September 2022 | Vantage Point

          I had to get up early, which was something I was not great at. There were a lot of things I wasn’t great at in eighth grade, and dancing routines was another one. It was an excruciatingly simple performance–mostly marching and clapping and moving our arms up and down in sync–but I could barely do it.

          Yet here I was, riding in Carrie Mullikin’s mom’s van on the way to Auburn Hills to perform in a cheerleading competition. I could barely even eat breakfast that morning; my stomach hurt. We had recorded ourselves during rehearsals that week and while watching the playback I was the one who got the most comments suggesting improvement. No matter how much I practiced, something was definitely getting lost in translation between my brain understanding how I was supposed to move and my body actually doing it. 

          Carrie’s mom had to pull over so I could throw up.

          The Palace was a gigantic multi-purpose arena that seated up to 23,000 and included exciting amenities such as its own Hungry Howie’s and a Dippin’ Dots vendor. Somewhere between twenty and fifty teams were competing, and we were among the first on the list to perform. God help us.

          How did I get here? My main motivation in being a cheerleader was to get into all of the boys basketball games for free. In my mind, cheerleading was a fun option available for unathletic girls. Historically at our middle school, cheer was generally considered the lowest of all of the extracurriculars and didn’t qualify as a sport. It was only just this year that the Christian school administration permitted us to wear skirts. All of the attractive, confident girls were on the volleyball team. 

          And so our gawky band of misfits found our way down to the court, already a third of the size of the other teams and feeling even smaller in the collosal stadium. To this day whenever I hear the opening to “Gonna Make You Sweat,” it does indeed make me sweat with the memory of such sheer embarrassment. Someone had mixed us a blend of that song, cotton-eye-joe and some popular Christian artist of the time for our routine.

          It is a profound mystery as to how we–a d-list school with a dinky, awkward squad–made it on the list to perform that day. I think it had something to do with our coach’s daughter having some sort of connection through her college cheerleading career. But why on earth would they think this was a good idea? Were they trying to humiliate us? It didn’t matter, this was happening, and the only way out was through. 

          “EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!” Stomp, clap, move your arms up and down, don’t trip, move over here now, remember to smile, move your arms some more, shuffle this way, big finish and, phew–it’s over. 

          We girls and our moms found some seats way up in the nosebleeds to watch the rest of the competition and (to my relief) as far away as possible from the other teams. Each proceeding squad (all basically 13-year-old ACROBATS) with their polished cohesive dances and incredible stunts simultaneously mesmerized and mortified me. I’m pretty sure that during our routine our feet never left the ground. We stayed until the winners were announced.

          Every single team that competed in our division placed. Every team, that is, except for one. Can you guess whose it was? I promised myself to never ever do anything like this again.

          At least I got some Dippin’ Dots out of it.

—      —      — 

          I was waiting patiently downstairs, 5:30 am, my mom oversleeping yet again. How she could stand even one more minute wasting sleep when today was such an exciting day was beyond me. I was already dressed, packed for the car ride, and ecstatic about my first chance to perform in front of a massive audience—I lived for the thrill of performing. The adrenaline was so powerful. Though only in 7th grade, I had a pretty good feeling that today was going to be special, that victory was imminent, and that our tiny and finally skirt-clad Christian cheerleading group would dance our way to a first place finish at the Palace. We had bid goodbye to our pants and our anonymity. It was time to show the world what our tiny, obscure Christian school could do. Our cheer squad may have been only eleven strong, but I was so confident in our path to victory, our synchronized arm movements to Cotton Eye Joe and Stacie Orico serving as witnesses to our triumph. 

          After arriving at our destination, we filed into seats a little higher in the arena than I would have liked. My fellow cheerleaders gathered around, a haze of last minute hair-spray, glitter, and palpable nerves. It had taken an act of God to convince our administration to let us “dance” in front of others, and I was not about to let them change their minds. 

          We heard the line-up of the first several cheer teams to perform, and we settled in to size up the competition. I wasn’t worried. We had, like, ten really good moves in our routine, so, basically we were close to being filmed for ESPN, and yes cheerleading is a sport, thank-you-very-much. 

          The first few squads sparked a small seed of doubt in my heart. Their music was trendy, they had solid routines, and they had so many more cheerleaders than our small team. However, it wasn’t until the girls from Swartz Creek lined up, filling the basketball court with their sparkly red and white pom poms that I truly began to doubt our memorized left-right-over-under hand motions. Front hand-springs, back hand-springs, flips and twists, and stunts. Girls flying into the air. I watched the group execute the routine with flawless moves and momentarily lost my belief that we could win. 

          Before long, we were gathered together on the floor of the Palace, up next. We waved to our mothers sitting way up in the stands, ignored the encouragement from our young coach, and grinned nervously at one another. This was our time to shine. I was ready, confident, and agreed that smiling through every part of our routine would earn us a trophy as tall as us. 

          We walked out onto the court, assembled our small triangle shape beginning formation, and I looked confidently into the audience from the front of the triangle. To this day, whenever I hear the opening to “Gonna Make You Sweat”, I can feel the excitement and hope of performing for a big crowd, our small group moving arms and legs up-down-up-open-kick-pose. I was loving every second of the routine, smiling constantly. I gave my all, waving to the crowd more occupied with eating warm pretzels and nachos than clapping for our squad, my ignorance over our performance buried under the elation of having finished our routine. 

          Finally, after watching an endless stream of clearly more talented girls—and possibly girls more grounded in the reality of their talent—it was time for the awards. Each squad piled onto the court, sitting close together and looking with such hope at the emcee holding the awards. The older divisions received their trophies, the youngest division received theirs, and I was solely focused on waiting for our turn, willing the name of our team to leave the announcer’s mouth. 

          Our turn was up. Third place—anticipation high, not a bad place to be, sure it’s going to be us—not us. I was immediately disappointed and then shocked. Second place?! We were going to get second!!! We didn’t. I could hardly handle it. FIRST. PLACE. Our name was going to echo around the stadium, validating our hard work, solidifying our destiny as cheerleaders, turning us into legends to the rest of our middle school peers. I could hear it. I could envision it. Our names were about to be called, and we’d stand up, scream, I’d accept the trophy…” Swartz Creek!” 

          I was totally shocked. 

          Unphased, I’d return the following year for another chance. 

          At least I had Dippin’ Dots to console my broken heart. 

What, I missed the one about cheap seats and life is chock frickety full of cheap seats these days. Cheap seats but not-so-cheap eats. The way life should be.

I look up slyly from my keyboard across my zero bedroom apartment. Ah, there they are. Two cheap ass metal folding chairs trying hard to pass as dining chairs. Their beige padding somehow makes them even uglier.

They are almost as uncomfy as the last ones I bought, two Spirit seats crammed in the middle of a crowded plane and surrounded by punk toddlers. Toddlers who refused to be easily forgotten. The tiny terrors took strategic shifts wailing the miles away, ensuring no break in the performance -- at times a chorus and at times carried on by a brave soloist. No sleeping fools. You paid and the show must go on.

Speaking of shows I bought the cheapest seats in the house to see 21 Pilots for the third time. Up, up, up, where the performers looked like little ants, eye level with massive jumbotron screens. "They'll turn them on when the show starts," I tell my wife. They didn't. Still, it was nice to be around I guess.

Those weren't even as cheap as the ones we snagged from the show before that, LAWN seats. They actually weren't even seats at all, just crusty grass. We chilled on blankets and squinted at Sylvan Esso, me trying to decide if the one girl was wearing pants or not (I think not) and thinking it was so cool that Sylvan Esso was an all girl band this whole time (not true).

All was well and fine until two thong wearing butts sit down right in front of my blanket. Uh uh. Switched vantage points fast and THEY had to look at OUR butts (tastefully clad in denim). The sky went dark and a passing squall downpours tears of the heavens all over our lawn. The thong people throw on ponchos. "Yeah...cover up bitches," my friend whispers to her husband. We sneak off the lawn and into slightly less cheap and much drier seats under the awning for the next band.

“So how did it go?”

“...we won’t be seeing each other again.”

“That good, eh?”

“We went to get coffee…”

“Yeah,”

“And she ordered a macchiato, so I ordered one too…”

“Uh huh,”

“But then when our order was up she made a face and said that wasn’t what she ordered and it took us a minute but I guess they make those different at Starbucks,”

“Oh boy,”

“But I was too embarrassed to explain this to the barista so I just ordered her a latte and drank both the macchiatos…”

“That’s really Starbuck’s fault, not hers.”

“Let me finish.”

“Fine.”

“So then she asked for a straw, but they don’t have any straws there,”

“They don’t have straws?”

“Because of the turtles.”

“I see.”

“And so we sit down anyway, but pretty soon I notice she’s not drinking her latte. So I ask if it’s not what she wants, thinking maybe a latte isn’t similar enough to a Starbucks Macchiato, but it turns out she is just really hung up on the straw thing.”

“Why?”

“She doesn’t drink coffee unless she has a straw…”

“But why?”

“...Because she doesn’t want it to stain her teeth.”

“You know I once had a date who refused to drink out of straws.”

“Ha!”

“She said it was going to give her mouth wrinkles.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, she was terrified of premature aging.”

“Huh. The opposite straw thing.”

“But sort of the same thing.

Owner needs to smoke one and chill out. Nice synagogue next door though. **/*****

Finding the forest through the trees grows harder day by day, 

Yet my peace grows in this fierce, uncharted place - others don't agree,

They say, "From our point of view, which is empirically true - 

Your way is lost and you cannot see."

So I enter alone into forest twilight, until joined by the perilous few,

We delve deeper and further into the dusk,

Our bare feet crusting with loam and moon-gilt leaves,

The others cling to the paths they "made their own",

And they can keep the tracks they've hewn,

From the vantage point of lofty towers, they see the edges of the world, 

Tiny, dotted lines mark their maps to show the hard, packed-earth roads from 'here' to 'there', 

Yet I care little for the 'knowing' and 'grasping' of such things, 

Only those who wander on the brink of the unknown shall fall in with Fae company,

And, if we are lucky enough to lose our way,

The Elves may reveal to us the paths our maps and souls have forgotten.