Maquinna's Poop du Jour

I Kick Ass

Sometimes I find compliments very uncomfortable things to hear. Two incidents over the past few days have given me that little squirmy feeling in my gut, although recognizing it the first time did help make it a little more palatable the second time.

Several of my photography classmates and I were out on the Esplanade in Boston on Saturday, in very oppressive muggy heat, documenting the 'Backyard Festival' sponsored by the Life is Good company in support of Project Joy, a charity that helps children who have had to deal with trauma. After shooting for awhile the coordinator said to me, very sincerely, that she had been watching me shooting and thought I was a natural for that kind of work.

It felt really weird hearing that - probably because I really do want to be good and part of me wants to think I'm getting there, but another part tends to despair at how much I have yet to learn and I wonder if I'll ever be good enough. So, my reaction was to laugh and stick my tongue out at her. I immediately realized that that was really not an appropriate response to what was honestly meant as completely unsolicited encouragement, so I backed up and told her thanks, and that I just don't seem to take compliments well.

This morning I was back at boot camp. The humidity was still so thick in the air I felt as though I hadn't been clean in a week - and after an hour of sweating through interval training, running, calisthenics, and ab exercises, while wearing a glistening patina of Deep Woods Off and then rolling around on an asphalt tennis court covered in fine sand, pollen and other debris, I don't think I could have possibly felt more disgusting. That, however, is besides the point (but something I felt you should hear, just so you could picture it).

The routine at boot camp is pretty straightforward, although the actual exercises vary from day to day. Always, we begin with a warm-up that includes some stretching and getting the heart rate up, and then we are told to run a short distance - probably no more than a quarter mile - before starting on the actual exercises of the day. Last week I wasn't able to make it the whole run without stopping at some point, so when Sargeant Alexis announced this morning that we were going to run even further than usual, my eyes mentally rolled into the back of my skull knowing it would be very difficult for me to do it. Somehow, though, I found the energy or the will or *something*, and I powered through the entire run - extra 50 meters or so and all - and made it all the way back without stopping. I was so proud of myself!

Later through boot camp we were doing interval training, where we had to run different distances, pick up cones, bring them back, take them out, run back, etc. And I was totally busting my ass. We were split into two teams doing this and it turned out that I was going to be the last person in my rotation to go through the course, against the other team, who had been ahead of us the whole way. Their last runner thought, I guess, that they had a long enough lead so she slowed down and started walking towards the finish. And for some weird reason, I looked over and saw her relax, and kicked myself into a sprint and beat her. Un-frickin-believable.

As I was getting ready to leave after we were done for the morning, Sargeant Erica came over and looked at me with kind of a weird expression on her face (shock and awe?) and said "You were really kicking butt out there today!" And again, it felt very weird to have someone notice that AND say something about it. But like the windedness, I fought it off enough to just say thanks and take the comment graciously. I see this is a learned skill.

Robertson Davies, who some would call the grandfather of Canadian literature, once remarked, when asked about the expression of the 'Canadian soul' in comparison to the 'souls' expressed by other countries, that 'telling Canada it has a soul is like telling a rather stupid and unsophisticated girl that she is beautiful - she just laughs at you and kicks you in the shins.' I used to snicker knowingly at that comment, because if you're Canadian you know it really is dead on. Now, though, it feels rather strange realizing that there's a lot of that girl in me.

posted by Maquinna @ 12:01 p.m.