On Writing, Fatherhood and the Olympic Ideal

O’Hare International Airport is about as far removed from the peaceful waters of Lake Three or our quiet forest home in northern Wisconsin as any place I can imagine. Yet last week that’s exactly where we found ourselves, sitting in the waiting area of Gate C16. Our daughter, Alicia, was talking with a friend, who suddenly looked at my wife and me and asked, “How did you get past security?”

“It wasn’t easy,” I joked. Melba and I were probably the only people there not about to board United Flight 851 to Beijing, China. Alicia and a few of her friends from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point were going to Beijing as volunteers under the auspices of Community Collaborations International to help with the Olympics. I had been dreading this day for months.

When your child asks for help to volunteer at the Olympics, how do you say no? No was never an option, and yet there were times when I hoped she would change her mind, even if it meant forfeiting thousands of dollars. I am not an intrepid traveler, and Alicia had only traveled by plane once, to Orlando with her high school choir, amply chaperoned by parents and her teacher. Even then, I monitored the flights there and back on the internet, breathing a sigh of relief each time the plane safely touched down. At Gate C16, I was cheered that she had run into a few friends, that we would not be putting her on a plane entirely alone to fly halfway across the world to the most foreign of lands. I was finally beginning to relax a little.

Gate C16 was a potpourri of races, nationalities and styles of dress. Announcements prattled on in both English and Chinese. Several men clad in the bright yellow, blue and red of Colombia, with matching sport bags, were talking business-like near the entry. Immediately behind us, Gary D’Amato of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel was interviewing the family of our youngest Olympian, ten meter synchronized diver, Mary Beth Dunnichay. Of course, at the time, I only knew there was a large contingent of people wearing matching logoed sport shirts proclaiming “Mary Beth, Our Olympian,” who were being interviewed. I had a number of things on my mind. I later stumbled across Gary’s article almost by accident.

For the past several months, I had not been at all unmindful of the many reasons for discomfort sending our only daughter to Beijing. First, there was the matter of conscience, of China’s involvement in Sudan, its policies in Tibet, its human rights record. There was the threat of terrorism. There was the matter of the air pollution. I had concerns for her safety in general as an American traveling overseas. I had the usual concerns of a parent when one’s child (actually, at 21, a young woman) travels to a place where her parents could be of little assistance in case of emergency. And then there were all of my own manufactured anxieties. I did not consider putting her on a flight from Duluth to get her to O’Hare; we would take her, via Madison where we would stay quietly and cheaply with Alicia’s grandmother. Yet, I had never driven to O’Hare, and had little idea of what to expect. Our daughter did not even know from which terminal her plane would depart, much less which gate.

Our adventure had not unfolded without a few hiccups, but in the end, after waiting in many lines, a kindly woman saw fit to bend the rules slightly and give two nervous parents security passes to reunite with their daughter across the security line. We waited at C16 until the place was empty and the huge plane taxied away and out of sight with Alicia on board, and then we waited some more until we saw it roaring down the runway and out of sight again. In the mean time seeing dozens of planes flawlessly taking off and landing had soothed my throbbing nerves just a little more.

Two days later Alicia called to say they had made it safely to their apartments. There were about ten of them, and they had just gotten back from watching the spectacular opening ceremonies, which we did not watch until later that night. As that spectacular event unfolded unbelievably before my eyes, I began to remember back to the late 70’s when the Olympics had meant something special to me, when I had tried to apply my narrow vision of the Olympic Ideal to my writing.

Between jobs, with a little savings, it seemed like the time was right. I was still inspired by the ’76 Olympics of the year before. I leased a one-bedroom efficiency apartment overlooking the lower campus of the University of Wisconsin – Madison, which I liked to think of as my garret. For six months I had nothing to do but write, to see just how good of a writer I could be. I would apply the singular dedication of an Olympic athlete to the tip of my pen. This was my time.

In retrospect, it would be easy to conclude that I wasted my time. Six months of my life vaporized like a dream. Sure, I wrote, but only about three hours a day. Hardly an Olympian feat. Afternoons I read the classics, Anna Karenina, War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment. Must-reads for any aspiring novelist, I admit, but in retrospect, something of an escape from the far more difficult task of writing. I sneaked into the Natatorium a couple of days a week to lift weights, or I jogged to keep my body in shape and my mind fresh and creative, or so I told myself. Evenings I took a course in researching local history or attended readings…or sometimes I really broke training and walked downtown for a few beers. One night found me in the tepid light of The Bull Ring talking with a young black man I’d just met, and he asked me what I did. The words tumbled over my tongue. “I’m a writer.” He was amazed, euphoric even, because he said he wrote too. He said over and over that he wanted me to read some of his “shit.”

Shit. What a crude derision of one’s creative efforts, I thought. Why would I want to read shit? Back then, I was enamored of anything written in my own hand. Changing something seemed like an admission of defeat. Erasing was simply murder. I was a two-draft writer at most. What I wrote was not shit.

It was, I just didn’t know it. It took me far longer than six months to realize that. Real writers should not be afraid to write badly…and endlessly. Not to the point of developing bad habits, of course, but certainly in pursuit of the appropriate amount of humility. Just as musicians must practice their scales and just as aspiring Olympic athletes must hone their bodies, the aspiring writer must prepare himself for the seemingly endless and pointless tedium of learning his craft. He must prepare himself to throw away most of what he writes, or at least set it aside. He must prepare himself for tireless revision. He must prepare himself to write even when thoughts flee like leaves in the wind and words seem heavy as stone. He must prepare himself for few rewards. He must remember that the process of becoming a writer is not finished in six months or six years, it is the work of a lifetime.

As the colorful pyrotechnics exploded across the TV screen, thoughts were also going off in my head. When was the last time I had written a word when I didn’t feel like writing? When was the last time I had worked on a short story? Or strung words aimlessly across a page just for the sake of stringing words? When was the last time I had taken the trouble to edit something that had been waiting months or years for editing? When was the last time I had done much of anything I did not want to do? That to me was the embodiment of the Olympic Ideal, the self-sacrifice that it takes to be the best you can be at something, be it the 200-meter freestyle or writing or parenting or taking out the trash.

In the broader sense, the Olympics to me are a coming together to celebrate and share this ideal, which transcends race, religion, nationality and politics. The “Olympic truce” means far more than a guarantee of safe passage, it means the freedom of the world to come together in some small symbolic way to be just ordinary people, simple and unlabeled. I love George Will, but when he calls the Olympics a “charade of international comity” and scoffs at the IOC for holding them in a country governed by a “tyrannical” regime, he is missing the point. The Olympics and the Olympic Ideal are not about place. Did Pierre de Coubertin not say that “Olympism is a state of mind”? The Olympics are intended to transcend physical, political and ideological boundaries. Do they always? Probably not.

It’s easy to criticize the Olympics. The games are not perfect just as people are not perfect. People cheat. Judges sometimes judge unfairly. A small child lip-synchs a song. Politics stain behavior. The host country is governed by a totalitarian regime with a dismal human rights record. So do these games then serve no purpose? Only if one expects something organized on such an enormous and diverse scale to be perfect in an otherwise imperfect world. I would venture to say there are some 11,000 athletes in Beijing who believe the games serve a purpose. Do they all like each other? Do you like everyone you work with? Or everyone on your block? Out of 11,000 people there is bound to be some bad eggs. Even some who simply don’t deserve to be there.

But among 11,000 people, there will also be shining examples of courage and dedication, of sportsmanship transcending human differences. I will see people who are just plain better at being who they are than I am. That’s why I will watch and wonder and hope and be inspired. The Olympics are, perhaps, a microcosm of a world trying to get along. We’re doing it imperfectly, but most of us are trying. Like it or not, the world needs the Olympics, be they in Beijing or Chicago, because when we stop trying for and aspiring to something better, even in a small way, hope is lost.

As I continued to watch the ceremony and all its remarkable choreography (to George the subordination of individuality to the collective), it suddenly seemed so very right that part of my family was in Beijing for such a remarkable occasion. For so many months, how had I not seen that?