Breaking Through the Rhythm

Breaking Through the Rhythm

         Julie is still on campus for one more semester. She walked at graduation in May, shook hands with the president when he handed her the cardboard tube that would have contained her diploma. She knew it wasn’t in there; she had a few outstanding credits from the semester she’d gone abroad. She went to New Zealand, where dim classrooms lost out to simmering white coastlines and lush sloping forests. Coming back to Vermont had been a shock, and Julie struggled to adjust to her coursework and biting New England winters. She celebrated graduation after the ceremony with the lacrosse girls, laughing down lemon drops and kamikazes until the sky glowed silver with the coming sunrise. She woke up the next morning in Chris’s room, wrenching herself from the warm bed to shuffle back to her room and say goodbye to her parents as they wished her luck in her summer classes. “Then you’ll get a piece of paper to stuff into that empty tube,” her father joked as he rubbed her shoulder.

         The summer revealed a lazy world of rich colors and slow days. For the first time since she’d started college, Julie noticed the rich, full greens of the trees, the constant blue of a near-cloudless sky, and a swollen white sun, which sparked warm memories of New Zealand. There were a few other summer students, staying on campus to do research. Julie knew a few of them, faces she’d seen at parties or in class, but none of her close friends stayed. The girls she rented the house with in town, about a mile down the hill, had all been seniors like her and they left right after graduation. Beth hung around a little longer, through the first week of June, but then she drove down to UPenn for grad school. Even after Beth left, Chris decided to move in so that he and Julie could be together while he looked for a job. At the time, Julie was a little wary of the idea, and she thought it would be more of a hassle than it was worth. Chris landed a finance job in New York within the month, and he left after the Fourth of July, leaving Julie in the house alone.

         At first, Julie didn’t mind the quiet. She missed Chris, but they talked almost every night on the phone, and she missed her roommates, but with them gone she could focus on her work, and she needed to do well in her classes. Also, campus was peaceful in the summer, no late parties, no stress from sports or piles of class work. Summer classes were different; there were fewer students, and oven-like classrooms made professors lecture more slowly and give fewer assignments. It reminded Julie of those days in late spring, long ago in grammar school, when the students hovered on the edge of their seats, prepared to run out at any moment, and teachers assigned worksheets that could be done on the bus. But, as the new freshmen class started to seep onto campus in late August, Julie lost that warm feeling of familiarity, and she felt suddenly grounded, static against the changing world around her. Then the fall term officially began, students clogged the walkways, and the dull collage of brown and grey consumed the once vibrant grass and sky.

         The campus awoke in noise and activity. Students shuffled to and from their classes and the dining hall alone and in loose pods; fall sports teams started running up and down the hill in the afternoons. Julie had run through the summer, although she hadn’t gotten the nerve to run in the early mornings, and instead waited until dusk. She played lacrosse in the spring, and graduated after a winning season that put her in great shape. She became focused against gaining back the few pounds that usually grew around her hips after the season was over, so Julie took care to run every day. A couple hours after she ate dinner, after she spent some time studying, Julie would change into her shorts and sports bra - most nights were too warm for a tank top - and run up the hill to campus, past the dorms and academic buildings, out to the sprawling farmland beyond the Gregger’s Road apartments. She ran further with the lacrosse team, but, now that she ran alone she didn’t have anyone to talk to or pace herself with, and for awhile every footfall on the hard pavement pounded empty in her head.
As the summer passed, Julie got used to that emptiness, and, while it had first felt lonely and unsettling, by the start of the new semester she discovered that she missed it, the slower days where time flowed unobserved, like a creek winding along under a cover of leaves.

         She longs for it now, turning in her chair as she stares at the reports and flyers pinned on her advisor’s corkboard like insects, and she wants to run. Julie only takes one class this semester, an independent study with her advisor, Coach Higman. Their meetings always go beyond the scheduled time by at least fifteen minutes. Julie is used to it by now, but it’s Friday afternoon and she’s eager to end the week. Higman is a professor, specializing in sports medicine, but he’s also the head hockey coach, so all of his students call him Coach. He’s been Julie’s advisor since she declared her major. She feels lucky that he agreed to mentor her independent study – at first she hadn’t even had a program in mind - but she wishes now that she’d just signed up for an easier lecture class instead.

         Something seems amiss, and Julie notices Coach Higman sitting silently behind his desk, his small dark eyes unmoving in his round face, peering into her. “Well,” he says, “I guess we’re good for now. It sounds like you’ve found something to work on, and have a plan to move ahead with it. Like I said, kinesiology is really a postgraduate field, but I know you’re moving in that direction anyway.” He turns in his chair to examine the calendar pinned on the corkboard. “We’ll meet again next week, same time, and in the meantime you draw up an outline with the background info. – history, research, practical applications, and then we can go from there. And you said specifically myofascial therapy? I mean, it’s not my specialty, but I’m impressed you want to look into it, and I’ll try to be as much help as I can.”

         Julie stands up from the hard chair and feels the muscles in her legs pull together from sitting for so long. She picks up her notebook from Coach’s desk and flips through it quickly. “Right,” she says, her head drawing toward the notebook. “Yeah, myofascial therapy. Same time next week sounds good to me. Thanks Coach.”

         “Alright Julie, now get going. You’re not the only one who gets antsy on Fridays.”

         “Ha.” Julie smiles, showing straight rows of tiny teeth. “Have a good one Coach.”

         Myofascial therapy echoes in Julie’s mind as she leaves the coach’s office. The words break down and melt away as she pictures the cornfields past campus. The end of the meeting signals the end of her scheduled day. She still has a lot to do, like the outline Coach mentioned, but for now Julie clears her head of her coursework. Antsy? Julie thinks. Yeah, after sitting there for over an hour.
Typical of the athletic faculty, Coach Higman’s office is on the lower level of the field house, and, since he is the hockey coach, it’s the one closest to the ice rink. There isn’t ice on it yet, but the arena is still cold as Julie walks through it toward the locker room. Since she passes by the locker room to get to Coach Higman’s office, she tucked her bag in there under one of the benches before their meeting.

         As she walks through the bathroom to the lockers, Julie hears a couple of female voices carrying over the maze of concrete and metal. Other than those girls, the locker room is empty. It’s always packed with bodies after team practices, cleats crunching on the floor, sharp laughter and gossip echoing out into the hall. Julie feels a little easier that her meeting with Coach Higman ended late; this way she can change without feeling rushed. She fell into the post-practice flood a couple of times since the start of the semester, and each time it made her feel uneasy. Last spring she’d hardly given it a thought; she was there as a part of a team, surrounded by girls she knew, many of whom she met the first week of freshman year. Julie began running alone from campus, instead of her house, since the new term began, when long days spent at the library and the occasional meetings with her advisor made going home to change only to come right back up the hill a hassle. So now she starts her run from the field house. This way, she can start atop the hill, and run further past campus than she could if she started from home, past the cornfields to the open grassland, dotted with porched white houses and clusters of wildflowers that spring from the irrigation ditch that borders the road.

         The voices of lingering girls muffle silent as the locker room door thuds shut, and Julie is alone. She tugs at the laces of her running shoes and ties them in double knots. In one motion, she pulls back her straight sunny hair and checks it in a ponytail. Her legs still feel stiff from sitting, so Julie bends and twists to stretch them. She breathes in and out slowly as she stands on one leg, tugging at her hamstring. The air is heavy with the musty-sweet smell of sweaty jerseys and wet towels, which triggers memories of lacrosse season. The locker room filled with girls after the home win against Marist, and jubilant talk and celebration jumped between the lockers. Julie balled up her jersey and pitched it into the locker while Beth freed herself from her sports bra, untangling it from her chest as though it bound her like a thick rope.

         “So you’re coming out later, right?” Beth said.

         “Later, yeah.” Julie felt around in her locker for her towel, a lumpy mass hidden under her jersey. Beth gave her a disgusted look. “Jules, that thing has to be so nasty. Look,” she gestured at her own towel, a cotton pelt hung through the holes in her locker door. “You gotta let it dry.” Julie chucked her damp towel at Beth. “It is dry, see?”

         Beth froze, a look of forged shock on her face. “Bitch!” She straightened, poking an edge of her towel through its hole. “So, I’ll have my cell on me, course so will Hannah and Rachel and everyone else. We’re gonna at least go to Doonan’s for awhile, get some shooters or something. But we’ll probably head back to the house after that, so you could just meet us there.”

         One of Julie’s other roommates, Hannah, squeezed by the two girls as she made her way to her locker. She was about six inches shorter than Julie and Beth, but she was built solidly and her powerful legs made her a great counterpoint. “So you’re coming right?” she looked at Julie.

         “I’m gonna catch up with you guys later,” Julie said.

         Hannah rolled her eyes and looked at Beth. “Chris?”

         “Yeah. Ok?” Julie wrapped herself in her towel, its rank dampness cooled her tired muscles. “I’ll meet up with you guys later, ok?”
Hannah swung her leg onto the bench between the rows of lockers and leaned into it, stretching. “Whatever Julie. You have forever for those booty calls, you and Chris are practically married. But it’s almost the end of the season. You gotta come out with your girls more. Graduation’s only like a few weeks away.” Hannah took her leg off the bench and stood up straight, puffing out her chest like a cantankerous bulldog. “I’m just saying, then who knows where we’ll be?”

         “Hey,” Beth said, hitting Hannah on the shoulder with her sports bra. “Let the girl have her booty call.”

         Julie remembers running with Beth, Hannah, the whole team, as she walks out the door that leads from the field house to the quad. She pronounces each step as she hops down the flat stairs to the road; the muscles in her legs have become loose and sinewy. They seem to come awake as she walks briskly down the length of the field house, tightening and loosening, trained from years of high school and college athletics. There is a slight edge to the air, a crispness that Julie drinks in deeply. The air invigorates her, as brisk as the off-season hockey rink, but fresher, filtered by the wind and trees.

         She starts off, setting her pace at a light jog. Her legs struggle for a moment, tightening against the cool air, but soon the rhythm of Julie’s steps makes the muscles swell and each footfall anticipates the next. The buildings of the campus gallop by as Julie jogs away from the field house and through the quad. Students move in slow motion along the paths and roadsides, headed for the dining hall after team practices, afternoon club meetings, or post-class naps. It’s hard to tell who is tiring down from a busy day and who is just waking up, fresh for a long night of wandering through dorms or heading into town. Julie remembers it well. College days demanded that she stuff sleep in the pockets of open time that peeked out between the clutter of sports and friends, Chris, and, though she didn’t want to think about it now, work. Waking up from a nap in the late afternoon had never settled right with her; although they enabled her to stretch her activities into the night, afternoon naps always made her feel like she was surrendering her time.

         Running, on the other hand, forces Julie to look time in the face at every breath, with every beat of her white shoes against the pavement. She must look forward, focus straight in front of her, and navigate every pothole and pod of students on its way to dinner. Dodging the clusters of people, knit together in a loose quilt, is difficult at this time of day. Julie knows not to try to run through them, even if there seems to be ample space to do so. She has tried on a few occasions, when there didn’t seem to be a way around, but passing between even one person and the larger group always leads to resistance. Either the person in question closes in instinctively, causing Julie to stop and backtrack, the other members of the cluster shoot angry glances as they take on the collective role of a mother bear, guarding its threatened cub.

         Faces suck past Julie as she cuts away from the dining hall, turning onto the road that leads out to the cornfields past campus. She recognizes a few people, and nods or flashes smiles at old team-mates and a handful of underclassmen she knows from classes, but she lets most of the faces disappear unrecognized, and she doesn’t stop for any of them. Not everyone she knows here is aware that she’s still on campus, and she doesn’t want to get caught up in explanations. Instead, she lifts her pace, hoping to glide through the bodies like a flickering spectre. Her blond hair scratches her cheek as she checks behind her for cars. Julie sees the throngs of bodies, painted in earthy khaki and blue-green Northface, pull away as she heads further up the hill.

         The cars jetting along the road disappear as well; packs of hand-me-down BMWs and new Jeep Cherokees full of students heading into town give way to the occasional pickup truck, humming down the hill and pushing Julie close to the curb. She crests the hill and follows the road as it swerves and pours out to the open fields. Car horns and guttural shouts echo from the campus as Friday night stirs, but those sounds hardly carry out here, where the increasing speed and force of Julie’s shoes hitting the road pound them out. She shifts off of the road, stepping down to the flat dirt path that borders the curb. The impact of each step softens a little as the dirt cushions the impact on Julie’s shins, and she picks up more speed.

         The steadiness of her sustained breathing fills Julie’s ears, complimented with the dry rustling of cornstalks teased by the light wind. She notices the area where the lacrosse team would turn around on their team runs, a small dirt patch off one side of the road where a tractor was sometimes parked. The team would go down the hill first, into town, and then back up past campus to the cornfields. Julie runs past it now, remembering how, at the start of preseason, some girls who hadn’t kept in shape would lose their stomachs when they stopped to turn around, spitting thick milky acid onto the dirt. Julie experienced the unpleasant feeling, the burning, acrid taste it left in her mouth, when she was a freshman – she didn’t expect practices to get so intense so quickly – but it had a positive affect on her; she never let herself fall too out of shape after that.

         The cornfields give way to grassy pasture, railed with a feeble fence of flat wooden stakes that jut out of the ground at various angles, as if they’d risen naturally from the earth, with two strands of barbed wire stapled between them. An irrigation ditch traces the length of the fence and borders it from the road, with thick weeds and wildflowers hanging from the ditch’s far side. Julie begins to sprint, engulfing the air in quick heavy swallows. Stray weeds whip over her ankles and the wildflowers seem to stir drunkenly, independently of the wind. A small cloud of insects spills out of the wildflowers and falls apart over the road. Yellow butterflies dip and flutter their wings; a large cricket clicks as it jerks across the road in bursts. Julie cuts through them all, stirring up more life as she continues to sprint. Something, probably a cricket, hits at her arm and causes her to hop a step, startled. A large grin reaches over Julie’s face as she watches the life reveal itself around her, and her chest aches, thirsting for air.

         Just ahead of an old barn, its red paint long-faded and its roof open to the sky in many places, Julie catches her feet and slows to a steady walk. Her lungs swell and contract, demanding more oxygen than she can pull from the air. She walks to the barn, her legs tingling from the sudden ease of her pace, her pelvis pulsing with rushing blood. At the barn, Julie turns around and bends forward to rest her hands on her knees. She heaves breath into her lungs and looks out at the life flying and hopping in her wake, the little insects working to return to their lost state of calm. Running back to her house will be easier, downhill nearly all the way. She’ll move more quickly around the tangled masses of undergrads; by then they’ll be done with dinner and heading out to their busy nights. She has to run through them again, to cut through the quad and head back to the field house for a shower. Julie thinks about tossing some popcorn in the microwave and flipping on the TV, so that she’ll have something else to focus on when she talks to Chris on the phone. She isn’t ready to start tackling kinesiology, the word alone pressed on her mind like lead. Now, in the muted pink and grey of the darkening sky, with the air dancing over her warm skin like countless hopping crickets, Julie stands by the barn, her head free of fluttering thoughts, watching the butterflies dip their way toward the thick bunches of wildflowers at the edge of the road.