheels, in bulky pads, slamming into other women who want me out of their way. It's a lifetime commitment.
