Contributor Series 11: On Birthdays
Ten ways of looking at gymnastics
By Sarah Endo
1976
To my six-year-old eyes Nadia with her spiky legs
and flying ponytail soaring
across television, magazines, posters,
is a superhero
barely bigger than me
1976-1978
I begin a series of classes in a converted warehouse
grandly called Mercer Gymnastics Incorporated
I move through Beginner, Advanced Beginner, Intermediate
1979
Now I’m on “the team”
I compete in exactly one meet, in a suburban New Jersey strip mall off Route 1
The thing I remember best is sitting on the floor beside the big mat waiting
to do my floor exercise, with my arms wrapped around my knees, the strangeness
of seeing a peacock-blue team leotard on my own body
1981-1982
No time for gymnastics, so consumed am I
with sock hops and mixers, REO Speedwagon
shopping for stickers and ribbons with Melissa and Stacy
and the whole of being a preteen
1984
But I miss gymnastics, so I start another class at the Y in Princeton
I don’t know anyone there but it doesn’t matter, I like
the way it feels flipping through the air
1985-1987
Now I’m on the diving team, which is a lot like gymnastics
with the added bonus of being with my best friend Karen
reciting lines from The Breakfast Club between dives
and basking in the gorgeous hilarity of the senior boys
1995
My family celebrates my mom’s fiftieth birthday at Lake George
The lawn leading from the hotel down to the water
is so big green and wide open, I run run run
and do a round-off back handspring
2010
Pining like a wallflower I watch my daughter
bounce and tumble at her friend’s gymnastics party
I want to go on the bars
I fantasize about having a gymnastics party for my fortieth birthday
April 2012
I’m with my daughter in her friend’s backyard
The kids are playing at gymnastics, attempting cartwheels and such
They ask how to do things and I tell them with words but then
I am trying to demonstrate a round-off back handspring
May 2012
I sign up for a gymnastics class for anyone aged 11 to infinity
It doesn’t start for three weeks, but already
in my mind I am round-off back handspringing, swinging from the top bar
and twirling around the bottom before flying back again
Sarah Endo’s most recent poem to appear here was Ice Cream Heroes (January 2012).
Fly Sarah! Fly across the floor and around the bars!
What great spirit in this poem!
No one could ever accuse you of sitting with the remote and not participating. I’m guessing your mind never stops. Thanks for sharing the journey.
Thank you so much, Jean and Jeanette!!