Getting there with my people

Dragon Divas newbie Trish Perry

by Trish Perry

I often joke there’s an angel whose job is handing out athletic genes. I'm pretty sure she skipped my name on that list.

Case in point: the President's Fitness Test – the yearly nightmare that followed me from elementary school through junior high. Who came up with this form of torture? I couldn't get up the rope, do the chin ups, or finish the run, and kids made fun of me. It was hell on earth.

What I needed then was courage. What I found instead was a joke.

The joke was my strategy. Make fun of myself before anyone else could get the chance. What it actually did was cement in my mind the "fact" that I was born without an athletic gene. No athletics for me.

I found the Dragon Divas by accident. I had recently joined the Firefly Sisterhood, a peer support group for women with breast cancer. In their March newsletter, I saw an invitation: Looking for connection and literary discussion? The Dragon Divas Book Club invites you to join their monthly gathering.

Fast forward to this spring. Some of you know I joined the Dragon Divas, 150 breast cancer survivors who paddle and race dragon boats. I wasn't really prepared for the athletic effort this sport requires, and my mind went straight back to those early years. So, I started making fun of myself again, declaring I didn't have an athletic gene.

The response was so opposite from my early years.

"It's ok, we'll help you."

"I didn't think I was athletic either, but I am.”

"We've all been through breast cancer. We'll support you through this."

Um, not what I expected.

Those responses are part of what make this group so special. It's a supportive, courageous group of women, built intentionally to hold the novice and the expert equally.

There's no need to protect myself with jokes here. The Dragon Divas celebrate every level from the veteran paddler to the newbie to the one who finds her joy on the social boat. On and off the water, we're a team no matter your level: one heart, one beat, one boat. We've all faced breast cancer and had to find courage, no matter the stage – newly diagnosed, in treatment, post-treatment, or survivors. We lift each other up.

A few weeks ago, I attended my first Dragon Boat Festival. I can't tell you how satisfying it was. I never thought I'd be an actual participant on an athletic team, and actually enjoy myself. I had put myself down all these years, and this team lifted me up.

My flavor of putting myself down was self-deprecating jokes – get there first and it won't hurt as much. But there are other ways we do this to ourselves: avoiding the thing, quietly not signing up, deciding ahead of time how the story ends. The delivery is different, but the message is the same – don't bother, you already know how this goes.

This dragon boat experience is teaching me courage – the courage to lift myself up instead of tear myself down.

I always thought I was born without an athletic gene. Turns out I just hadn't found my people yet.

More than my people

I found my people in the Dragon Divas this year. I found my competitive team spirit in Superior, WI. A few weeks later, I found gold with my people in Dubuque, Iowa.

It was our final race in the Dubuque Dragon Boat Festival on the mighty Mississippi. All weekend, my coach Ali's voice reverberated in my head though she wasn't there.

"Really exaggerate that top hand over the gunnel."

"Bury that paddle."

I could almost feel her hands on my hips, pushing me back and forth, drilling in the rotation that gives paddlers their power. My legs and arms still burned from the photo finish that left us with no idea which boat had actually crossed first. All 20 of us sat there, chests heaving, feeling strong and confident, waiting to hear our time, the way Olympic skaters wait for their scores.

"Dragon Divas, for a total time of 155.65." Gold. We won by 0.14 seconds.

As I've mentioned before, I don't have an athletic gene. This weekend said otherwise.

Our Dragon Divas team is more than the 20 who raced in Dubuque. We're 150 women deep and train together all season on the water and in the gym – building the strength and endurance to get us ready. The 20 who raced that day represented the whole team: one heart, one beat, one boat.

Gold felt incredible, but it was the Breast Cancer Flower Ceremony afterward that brought an even deeper meaning to the festival.

After the race, all three cancer survivor teams loaded onto two boats and paddled out onto the Mississippi for the traditional ceremony which honors breast cancer survivors, thrivers, and those lost to the disease. We paddled out to "Rise Up" by Andra Day. Then hooked our boats into a unified raft as the announcer spoke about survivors, people in active treatment, and those we've lost. We sat with our arms around each other and cried, each of us carrying our own story, all of us brought together by the same disease. "Fight Song" by Rachel Platten played as we threw pink and purple flowers into the water, for what we've survived, what we're still going through, and who we've lost.

Reflecting on the weekend, I realized we rarely accomplish anything completely on our own. Ali's voice was the one running through my head on the water, but it was all the Diva coaches who got us there. It was my teammates, my family – birth and chosen, my friends, a whole community of people helped me cross that finish line.

No one gets there alone. Coaches, teammates, family, friends, people show up for us in ways we don't always notice until we stop and count them. Pick one accomplishment you're proud of and trace it back. Who was in your corner? Who believed in you before you believed in yourself?