I remember desperately wanting a pair of roller skates and my mother saying we didn’t have money to buy them. I refused to accept her answer and convinced my father to go with me to the store, just to try the skates on—the old divide-and-conquer scheme. Once the skates were on my feet and I could feel the speed and power as I sped through the store, I couldn’t bear to give them back. I raced onto the street wearing them so that my father was forced to purchase them. I have never been able to take no for an answer.
Another time, I was given a bicycle for my birthday. My father had put it together, but he warned me not to take it outside until he’d tightened all the screws. As soon as he left for work, I rode away, losing both pedals and eventually having the bicycle fall apart beneath me into a pile of pieces. My disappointment and the fact that my father made me wait a week before rebuilding the bike was punishment enough.
My father only spanked me one time in my life. I was seven years old. That morning, the sunshine poured through my window, pried my eyes open, and beckoned me outside with a gleaming finger. I was out of the house before I’d swallowed my breakfast, running down the road to find other children who wanted to spend the day losing themselves in the forests, wading through streams, racing in fields, and scrambling up trees. I didn’t return home until after dark that night.
Friend, back then we didn’t have telephones in our homes, so I couldn’t check in with my parents or ask when I had to be home for dinner. It was both a blessing—because I didn’t have to interrupt my fun—and a curse—because my parents had trouble keeping track of me. My father was frightened on the night I came home after dark, for he thought I’d been hurt. There had been a rumor that a dead child had recently been discovered in the basement of a home in a neighboring town. When I came into our yard—whistling, little twigs in my wild and long hair, my backside covered with leaves and dirt—my father was waiting for me by the window. He spanked me once with his belt on my behind and then made me kneel for three hours on cracked walnut shells. He wanted me to be as uncomfortable as he was while waiting for me to return home. I never did anything like that again.
I was a true tomboy, with uncontrollable energy that at times pushed my parents to the limits. They’d come into the house and find me pinned to the ground beneath our Christmas tree because I’d tried to climb it to reach the sweets hung on the top boughs. I wasn’t crying under the pine needles—I was eating the handfuls of candy I’d swiped before the tree fell. They couldn’t keep sap off my fingers or my clothes pressed and clean, and it was a rare day that I’d stay inside and do what most little girls did, such as play with dolls or help my mother around the house. I was a wild, strange scrap of a girl who was as happy playing alone as I was with friends. I didn’t seem to need anyone—at times to my parents’ chagrin.
I remember that period of my life as very happy. Although my family had the necessities—food, clothing, and shelter—there were not a lot of extras. There was no gourmet anything and no name brands. Jeans, shirts, and underwear were just clothing, and everyone wore the same thing. Everyone also went to the government doctors for health care; they injected you with medicine or gave you a pill—no choices, no alternatives. For many people, life was drab and colorless because they focused on what they did not have. But as a child, all you see are the endless possibilities.
You have grown up in the United States, and I wonder about your childhood. Do you live in a home with central air-conditioning and unlimited heat? I know that not everyone in America is wealthy or has access to what I would have considered luxuries, but what about you? Do you have many modern conveniences? Do you work by computer? Have you ever washed a plate or glass by hand? Do you take long, hot showers; order clothing from catalogs or off the Internet; eat fast food or dine on takeout from Thai restaurants; and chat on a cordless phone in your bedroom? I do not begrudge you any of these things, and I know that the United States is an incredibly diverse country with great riches and poverty. I just want to understand where you come from so that I can help you comprehend how different my life probably was from yours.
When I was a child, our TV was tiny and black and white and only received three government-approved stations. There was no such thing as satellite television, cable, MTV, or HBO. I didn’t even conceive of things like dishwashers, microwaves, washing machines, or computers. Today, you can plug myriad gadgets into the wall, and they’ll do everything for you. As a child, I learned by creating and figuring out how to make things work (I can figure ways around any problem). Most people go and buy what they need, and if it doesn’t work, they buy again. We didn’t have that option. But I wouldn’t trade my early years for anything.
Adrian, who was my childhood companion and is still my best friend, was a whiz with electronics and used to make cassette recorders for cars and repair televisions without any training. When we were kids, he created a gadget that would make a light flash in our bedroom when our mother stepped on the first stair to come up and check on us. We were always ready when she opened the door, hiding whatever it was we weren’t supposed to be doing. It’s a bit frightening to imagine what trouble Adrian would have gotten into if he’d had all the options you do!
I’ve heard people say that you can’t go back; can’t revisit your childhood; can’t relive memories; can’t see, touch, or taste the past. But several years ago, I returned to my hometown. I traveled on a dirt road that I remembered as long and winding and over bridges that had seemed unfathomably high. Everything appeared so small. Perhaps that was because I walk as an adult today, with long steps and authority, not as a child whose world seemed enormous even in the confines of a little village. I wandered down the street to the home where I grew up and stood inside the bedroom where my life once revolved around digging for carrots, catching silver fish, and learning how to soar, and I marveled at how large my world has become.
I live everywhere now—Oklahoma, Los Angeles, Bucharest—and have dual citizenship, Romanian and American. I understand politics and freedom and the price paid for defection from your homeland, family, and friends in return for the unknown. I comprehend opening your hands and letting slide everything you are for the promise of what you might one day be. I’ve found the courage to face real monsters, not the ones perceived beneath my bed, and to keep dreaming even when the landscapes turned to madness and I believed I’d be swallowed by the dark. And those butterflies in my recurring dreams . . . the ones that are ruby, sapphire, and amber and flutter like perfect living works of art? They’re real, if you know where to look for them.
■ The Beginning
The second gymnastics skill on the uneven bars named after me is the “Comaneci Dismount.” To perform the Comaneci Dismount, a gymnast begins in a handstand on the high bar and then pikes her feet onto the bar and does a sole circle swing around the bar. She then releases the bar first with her feet and then with her hands as she performs a half-twist immediately into a back somersault dismount. Today, this is rated as a B move. In 1976, it was the most difficult dismount being performed.
In your letter, you asked if I always knew that I was destined to be a great athlete. I remember noticing when I was in kindergarten, only about four years old, that whenever people thought someone was getting too cocky about their abilities, they would say, “If only you could see the size of your nose.” It was said to me many times because I believed I was a super athlete, always, and in the case of gymnastics, I was right. Does that sound cocky? I would not say I was the best at swimming or ice-skating, although I believe I could have been quite good at the latter. But to say this about my gymnastics ability . . . well, it has been proven.
But at the start of my career, nothing was proven and gymnastics was simply a pastime, nothing more. I never set out to be “Nadia—the first gymnast to receive a perfect 10 in competition, with a new power and body-type that would change the face of gymnastics forever.” Back then, gymnastics didn’t bring fame, sports agents, millions of dollars, or your picture on a W
heaties box. For me, it wasn’t about the future; it was about the moment and personal accomplishments and eventually representing my country and making my people proud. Romanians have a saying, “Not every dog has a bagel on its tail.” It means that not all streets are paved with gold. When I began my career, I just wanted to do cartwheels. It’s hard to believe that now, but it’s true, my friend.
I was in kindergarten when I joined my first gymnastics team, the Flame. My mother took me to the large gymnasium where the team practiced because she wanted to find an outlet for my excessive energy. Jumping on beds, spending day and night racing around the village, and punching little boys in the nose when they refused to let me play was no longer working for my mother. When I stepped into the gym, I knew I fit into that world—or that I wanted to. I was overwhelmed by its size, by my own shyness, and by the endless possibilities for play that each mat, vault, parallel bar, and beam held.
In Romania, sports are considered a great way to help children develop into healthy adults. For me, gymnastics was introduced casually—there was no pressure and no fear. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, the instructors quietly watched to see which children showed the most talent. I still loved soccer, but gymnastics slowly began to eclipse all other sports in my life. I remember that at the end of each class, my instructor, Mr. Duncan, would ask, “Who thinks they’ve done well today?” We’d all raise our hands, and if he agreed, he’d give each little gymnast a piece of chocolate. I loved chocolate, so the reward may have had something to do with my returning to the gym every day.
You asked in your letter what “the single question” that changed my life was. At first, I was taken aback by your query. Do you have a sole question that you remember so vividly? Does one question have the power to set anyone, let alone a child, onto an unchangeable path? Is existence just a matter of fate? I imagine my life as an intricate, swirling line of dominoes and wonder if the touch of a single fingertip on the first ivory rectangle is enough to set the rest into motion, click-clacking one by one until the end of my days.
I guess the single question for me may be buried in history—not just mine but that of the gymnastic world as a whole. It’s a history I find difficult to recall because I was only six years old when it all began for me. I remember a big man with a droopy mustache coming to my school class and asking, “Who can do a cartwheel?” The man had bright eyes, and there was something about him that made me want to raise my hand and impress him with what I could do. But I must turn to that man’s own words to explain the moment because my memory of that day is a little hazy:Creating an experimental gymnastic school in Onesti was a dream [Marta and I] had never dared hope for. It was also one of the most difficult projects we had ever undertaken.... We tested about four thousand children. I went from elementary school to elementary school testing for speed, flexibility, coordination, and balance. I set up mats in each classroom and taught the kids somersaults, headstands and backbends. I also organized races and balancing contests. It was fairly easy to see who had flexibility and coordination, even in the youngest children. By the fourth week of testing, we still hadn’t found enough kids for the school. And I wasn’t satisfied with the physical quality and the natural talent of the children we had found. I decided to screen for gymnasts one more time.
Recreation period is a great time to watch kids without getting directly involved in their activities, and I spent hour after hour watching kids play . . . the children I observed were active, but they weren’t gymnasts. Then one day I saw two little blond-headed girls doing cartwheels in the corner of the schoolyard. I approached and watched them very closely—they had something. Brrrring! The school bell rang and the little ones darted inside.
Where did they disappear to? I went from class to class, but I did not recognize the girls’ faces. . . . Who likes gymnastics? I’d ask the kids in each classroom I visited. They didn’t even know what the word gymnastics meant. Okay, I tried . . . who can do a cartwheel? The kids would raise their hands and I’d have them do a cartwheel for me. “Very nice,” I’d say, but they weren’t the ones.
I was ready to give up. It was the end of the day and I had been to every class. I stopped for one last try. “Can anyone do a cartwheel?” I tiredly asked. No answer. I was ready to walk out when I saw two little blonde heads in the back of the room. “Hey, can either of you do a cartwheel?” They whispered to each other and then nodded yes. “Let me see them,” I said. Boom, boom—they did perfect cartwheels.
“You guys are the ones doing cartwheels in the corner of the schoolyard,” I said. They nodded. “What are your names?” I asked them. “Viorica Dumitriu” and “Nadia Comaneci,” they answered. I told them to tell their mothers that Bela Karolyi said they could be admitted to Onesti’s experimental gymnastics school if they wished.
—Bela Karolyi, from his autobiography, Feel No Fear
If I wished?! Gymnastics meant freedom to do the things I couldn’t do at home. The experimental school in Onesti, the hostel for boarders, and the gym were all connected in one complex. In the early years, I lived at home and only walked half a mile to the school. Our schedule went six days a week—four hours each day taking classes and four in the gym. I enjoyed math and chemistry, but I craved the moment we were set free and I could race to the gymnasium. It was as if a fence had been unlocked, a chain released, a bolt turned, and the world instantly stood waiting and wide open.
When I received my first leotard, I slept with it on my pillow. It was too big and didn’t fit me. The night I took it home, I wouldn’t let my mother sleep until she’d sewn a red N on the name tag and made me gymnastics shoes and socks (they were not available in the stores, and even if they had been, we couldn’t have afforded them). My grandmother had made me a doll out of T-shirt material; it was named Petruta, and I used to sleep with it every night. The doll was immediately replaced with the leotard. Like any child, I had a short-term memory and no loyalty for once loved but readily discarded toys. Everything was forgotten in lieu of gymnastics.
Bela Karolyi and his wife and coinstructor, Marta, put me in a group of young gymnasts. We spent a few hours a day working with weights and ropes and did lots of jumping, running, and other training. They made each day fun, and I had no fear and never said “I cannot do that.” Bela tells me now that this trait caught his attention early on, but back then, I was not the star of the little girls’ team, Viorica was. I was quiet, never smiled, and rarely stood out from the other gymnasts. We were also surrounded by older girls with much more developed skills, so I always knew I was not the best at the school. But inside, I was bursting to learn new skills and prove myself. It’s hard to describe, but I could actually taste how much I wanted to be a better gymnast. I was consumed. Friend, is there anything in life you’ve desired that much?
I always wanted to do more than Bela or Marta asked of me—if they said twenty-five push-ups, I’d do fifty. I liked the feeling of improving; I craved accomplishments. It took months to learn the simplest skills; a cartwheel on the beam began as one on a mat, then on a line painted on the floor, then on a low beam surrounded by cushions, and finally moved to the high beam. Every day, I’d return to the gym and start all over again until I mastered each skill. I didn’t mind because each step, repetition, loss, or gain made me better.
That’s life, isn’t it? You see what you want, and you strive to become more every day until you can grasp the dream in your hands. It’s hard work, but if you do what you love, it’s joyful. I was not born a champion, and I did not dream in those early days of becoming one. I dreamed of the little competitions Bela held in the gym and the silly trophies he passed out when we’d done well. I dreamed of learning new skills. I never saw the bigger picture or international success and fame. I dreamed of running and twisting and double somersaults and that nothing could tether me to the ground because I was born to fly.
Have you heard people say that the eyes are the windows to the soul? I have been told that my eyes make people uncom
fortable, that they are too intense, too calculating. Some say my eyes do not match my smile and that there is a coldness in them that adults find uncomfortable but to which children are oblivious. I can say only that if my eyes are windows, then I can choose to draw the shades at times. The glimpses I allow into my soul are the product of a conscious decision on my part. I look back on pictures of myself as a young gymnast and understand that some see blankness. But I see intensity, determination, desire. Always desire.
■ Necessity
I always wanted to do the impossible, so when Bela came up with the idea for the Comaneci Salto, I was eager to try to perfect the skill. A similar move was already being performed from the low bar to the high bar. Bela thought I could do it all on the high bar by catching the same bar I’d released. I spent countless hours, days, weeks, and months perfecting the never before attempted skill.
The reason the Comaneci Salto is so difficult is that there’s no room for error. With most elements in a routine, a gymnast can be a little bit off and still successfully complete a skill. With the Comaneci Salto, if you’re off even the tiniest bit, you cannot make the element, and you crash big-time. The key to making the Comaneci Salto is to always be the perfect distance from the bar so that you can complete a rotation without hitting it with your heels or missing it with your hands. I used to tape foam to my heels because they got so bruised from constantly whacking the bar. As a result of my determination, the Comaneci Salto was the first big release move seen at the 1976 Olympics.
Friend, do not believe that luck covered me like silk from the moment I was born or that everything I did came easily, without cost. I had a very long road to travel before I achieved any of my goals.
Letters to a Young Gymnast Page 2
