Crew
Lining up before the race, all nine of us still and alert, poised for the oncoming crush of the demands of getting the boat down the course faster than any of the others. Time seems to slow or stop, as we breath deeply not sure whether at this exhale we will get the command to row. Staring at the back of the neck of the man in front of me , the stroke, and feeling the pent up energy of the guy behind me in seat six. As a team we of course know each other, but on a deeply athletic level we are intimate. Our eight bodies with a dancer’s synchronicity as we anticipate one another through a connection far beneath consciousness. We are committed to one another, dedicated to each other. We care about each other. In that way that most of our friends and lover’s find cause to be jealous. It is for a season, for this discreet amount of time, and then, inevitably, broken up. This sense of imminent passing away somehow makes it more powerful a bond, adding an urgency to savor it deeply and store it away so as to be able to pull it out and let this time of brotherhood embrace one later, desperately alone.
Hiking Club
We have three and a half hours to make it up the peak and back. Our leader, the teacher who leads the Hiking Club at school, is confident and sets a pace we, as high school students, can certainly keep for the ascent. We are at first chatty as any group of boys would be. As we ascend, and hit some rock ledge we scrabble over, one behind the other, we settle into a silence broken by grunts and heavy breathing. Even though it is late autumn and the air is cool, we all take on a sheen as the exertion of the climb demands more, and the gentle way we hold one another in our sight following the lead of the guy in front, watching the placement of each boot step and mirroring it in kind for the guy behind. The expanse of the peak, the view is the reward, and taking gulps of water before our descent into the gathering gloom of the woods below us, we take some moments and splayed across the rock face like fallen greek warriors, our bodies are all beautiful to behold, and we are, in fact, in love with each other even if none of us would admit it for a moment. Confirmed by the way, later, in the van on the return to campus, we lean into one another and doze, heads nodding as one, our noses inches from our buddies neck, smelling the mixture of autumn leaves, moss, sweat and damp wool.