7:15AM
My alarm goes off. I wake up my roommate. Turn off the alarm. My room is illuminated by the lights hanging on my wall. The vans leave for practice at 8. I’ve got time.
7:35AM
I wake up, realizing that I’ve accidentally dozed off again. I reason with myself. Going to sleep late last night grants me a couple more snooze minutes.
7:40AM
My window is propped slightly open, but the cold air coming in keeps me from closing it. Anyway, it’s warm in my blankets, so I stay put. I look outside my window to Webster Circle and admire the green trees, knowing that autumn will soon work its magic and beauty on them. The sky drapes above them like a muslin sheet that has lost its whiteness over the years of use, but still it provides the perfect lighting for a photo shoot.
7:51AM
Okay, I should probably get up now. I have spent the last minute thinking about what workout gear I should dress myself in. I throw on clothes and two jackets. And then I decide to wear flip flops because wearing rainboots to practice yesterday was not only a bad idea, but it also resulted in disgustingly soggy socks.
7:59AM
I run out of my room, my dorm, and into the encompassing morning fog. I’m panicking because I imagine the empty road where the white crew vans were 30 seconds before I arrived. The campus is ghost-like, empty. I pass by one person who seems to be on their way to the dining hall. Oh, breakfast. No time for breakfast.
8:04AM
I continue running toward the pick-up location, straining my neck to catch a glimpse of the reassuring white van. I repeat a million apologies in my head as I ask, “Is there space in the car?” and continue silently apologizing as I join the company of three. We wait another minute before I am reminded of the blankets in my room as the car’s heaters start warming us up.
8:19AM
We arrive at the boathouse. Again, I have to rip myself apart from the warmth and toss myself into the uncomfortable wetness. As the novices assemble ourselves, we quickly realize that we’re missing our coxswain, which means that one of the rowers will have to cox today.
8:21AM
I step up to the task and step into the supersuit. (I still have no idea what strange motivation pushed me to volunteering myself, but here I go.) Immediately after exposing my intentions to cox, I am filled with regret-tinged excitement. As a coxswain, I will be in charge of the women in my boat. But this morning slapped me in the face as I realized that I have taken my coxswains for granted.
A VERY VERY VERY SIMPLIFIED LIST OF LESSONS LEARNED
As a rower, following commands can be tricky enough.
As a coxswain, giving commands is even trickier.
I “guided” my boat (G&A) out to dock, and everything was going so smoothly. No one was crying yet and I hadn’t tripped over anything, so I felt like I had control over this situation. That illusion shattered the moment we put the boat in the water, stern in the front, or, in other words, backwards.
As a rower, my hands were cold and my face was wet.
As a coxswain, everything above AND I couldn’t think clearly under the pressure.
Trying to steer the boat, I asked the wrong people to row. Thankfully, my teammates were a cooperative and awesome group of gals, but I was just a not-so-awesome coxswain for them. After struggling to count backwards multiple times, I would ask Rowers 1 and 3 to give me a couple strokes and then realize that 2 and 4 would have turned us the right direction.
As a (novice) rower, I could take breaks as other rowers practiced their techniques.
As a coxswain, no such thing as break.
I was stressed, no doubt about it. I wanted to cope with stress by removing myself from the situation, but where would I go? Into the Connecticut River? Ignore the coach’s pressing orders? Deny the fact that our boat was going to collide with someone else’s?
As a rower, my body repeated the same motion over and over, making adjustments as others instructed.
As a coxswain, I had to judge four motions at the same time and give instructions for the adjustments.
No description here is necessary. It was a mess.
On typical practice days, I didn’t want to stop rowing and bringing the boat closer to the dock meant that practice was coming to an end. But that was the exact case today. Even though docking left me anxious, the eight rowers and I were all so happy to dock. We walked the boat back into the boathouse – the right direction this time. Thinking back to it, the entire incident was pretty funny. We came back on campus, and the rowers were so accepting and understanding of my shortcomings. I cannot thank them enough. Who knew that this gloomy morning would mark another milestone in my life as my first day coxing? I can only hope that, even after all the embarrassing mistakes today, people will still let me cox for them.