Who's In?

This news from Xinhua on the Chinese gold-medal winning women's quad kept me captivated. I thought I would share. It feels like it should be presented in a big, heavy-paged fairy tale book. With gilt-edges and illuminated pages. Partly it's the poetic way the two languages meet, and partly it's the fatefulness of each person's place in life that comes across, as opposed to the individual drive of will and zeal that you get from American athletes (or reporters).

For example:

After being engaged in rowing, Jin almost had no time to spend with her family members.

    "After I entered the national team in 2003, I have had only ten days each year to spend with my family," recalled she.

and

    "We finally chose Zhang rather than Feng Guixin due to Zhang's daring spirit," said Zhou Qinian, head coach of sculling group of Chinese rowing team.

Happy olympic times, all!

My friend Iz recently told me about a camp she went to in South County, R.I. Surfing camp. Not as a kid, but now as a grown-up woman. She was so beaming with it and full of sun and heat and enthusiasm that I wanted to sign up for next year’s camp already, even though I never had a moment’s real interest in surfing heretofore.

Sounds like a totally cool operation, run by volunteers pretty much, the leader a single 43-year-old mom who does it “for karma,” and a very low fee which gets you Friday night intro and Saturday and Sunday clinic in surfing from the ground up. Chicks on Sticks is the name of the camp and the organization that puts it on, in affiliation with the Rhode Island chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, an environmental nonprofit focused on preserving oceans, waves and beaches.

This particular camp is for women only, as the name implies (though some of the instructors were men). Iz tried to capture for me some of the 40 or so women campers there: There were eight girls ages 9 to 14. Then there were a huge bunch of 40-plus-or-minus-three year-olds. And then there was Sandy who picked up surfing at 50 and has been surfing 10 years; all her vacations are to surfing destinations. One woman was an aesthetician by trade and was slathered completely with zinc oxide—“Geisha gone bad” Iz called the look.

I had Iz and her family over for dinner after her last day of camp. She was sun-, sea- and learning-drenched. “Sorry I’m not helping you,” she said as I set the table. “I just want to not move my neck for a minute.”

All that paddling and looking up, watching for a promising swell. The fast, twisting push-up of the “pop-up” from prone to standing on the board. I envied her the beautiful exhaustion.

There is always something new to be learned and tried, no?