gravity

I can remember idly wondering - in one of those short-lived, under-appreciated, pre-adolescent summer spells where "boredom" is an imagined risk, and "idle" is an actual state - if my affection for cemeteries meant I was morbid or otherwise "not right."

I would ride my bike from my grandparent's farm "all the way" to the cemetery up the road. The bike had been my mother's, or possibly belonged to a cousin who had long since moved on to other things. Grandpa and I painted it. With Rustoleum from the hardware store. A sort of semi-matte orange that showed every paintbrush stroke. He bought me a red banana seat with the deeply imbedded sparkles that seem an inverse 3-D - a sparkly depth that goes on for iridescent ever in the bright sun of Connecticut July.

I pedalled uphill to that place and was alone in a way that felt specifically mine. Not the alone that comes from sibling abandonment, or friends being thousands of miles away (our home was South, our summers were North), but the first glimpses of Alone that you choose. I would pull tangles of weeds away from some headstones.

I would wander those stones, read them. I would parse through the dates, do the math. Find some from 18-so-and-so and some, if memory serves, from 17-something. I would imagine their stories, their long-ago-lives of simplicity and unimaginable complexity - some cut short by war, commemorated by tiny flags.

When Grandpa died, I couldn't understand why his graveyard was one we had to drive to. Why it was so golfcourse-like. Grandma would bring flowers from her gardens, tend others she had planted. She would say a rosary. The honoring felt different with someone I knew - with the gravity (pun, perhaps,unavoidable) of the situation infusing those occasions with an awkwardness. I wanted to visit alone, and I wanted not to intrude.

Gavin, who has an abstract comfort with death that both a love of history and his own veteran status afford, shares my affection for cemeteries. On vacations, we visit them. He reads the headstones, looking for the oldest, the best epitaphs, the largest families buried together, the most interesting names.

We have visited his grandfather's, who had fought the good fight, finished the race (2 Timothy 4:7). We have spent hours in cemeteries in Scotland, in France. We have driven out of our way in wanderings to chase them down. We hiked barely marked paths in a National Park on spring break to find ancestral graves (and found them). And, alone in Vancouver, I caught the first glimpse of majestic mountains by veering off-course in my walk from work to my motel - through a beautiful cemetery.

Here, we live near one of Atlanta's grander 'memorial gardens.' I run there. 100+ acres, with an unparalleled view of the city. Its highest point marked by a marble couple, forever looking ever higher, with the city scape directly beneath them.

In spring, the real plants,those that threaten to overtake were it not for the constant attention of caretakers, flower. All senses are engaged as I pant along on my gimp foot, assaulted by pollen, confronted all sides by Death, and wisteria, roses, and later in the season, magnolias, all on the edges, trying to break in. And in the middle, acres of rolling manicured lawns. And the dusty, sad cheer of row upon row of fake flowers.

Aside from the occasional long-ago-planted oak, the lawns are free of actual plant life. Plastic flowers weather in vases cleverly constructed as part of the headstones. And yet, everywhere there are spigots - presumably to help you in your grave-tending.

I have had little contact with death, and have just enough religion / spirituality to say with some conviction that I do believe it hardest on the living. The serenity and beauty of the graveyards is there for them. I don't know for whom the plastic flowers fade.

I have been to funerals and their wakes - a scant eight over my lifetime, if I am counting correctly. I have seen passion and poetry, reverence and reverie, even dancing, toasts, and silver goblets. I have also witnessed air deader than the person being so respected. And at all, the coffins seemed universally ill-suited to the task. (Please. No embalming for me. If anyone's asking.)

My sister the brilliant poet wrote, while in high school, a poem about mortality to honor my (still living, at the time) grandmother that started "..'please don't put plastic flowers on my grave, ' she said. And I, unthinkingly, agreed."

Thinkingly, decades later, I agree as well - fervently, rabidly. But from wherever I am, I bet I would love a spot in a graveyard - a bench, maybe, to honor my life. Some wisteria - uncontrolled and unruly - and a few words well-chosen and carved on something more permanent than I, in a nice font.

Grow

It is spring. My favorite time of the year. Last posts were spring, too - but on the cusp of newness. Now we are in it. In Atlanta, spring is an explosion of color. Everything is in bloom at once,

and you can see pollen dancing in the sunbeam that warms the cat.

I plant things, and wonder how to do it more effectively. It is all mysterious to me - even from long lines of gardeners and farmers on both sides of my family. I like that things grow. I want to help them along... but I get distracted.

I wander the yard in no real pattern. Probably in dress clothes from a rare outing outside the house. I pull things up and then remember I own gloves and I should wear them. I yank at other things and remember I have a tool for that. I go to get the tool and see that the garage is a mess. I tackle the clutter, put the tools down on the cedar chest I really must move out of the garage and go inside to change. Whereupon I see laundry. And fold it.

Patrick commented yesterday on the grass. "It's so pretty, Momma! I love it! We have the only grass with little tiny flowers!" Today we mowed, in response.

I tried to explain to him how we distinguish weeds from desirable plants and it made no sense to him. The deeper I dove into the topic, the more it felt fascist - pulling up dandelions and clover and pretty little white flowering things with no known name. I couldn't explain myself.

When we walk to school this time of year, my favorite yards are the yards at the edges of our neighborhood. They have thousands of matured, multiplying daffodils - but also the plants of my youth. Memories emerge of lazy spring days making "salad" of dandelion leaves, violets, sour clovers, and chives. I don't recall if we ever ate the salads, but my older sister spent one spring obsessively making violet jelly from Yule Gibbons' book. She was 11 or 12 and already achieving things that never occurred to the rest of us.

Most of the yard owners manicure all that away. They trim out the magic, leave the expected - tidy and trim. Colors in controlled bursts. Flowers you are most certainly not meant to eat.

The children burst out of the house with this weather - God's weather. The sun is bright, but the air is never oppressive. People emerge to drink on their porches in the evenings, to walk the neighborhood - to generously imagine everyone is a friend.

Annabeth turns 8 next month. Something close to 1/6th my age - though it feels, in some ways, that I have known her forever. I have known her for her forever - a world where she imagines she can remember when she was "little." Spring is the right time for her, sunshine and optimism on her better days.

She received an award this week. Arts Laureate, representing the first grade in the arts assembly. She was so proud to wear the dress her grandmother made, so proud to receive an award for what is certainly the Most Important Thing. She sees patterns everywhere, comments on the color of weathered buildings. We see the artist's temperament at times, but we saw something so proud, so grown-up when she strode across the stage wearing her medal - the tallest child until the fifth grader at the end.

I turn 42 tomorrow. A weird number. It sounds sensible, established. Far more of either of those things than I am - with my charmingly weedy yard and children flung across the neighborhood. But twice 21, and certainly twice as smart as I was at that number. Which is something. And... it is spring. This will be a good year.

Commence

This buzz of a few months - where Christmas ended and suddenly it's almost April - so much busy-ness I've ceased having complete thoughts. (And have taken to losing things in my own home.)

Vancouver saw an early spring. The cruel joke of Winter Olympics - when I left Atlanta in the south's version of a snow storm, and arrived in British Columbia to record highs and the greenest grass I'd seen all winter. It was magic, there - how misty days would run together and you would find yourself deep in the belly of a cloud. The cloud would lift and - surprise! - you would be surrounded by spectacular mountains, scenery invisible to you the day before.

While there, my workmate and new friend, Heather, planned wedding bits from afar. I grilled her for details, and marveled a little at the different aspects of our lives we weave together - work here, wedding and family there.

I returned after six weeks away and, in something of a haze, for three days unpacked and did laundry and packed again. We went on Spring Break. Here, too early for such a break - Blue Ridge foothills where nowhere near as green as the foothills of what I believe is the Cascades. It was beautiful, though - with a daily dose of stunning waterfalls and streams.

On our first day out, we went to Chimney Rock, and witnessed a marriage proposal. The couple was buoyant, beaming, young. The boy had a rock carved with "will you marry me..." on it, had placed the rock in among the other flat stones of the observation deck. We took pictures.

The third day out - it happened again! We were in a National Park this time - looking down at a waterfall - and a guy came running up to us. "Could you help me with something really cool? I am about to propose to my girlfriend down there

- could you take my camera and get some pictures?" Fantastic. Of course we could. It is, apparently, What We Do.

We came home and, in something of a haze, for three days unpacked and did laundry and packed again for a wedding in Florida. We all went - the whole fam.

The kids hadn't been to one before, and this was in the Ocala National Forest. An old friend of mine was getting married - my high school prom date, in fact - and my godson's mom / daughter's godfather's wife officiated. My oldest and dearest friend, Tica, lives nearby and we would host a party together Thursday (something I would never do on my own...)

I am in love at weddings. I never love my life, Gavin, or friends and family present, more. Weddings, in almost any form, make me giddy.

There were days of activities - great food (all prepared by the bride and groom and presumably, many elves), cocktails and dancing and spanish moss and bluegrass and sunshine. Friends from long ago- still themselves, all still versions of who they were 20+ years back. From the Cuban sandwiches Thursday night to setting the pitch via pitch pipe for Amy's rehearsal Saturday morning to playing with my godson and twin Sunday afternoon (while possibly hungover)... A perfect weekend, bracketed by rain that never fell on any of it.

I kept being struck by all the work we put into Beginning. All the attention paid to Starting. For our wedding 13 years ago, I only knew there would be a mass, and I wanted friends and family accounted for, people from different stages of each of our lives in one place. I wanted to count heads and feel love and dance to great music. I wanted the accountability of an audience. With a couple of gin and tonics and dancing after.

At weddings - Andy and Todd last year, Bill and Gia this - there is so much optimism. So much promise and enthusiasm and prayers both spiritual and secular. Everything changes, right there. And yet nothing does, really. Denise officiated, and we watched, and I thought, wow. So much has been bestowed upon her. Bill and Gia wrote their own vows. And they stood there - and they promised. And by the power invested in her, Denise pronounced and introduced.

Spring has sprung, beginnings have begun. Let's get started.

Losing

Last night, Annabeth lost two teeth. (Five minutes after this photo was taken, she pulled the second one.)

To say she 'lost' them is to put a rosy and passive blush onto what was surely an active (and, to judge from the blood loss, somewhat violent) extraction. They were very loose. And she wanted them out. She is almost 8 - and it is a rite of passage she was starting to fear was passing her by entirely. We assisted, at her request, in helping her narrowly dodge that fate.

Her tiny teeth were collected by a fairy. Prior to that offering, I held them up to my teeth. They were a quarter the size. I cannot imagine the her that will emerge with her new giant teeth. How it will change her face. Her between-grins-grin will smile gummily from First Communion photos next month, and from atop her sparkly leotard in her annual gymnastics recital. There is a sweetness in the toothlessness, the loss of baby that exits with the milk teeth.

I remember lost teeth. A palpable loss. You can stick your tongue where there had been a tooth and the raw, yielding gums around space are at once fascinating and somewhat horrifying. You admire your freakish toothless appearance - and, if you are me (which I know for certain you are not. But hear me out...) you are plagued with a lifetime's supply of nightmares and anxiety dreams that perfectly replicate that tongue-to-gap differentness.

Other losses tend to be less tangible. Something was here, now it's gone - and maybe something will replace it. I missed, oddly, babies in my belly for the first weeks after each was born. They seemed safer there. I miss places I've moved from, people that used to be in my life. The memories are foggy, though. There is no muscle memory that can replicate my grandfather's giant hand - with leathery back, crooked strong fingers, and calloused palms; the smell of the ocean after hours at the end of a hot day; the first voices of each of my children.

I lost my job. I can't even grasp that one yet. And I really, truly care so much less than I am supposed to. I know I should look. But at the moment, I am so grateful for the spaces in which I can organize other spaces. I like this in-between place, with no clear sense of what is next. Oddly, I am afraid I like it a bit much.

Yesterday, I had jury duty - which I approach with the heavy sense of responsibility - a Pollyanna-ish belief that this is my Duty. That this is Democracy. Jobless, it was no hardship. I thought of Denise, who is a judge. Robin and Agatha who work for judges. I served, though I was never called. Six hours later, I got up from my seat and left Gavin's Kindle behind. A new toy I was just getting used to, a novel I had 18% completed (per the measure below and to the left of the text.) Gone.

On the way home, Gav called me. Oblivious, as yet, to the missing Kindle, he was warning me about the drive - which route to take. Atlanta traffic, the hassle of here-to-there - the plotting of alternatives. And then? I never saw my phone again. It's here. Though I have torn apart the car, the couch, the garage, bookshelves. I have offered cash prizes to household members. And I can't believe I am being kept from several active Scrabble games.

The organized, fantasy me would have one spot for all those baby teeth. They would be labled with dates. They would be in tiny pill bottles, specific to each child. That me would never leave a Kindle behind, would know where my phone is, would have current calendars up and would have begun the real spring cleaning I vaguely imagine. That me would have a fat savings account from years of careful attention. That me would be called on that phone by friends who would say "wow! I don't know how you stay so organized! So disciplined! You make it look so easy!"

This me needs to look for the phone, get the job, replace the Kindle, do the laundry, make the new calendars and get started with dinner. And every bit of it is much easier than I will manage to make it look. (Well, except for the job bit. But I can blame the economy for that one.)

So. Annabeth lost teeth. I lost, a few weeks back, a consistent paycheck. Yesterday I lost a Kindle. And an iPhone.

Tomorrow, I think I will work on gaining.

Airborne

With apologies to Jason Reitman, "up in the air" is a metaphor I really need right now. For some of the same the reasons it worked so well in his movie.

I have flown for long stretches over the last six weeks. And flying - as a layman with absolutely no understanding of aeronautical engineering - requires a leap of faith for me. I think "how do it do this?" Relying, as I am, on a giant tin can to hurtle me above the earth at unfathomable speeds. Trusting, as I do, that it's ok to have the clouds under me, that the hard earth below will receive me gently - delivered by metal wings, guided by a man in a uniform, festooned with medals, about whom I know nothing.

Up in the air. When you are between destinations. When you rely on fate or luck or planning - or the convergence of all these and timing - to get you from where you are to where you will be. When the where you will be is indeterminate, or the path to it is unclear.

I trusted the planes, and I was delivered - to a job that ended, to a past career that warranted re-visiting. To home again, twice.

The plane landed and I am home, but I am still up there - a little ungrounded.

I don't know what comes next.

I closed a door, definitively. Four weeks later, I am returning home to job hunt. And learned, in the Salt Lake City Airport during the 45-minute layover, that my thumb drive that included my last invoice to that other job was destroyed. That all my writing samples from that other job were also irrevocably corrupted.

Six weeks elsewhere, and returning to motherhood and reality, I learned that the spreadsheet that defined how I am to distribute 55 boxes of Girl Scout cookies is also quite gone. And I have no idea what it said, because I was between places when I created it.

In the Salt Lake airport, I didn't quite cry. But tears sprung to my eyes and I talked myself down. Questioning, at once, my organizational skills both maternal and professional, I swiped my eyes, swallowed the growing lump, and embarked the plane.

I settled in, somehow, next to a race car driver. In his sixties, on his way to Jackson, Mississippi to race a car.

I have never talked with someone before, on a plane.

For five hours, the charming Brit and I looked at our separate lives through common interests, common sensibilities. David (his name, learned just before wheels touched down) is a farmer mechanic, as was my grandfather. A grower of things, a builder of race cars, a flyer of planes, a sailer of boats. He is a father, a grandfather. He is stationary, on his island - and he is the most mobile of mobiles - building and racing cars - having returned to this version of himself at 60 after a 30-year hiatus.

He told a story, my flight mate. Of a fisherman.

The fisherman is casting his line when he is approached by a banker.

"Why not hire some laborers to fish for you? You get a cut of what they bring in. The more you hire, the more you collect. Eventually, you won't have to do any of the work. They will do it for you. Money will roll in. You can retire. "

"But what would I do?," replied the fisherman, curious.

"Well, then you would have all the time in the world to spend at the beach. Fishing," replied the businessman.

"Ah. And how is that different from what I do... now..?"

For now, I will enjoy a little inflicted-upon-me leisure time. I will count my ducks, go on Spring Break, and enjoy my children without a corporate-mandated to do list hanging in the wings. I will look for work - and I will try to remember these past weeks - filled with some of what I love and some of what I loathe, some of what fits, and some of what doesn't. I will try to know something of what I want before I begin the chase.

I may even fish.

Gold

We are in the medal rounds for curling.

"We" meaning those of us here at Hillcrest. The curling venue. In Vancouver. We will miss it.

Heather, my co-manager (with her optimism, drive, and consistently sunny disposition) would be an instant friend in any circumstance.

We came into this the same way: we knew nothing about curling. We had no idea what our roles in Vancouver would be before we got here. We didn't know each other.

We got lucky. We have exceptional volunteers and solid, enthusiastic management. In retrospect and story value, nothing will beat the motel we called home for 18 days - affectionately refered to as the Bates Motel. For it's nerdy appeal, relative obscurity, later-in-life award potential, and inherent weirdness - the sport has won us over. And we had, by many reports, one of the smoothest venues going, curbside.

I now know that Canada, China, Sweden, Switzerland and Norway are especially good curlers. I know that "stones" are slid across "sheets" toward the "house." There is a crazy amount of strategy involved, and there are also brooms.

I hear that competitors and fans alike drink a lot of beer (though my only proof is post-event stumbling spectators, looking for their buses) and, apparently, they wear magic shoes - that are slidy or grippy at whim.

Outside the sport, I learned, or was reminded of, other things:

1. A toque is a knit hat. It is pronounced "tooook." I like this word. I will use it.

2. A uniform is like playing dress-up. You put it on, and all the sudden you are like those animals in Richard Scary's Busytown. Others have some notional idea of what you do all day. You are part of a larger whole. In the tribe. And when you are done with work, you can physically slough your day, change into civvies of your chosing.

3. There are a lot of Canadians in Vancouver. I was briefly stunned by the number of Canadian flags flying outside windows in condos downtown. Each time someone would announce that "we won another Gold," Heather and I would have to conciously remember who "we" are. It's them - in the streets - clanking cowbells, wearing maple leaves. The Canadians. And of course it is.

4. Everybody needs a little love. Sussing out the individual motivations of volunteers kept the early days at the venue interesting. Generally, they want to participate- and they have the time to give. Most gave up vacations - to stand, proudly, at a curb. To welcome their constituency: media, sponsors, athletes; depending on the load zone. As a paid employee, my job is primarily making them feel it is worth it. By whatever practical means.

5. Canadians embrace process. Thinking outside previously-set parameters is not particularly rewarded. They speak of "process" (with a long "o...") and "chain of command." It can be frustrating, but it has a discipline to it. It's just confusing to American event people who like the more pirate-y aspects of this career path.

6. Just be nice. "Nice" is a legitimate adjective for Canadians. They are unobtrusive, polite, and pleasant. Sometimes, to quick-moving, quick-decision-making, execution-oriented Americans, "nice" isn't always useful. But it keeps the curb pleasant. And it is FAR preferable to work with unpaid people whose default is nice than to work with overpaid people whose default is suspicion and derision*.

7. Work is preferable than being idle. I spent the first two days here in disbelief. I left my family behind thinking it would be 18 exhausting, hard-driven days. I managed about 200 yards of curb. At a very smoothly-run venue. I paced during those early days. I champed at the bit, straining to find more work, more worth.

8. Fresh is good, and idle is not all bad. Day three of my complaints, a wise advisor (or two, or three) said, "shut up and enjoy your peaceful venue or you will end up knee-deep in muck at the bus yards." Words to live by.

9 Time is relative. It has been 14 years since I worked on a large event. And it seems impossible that it was so long ago, that I have lived another life since then, that these people don't know that version of me - this version of me. In that world, I worked 16, 18-hour days. On this quiet venue, the 10-hour days - spent mostly waiting - seem especially long. And 18 days without my family feels like 40.

10. The Girl Scouts were right. I felt sorta princessy with all the stuff Gav gave me for my trip. My own travel towel, really? Is that necessary? Pillow cases from home?

At the Bates Motel, where I rest each night until the 5AM alarm, towels are an inch thick. When folded, six layers deep. The pillow cases are an obvious and unfortunate blend. I LOVE my travel towel. And my own pillow cases from home are my Favorite Thing.

My instinct is to adapt. But in almost every case? Preparation trumps adaptability.

11. (Because mine goes to 11.) Dorothy was right. When I return home, I will have been gone six out of the last seven weeks. Gavin is wildly tolerant, and the children - while nothing could have prepared them for the absense of mom for that stretch - have adapted reasonably well.

I miss event work. The immediacy, the concrete conclusion. The tangible difference between planning and execution. The palpable energy. The happy volunteers. I miss being part of something bigger. I miss all-access accreditation and the power of issuing cars, or parking permits. I miss golf carts and urgency. I miss drinking with exhausted, loud, fun and funny people with foul language and all the inside scoop. I miss it far more than is practical, or logical.

So much time has passed. And I can all too easily imagine the me that stayed in it - a single me, a career-rich me. And I would be good at it- as high or as deep as I wanted. And I would keep myself fully distracted in the whirl.

But I didn't pick that me, I picked this other me. The one that took time off, that had babies. Three of them. The one that built a checkered, confusing career path. Whose husband is rooted and supportive and There, whose children are awe-inspiring. Whose people require her to focus - tight, direct, measured focus - on others. To not succomb to distractions. To slow down. To be.

I medaled this round. And I won. There truly is no place like home. There are no people like My people - my Littles. My Big One. They are too far, for too long. And "away" is not a tenable, desirable state.

Five more days and I am back where I am meant to be.

*referencing, specifically, the corporate world I closed out in January. NOT organizing committee folks here. I know no one in the event world that operates from a default of suspicion and derision - even when jaded, grumpy, and tired. Which we often are.

Misfit

Between places, now. Here, with There on the other side of a plane ride that, ironically, may be delayed because of snow.

It is snowing. Hard. And Here is Atlanta, and There is Canada. The world in which I am dabbling is the event world, one I moved in smoothly for years, many years back. Enough years past to make me feel really old when spoken of out loud.

Three weeks ago, I left for south Florida to close out the contract I have maintained and prospered from for four years. A falling, flailing, failing company, I was not surprised by the abrupt dismissal by cell phone over Christmas break.

The news was sharply, suspiciously delivered. Gavin had unprofessional, violent ideas for how I should respond. I demurred, ignored his suggestions, and travelled to Florida at their behest to close out the contract, and train my replacement.

Doing so opened this event door, and soon I had tacked on a contract for ten days' worth of work for a certain couple of high-profile football games, also in Florida. That was last week.

The first 2/3 of the trip - in an office, with low-key responsibilities - was torturous. People were suspicious, uncomfortable. The environment breeds self-protection, chilly self-interest. I was training someone to take my job. My every move was projected on a wall. The recipient of my attention was overwhelmed by the information - and humorless. The ten hour days felt eternal.

I would step outside, just to break up the day. Just to breathe air that hadn't already been breathed, filtered, and returned. To get away from darting eyes and the closed tiny room. And the projector.

The final third of the same trip - in parking lots and bus zones, barking into radios and standing in the rain, breathing diesel fumes - was somehow fun. People were, if sometimes overzealous, generally open. The environment breeds openness, requires frequent exchanges of information and instant familiarity. Trust is necessary, and responsiveness rewarded (by systems that work). Humor is critical and within reach. A ten-hour day would be short.

I was driving across a parking lot, on a golf cart, on the prettiest day we had. I had just dropped a cameraman at his car, while running a courtesy golf cart shuttle for media during media day. I felt crazy lucky to be there. And I thought, "who wouldn't love this?" With little effort I thought of ten, twelve people who wouldn't.

There is no glamour in it. It is working in events, yes. But it is operations. It is transportation. Bus zones, parking lots, motor pools. Bus boards, parking permits, driving routes. A perfect day is one in which the people you are moving (or parking or directing) don't notice. And you eat bad box lunches. And you fall into bed after too-long days - and you can't always get the diesel out of your pores.

Years ago, when I first did this, the boyfriend I was leaving behind for the second time, for my second event, gave me an ultimatum. Him or Them. The them he described, pretentiously and unpleasantly as "misfits and malcontents."

Which sounded at least interesting. I picked them.

I met my husband working that last event 14 years ago. His competency was highlighted by his largeness. I had spun out a little, in a job for which I was under-qualified. I hired him to help me get a handle on all the parts. My boss, when he figured out we were dating, said something to the effect of "thank God. He is your rudder."

I will be so glad to be home, when I am home. When this is an adventure in retrospect, when I am at the other side of too-long days and mishaps I can't yet quite imagine. When three weeks in a 'bungalow,' whose online commentary includes one disgruntled visitor's succinct rating of "creepy," are over. When I can again tuck in my Littles. And thank my husband again, in person, for being so tolerant and willing.

But for now, from here - trying to leave Atlanta with three inches of snow on the ground - it sounds fun. I am so pleased to be a part. To have a husband willing to engage in this outrageous six-week single-parenting experiment. To have three more weeks of pay. To wear the uniform, to smile through grit. To be a tiny piece of something so much bigger. And to fit.