Beginnings

Assignment: Beginnings are important. When we begin something new, the element of the unknown can be exciting, scary, exhilarating, and nerve wracking all at the same time.Write about a memorable beginning. Try to capture how you felt.  You may write in either the first person or third person, but it needs to be about something you have experienced.


The ring wound round and round. Back and forth. Off and on. Round and round.
Her knee went up and down. Up and down. Up and down.
The people sitting on the same bleachers as she went up and down and moved way around both up and down.

"Are you nervous?" Her confident sophomore teammate's voice interrupted her ring's round and round just as her ring's round and round went from one piece to two pieces. She held up her broken ring, nodding her head and sending a silent plea through her eyes for some reassuring words.  "Don't worry, you'll be fine. Once you start playing it won't matter."
The girl with the broken ring wanted to believe her, but her knee kept going up and down, scaring off anyone else from that vibrating row.

"Erika, don't worry about it; the hardest thing is not tripping when they announce your name; you are coordinated and amazing."
But the thing was Erika really wasn't that coordinated or confident or amazing; she simply did things to the best of her ability.  Sometimes she was coordinated and confident and amazing, but so many other times she was klutzy and diffident and faltering.  And they were in Hazen.  Hazen, North Dakota. A town that had always been towards the top in everything. They didn't seem to be always winning everything, but they were consistently winning. They were as Class A as Class B seemed to allow. Home of the Bison. Home of a grand gym that she did not feel adequate to play in.

She sat watching the first half of the C-squad game, remembering the few games she had played with them.
She sat watching her fellow classmates and those a class above her.
The clock announced the start of the third quarter. Same old, comfortable old.
The clock announced the start of the fourth quarter. Not-so-same new, not-so-comfortable new.
She did not leave her seat.
She did not go to the locker room to change into her new shiny uniform.
She watched the dull uniforms play out the rest of the game.
The dull uniforms fit her style much better. She liked her dull uniform on her, but her coaches did not.

“Erika, can we see you in my classroom after practice.” Erika nodded her head and followed her coach’s instructions.
The high school classroom seemed oddly dead without any students or basketball players watching film.
“Erika, we’ve been very pleased with your performance on the B-squad and uhh,” her coach went into his deep-thinking posture: the left arm across his stomach, the right elbow resting on the left hand in order to support the right hand’s need to be holding his chin. “We’ve been thinking about moving you up to varsity. What do you think about that?”

What did she think? She thought she was scared. Actually, she knew quite vehemently she was scared. Her comfort zone was being trespassed against, and she did not like it. She did not like it in the least. Why would they want her to play when the most people were watching? Why would they want her to play when the other teams' best players were playing? Why would they want her? Weren’t there other girls on the team that weren’t on varsity that were better than she?

She knew her eyes were projecting the cliché “deer-in-the-headlights-please-don’t-hit-me-with-this” look. Her voice managed to weakly project something as well: “I, uh, don’t really, um, want to be on varsity. [awkward pause where she looked down at her toes] I, um, really like playing on the B-squad.”
“Well, you would still be playing on the B-squad, but, uh, you just wouldn’t be playing on the C-squad and would be playing a few varsity minutes.”
She shook her head and intensified the “deer-in-the-headlights-please-don’t-hit-me-with-this” look.
“Why don’t you like this idea?” her coach queried.
“Isn’t it obvious,” she thought and wanted to say, but instead found her mouth producing these words: “I don’t know. I...I...just don’t.”
“Well, think about it.” She turned and exited the classroom, the hallway, and then the school. She wanted this thought to exit her brain as well, but that was one thing she could not leave.

Four days later basketball practice ended with the death of her dull jersey.She had liked her dull jersey on her, but her coaches had not.

Four weeks later she found herself sitting watching the fourth quarter of the C-squad game with a broken ring in her hand.

She watched the first and second quarters of the B-squad game and wanted to be sitting across the gym with her dull jersey on. Actually, she didn’t really want to be sitting at all. The baskets were talking to her: “Come make my nets sing now. What are you doing with your dress clothes on?” She had never experienced this phenomenon of talking nets which her father had claimed so often to experience upon entering any gym. She couldn’t decide if she liked the talking nets.

Two minutes into the third quarter of the B-game, she stopped sitting. She started walking and then changing and then strategizing and then running and then shooting and  then passing and then stealing and then intermittently sitting. They lost. It was expected. They were a young team, and their only senior was out with an injured knee. That injured knee was why Erika had a shaking knee. A knee that would continue to shake even after the experience of sitting through the first two quarters of a B-game became a regular occurrence.

When she arrived at school on Monday, her seventh grade neighbor eagerly proclaimed the news she had been bursting at the seams with: “I heard your name announced on the radio for the starting line-up." In her best radio announcer voice she imitated,  "Erika Dyk, an eighth grader! You could just tell the announcer was surprised you were only an eighth grader, and I was sooooo proud of you! Just think, you started in the varsity game! Ah! I told everyone that you were my neighbor!”

Nine years later Erika walked into a classroom just across the road from where she had broken a ring during the fourth quarter of C-game. Hazen Middle School. Room 208. A first year teacher who was too swamped with details to have time to let her knee shake.She was too busy getting her room ready and then walking to the printer in the office and then changing the look of her room and then strategizing learning opportunities and then running through the crevices in her brain for ideas and then shooting paper through the copier and then passing new people in the hallways and then intermittently sitting and just soaking it in. This time in Hazen (home of the Bison; home of a grand gym that she still thought she was not adequate enough to play in) she was not sitting on the bleachers destined to be rocking to the cadence of her knee nor wearing a ring that was destined to be broken.  This time in Hazen she was more prepared.  Prepared to start her game on her terms, not the coaches.  She even had some shiny new uniforms with which to start this game.

Two days before she was to meet all her students, she was meeting the copier and becoming acquainted with it. The veteran math teacher stopped her with a question: “So are you ready for this?” His no-nonsense tone was lost to her busy mind.

“I think so. I am ready to get started!” Her positive tone must have sounded a little naïve, a little over-confident, and a little too eager.

“This is not student teaching. This is the real deal.” His serious tone sounded a little more important, a little more experienced, and a little more realistic.

A wave of apprehension washed across the shores of her stomach. Was she ready? Was she really ready? She thought so, but why was she qualified to teach reading and writing to these students who were treading through tumultuous beginnings as well? Erika pushed the thought deep into one of her brain's crevices as she had to keep preparing for her upcoming start.

Two days later she was ten minutes from the bell signaling her official start. No sports announcer or radio broadcaster would be commenting on this start to his audience.  No big crowd of people had congregated to see her make her debut in this starting lineup. No broken ring, no bouncing knee. But a familiar feeling of new beginnings crept into her stomach. Then she remembered those words, "Don't worry, you'll be fine. Once you start playing it won't matter."

So when that bell rang and the ball was thrown into the air, she tipped it into her court and started playing the game.  This time in Hazen she didn't lose.  She hadn't been expected to lose like the last time she started in Hazen, but she didn't think she had been expected to win either.  As a first time starter, no one really knew what to expect, including herself. The final score has yet to be determined, but in this game winning is defined a little differently. Each day where something is learned, a new concept applied, and a mind is engaged in thinking is a win.  Each day where a student gains confidence, finds his or her voice, and discovers they can do it is a win. Each day where a teacher learns from a mistake, stumbles upon a great teaching idea, and connects with his or her students is a win. And so the season continues. Each day is a new game, each quarter is a new game, and each year is a new game. And each game she plays to the best of her ability.