Special

I spent a couple of hours tonight coaching a Special Olympics athlete in a little sailboat, and it was pretty cool. I'm not really down with the euphemistic co-opting of the word "special" to mean "mentally disabled" but there was something pretty special about the evening. It was just the two of us on this boat, a tippy and zippy little dinghy, and I gave her the tiller and moved around trimming sails and balancing the boat and directing her where to go. It was a beautiful night, warm and with a nice breeze. The harbor was busy -- lots of ferries and big cruisers and fishing boats and pleasure craft going by, kicking up some big choppy waves. But we managed to race four races, and she drove all of them, concentrating pretty hard. I had a great time. It was like college -- in college, I could be completely worn out and stressed about my classwork and unhappy about some boy or other, and then step onto a sailboat and leave everything behind. Tonight, for the two hours I was in the boat coaching Bambi, I was completely present and focused on her, and the conditions, and the boat, and getting us safely and quickly around the racecourse, in a way that would make her feel good. She wasn't very emotive or expressive, or I wasn't very able to read her emotions, but from time to time she would exclaim with delight when the wind came up or we went through some waves. I think she dug it almost as much as I did. It was a pretty wonderful way to spend the evening.

Comments

it sounds like a great way to have spent an evening.