territorial much?

it's funny, really, the way one's identity becomes linked to place. the minute someone else sets foot on your hallowed ground, out come the flying fists. intrusion into one's space is a threat to the fiction of the coherent, whole identity that one so carefully crafts. fortune cookie gods forbid that self and other ("Other"?) should ever mix, that someone else ("Someone Else"?) should set foot on one's territory. due to recent events about which i must, for a variety of reasons, be reticent, i've been giving a lot of thought to place, identity, and, perhaps more important in this equation, territory.

no where is place more important than in a boat. each seat in a crew comes with its own number and its own set of responsibilities. 1 & 2, in the bow of the boat, have a much different job from 3, 4, 5, & 6. 7 & 8 share a unique bond as well. if the person wielding the oar in seat 5 is thinking mostly about driving down hard with her legs, the body occupying seat 7 is thinking mainly about relaying back to the rest of the crew the small nuances in technique and rhythm that 8 seat is spinning out in response to the coxie's instructions. this summer and fall i found myself thrown into 8 seat after a shakeup in the hierarchy of our crew (nothing scandalous ... just that our usual 8 seat had work obligations that kept her out of rowing for the latter half of the season). i found the mental and technical requirements of sitting in stroke both refreshing and challenging. i also faced a difficult-to-negotiate identity crisis. for my entire rowing career, i've always been 4 seat! my not-so-skinny thighs make me helpful in the "engine room" of the boat. in switching it up to stroke, for the first while, i didn't respond to the coxie calls addressed to me because i didn't think of myself as "stroke seat". there i would sit, blissfully unaware, as the coxie screamed in my face "stern pair! take us in!". usually, after a head-smack from 7 seat, i'd awaken to my new identity and start rowing. it took me weeks to fully adjust.

at the end of the season, i found myself surprisingly attached to my new identity, and the territory associated with it. when i had to move back to 4 seat for one practice, to give a much more experienced spare the seat she rightly deserved in the stern, i felt put out. someone was sitting on my seat with her feet in my shoes. what did she know about the trick to the oar lock, or the secret calls the coxie and i had devised to get the boat moving faster? she didn't, however, have my oar. that, with its "8" clearly marked just above the collar, i had insisted on taking with me. i had the strangest feeling of not knowing who i was. i was also a complete mess when attempting to answer commands from our coxie or coach. who was i? stroke seat? stern pair? bow four? a very postmodern moment, if i do say so myself.

at the end of the row, awed by our visitor's precision and power, i realized that i could share stroke seat and not compromise my identity. stomping around the boathouse, crabby and resentful about my supposed displacement, i didn't show the leadership that my coach had expected of me when she put me in stroke. through learning and displaying a little bit of decorum, graciousness, and deference, i did.

in my current situation, i'm trying my best to recall the lesson i learned this summer, even though i'm more in the position of being a visitor than a member of the regular crew. for all of the earth-shattering impact of what my friend jane, a grade school teacher, would call my "teachable moment", i'm having a very difficult time not behaving like one of jane's grade twos. i'm currently considering either barbed wire, or peeing around the parameter of the contested ground. as i wait for the mature, sensible shannon to appear, i keep reminding myself that wars waged over disputed territory are never a good thing.

*for those patiently waiting for the second half of the victorianists' superbowl play-by-play, i promise to report back very soon.