Frozen Teardrop

by Lucinda Ruh

  There was another unavoidable problem. Money. My coach was the team leader in Harbin so he was in charge and could pay off the other team delegates to keep quiet, but in Beijing he would have to report to others. Now it was making sense to us why he hadn’t wanted to go to Beijing. Since there had been no choice but to go to Beijing on their orders, word got around and everything fell apart. The federation and government were furious at my coach. It turned out he had taken American dollars and he been training me without telling them first. My parents thought everything had been properly arranged and when they found out, they were fuming at my coach as well. My mother and I were told that I would have to leave and he would not be allowed to teach me anymore.

  My mother after practice one day went up to my coach and put both of her hands on him and just shook him before she collapsed into tears. She screamed at him, asking him how he dared to do this to such a young girl. How dare he ruin a dream and a life? It was the first time in a very long time I saw my mother so livid at someone else. I remember when I was a child in kindergarten, some mothers had gone behind my mother’s and my back to do some awful things, and I saw my mom shake them too. But this was the first time I saw her fight for me over skating. I felt so loved and cared for. At that time I did not really understand everything. As I have said time and time again my parents were great about keeping all the surrounding organizations away from me. All I knew was that my favorite skating coach would be taken from me and not be able to teach me anymore. We had to leave.

  Leave. That seemed a good idea. Leaving, I did that a lot. But it had always been my choice to leave, usually because I was in a terrible situation. No one had ever made me leave. I was told to go home and leave the country many times in Japan, but they were just threats. This was real. We had to leave since we knew the Chinese federation really wanted us to leave. They knew I would not take another coach and I am sure they would not have let any other coach train me anyway. It was their way of saying, “Please go. You do not belong here and you have caused enough damage.”

  Having no choice, my mother and I solemnly packed our bags to go back home to Switzerland. We had no other place to go. This was all so sudden. Yes, Switzerland was still our home no matter how little we had lived there. No matter how much we denied it, it still was our only real home and in despair our only place to return to. My father was still there and we would reunite with him.

  I could not believe that just when I had found the coach I wanted and liked so much, and just when my skating had become the best it had ever been, the carpet was ripped from beneath me. Why was this so hard? Was I making it so hard? Was I the culprit of it all? What was God trying to tell me? I was utterly speechless and disappointed beyond belief. I was even more devastated than when I was denied the Olympic spot. China had more impact on me in six months than Japan had on me in thirteen years. It had been an enrichment of a masterful six months. I believe there is a reason for everything and God must have known that six months was enough for me. China was not to be experienced longer and there was nothing I could do about it. Its run was over and now I would go on with my life to new experiences. I always believed in letting go of everything and every moment. When the time has passed it has passed.

  In one way that is why I do not like pictures. I don’t feel memories should be kept on material. They shouldn’t be documented. They are to be experienced then and remembered only to help others in the world but not to be hoarded as a be-all and end-all. Living in the moment is what I learned from my coach in China. Around the world we had flown and it was time to now go home. Yes, to a home I did not know, but home it would be.

  9

  Unknown to Known

  (ZURICH)

  A short day of sorrow lasts longer than a long month of happiness.

  With sadness tucked away firmly in our hearts, by the end of December of 1998 we said our goodbyes to our Chinese life. We felt like gypsies, nomads roaming from one place to the next. Goodbyes are not easy and we weren’t getting any better at them. Hiding our emotions we thanked everyone and were on our way to the airport. Since we could not take all our belongings back with us at once, we decided to leave some suitcases with my Chinese coach to retrieve at a later date. We thought maybe my mother would go back and once more clear up the mess I left, or maybe it was more of a sentimental feeling that we wanted to believe we would be coming back and wished to leave a part of us there. To this day we have not retrieved our belongings. I actually have no idea where they went! That is the beauty of it though. Maybe some Chinese people are relishing the clothes we left behind. Maybe some part of my mother and me is still looming somewhere over China. Our spirits live on.

  I like to believe that I have left a little part of me everywhere I have been. It had not been taken from me nor had it emptied me out, but rather I willingly gave a part of me. It made me even more whole since at the same time I received so much from everywhere I had been, and everyone I had met. I want to be remembered and to leave my footprint. To me it is all an enrichment of life and an education of the spirit.

  Surprisingly I somehow felt relieved and relaxed as soon as we touched down in Switzerland. It felt like this was my home after all. Please be aware here I am not talking about the Swiss skating world. Usually when I went to Switzerland I despised it since I was always there for only a few days for a competition and that was it. Here I am referring to the country itself away from skating. I had never experienced it before. Maybe, too, it was different this time because my father was living here. I felt I had my family again. It was after all my birthplace. It was more a feeling of a force beyond the earth’s realm and more spiritual and unconscious than something I saw. I was relieved to be home with my father again and to sleep again within my own furniture and memories that I had grown up with. It was magnificent.

  It felt like I had come full circle and God had been waiting for me to come there. As all of this was giving me back my soul I also was utterly mentally and physically exhausted from life’s experiences so far. My mind and heart and soul were feeling like they were all going to explode. I had been around the world, moving, packing, unpacking, and living out of suitcases with illnesses and injuries. I just did not know if I could handle anything more. It had been a whirlwind tour and I had come back to the starting point. Once again, I was empty-handed with no coach.

  My illness that I had conceived in China unfortunately came with me. Instead of having once a month bouts of the illness, I started feeling sick to my stomach every single day. My diet became so limited as to what I could and could not eat since everything made me feel sick, causing me to become very skinny. I was constantly feeling gastrointestinal discomfort as well as, feeling weak, tired, and experiencing pain throughout my body. At least my injuries had all healed! One step forward two steps back. I was not getting anywhere!

  My mother and father started pursuing different ice rink and coaching possibilities. One seemed very promising in the French part of Switzerland in Geneva. My mother and I decided to take a train ride there for a day or two to try it out to see how I liked it. I missed my Chinese coach, his care and masterful teachings incredibly, and every day I was on the ice I cried because he wasn’t with me. I was also traumatized from everything I had been through and was still going through. I was not in a good place. I knew that his teachings and guiding me only on the phone was great but I needed a coach by my side to give me the support and attention any athlete would need at the world skating level.

  We stayed a day in Geneva and I disliked it to the utmost degree. I didn’t like the coach. I didn’t mind where the rink was or how the rink looked. Only the coach mattered to me. I had been so spoiled by the knowledge of my guru in China that no coach would be able to surpass that. It could have been my stubbornness that I just could not accept anyone else of a lesser caliber. Well why would I though? Why would I go backwards when I could have the guru teachings on the phone? I did not want my parents to waste their money on someone I felt was n
either worthy to teach me nor worthy of my skating.

  I must admit though, that they were incredibly kind there and only wanted the best for me in terms of accommodation. I would have been able to skate for free, live for free at a prestigious family home, and everything would have been taken care of. I was a celebrity in the skating world and they would have waited on me hand and foot. But that never ever pleased me; nor was I fond of that or intrigued by that. I wanted a good coach who knew how to teach me, understood my body, and after all I had been through, I knew the coach there had no clue. I could feel it. Maybe this is my dangerous trait, but I always go by how I internally feel and the intuition I get, and I make my conclusions according to my feeling about a situation. It may drive people up the wall, as it may not seem rational but I’d rather do what I feel than what the outside world sees as perfect. How do they know what they are looking at and judging, anyway? I never judged a person or a situation. I always accepted it for what it was, but that did not mean that I did not live through and feel the pain of the emotional trauma it produced on me.

  My mother, on the other hand, did not see the situation like I did. She was so happy that they would take care of me, and for once I would have privileges that I deserved after representing Switzerland so well abroad. After all the experiences and turmoil we had gone through, this reception was heaven for her. Being exhausted from everything, she deserved a break. She advised me to take the chance. My parents had been my only sponsors. To have the whole rink and their people stand up for us and want to help me made my mother elated. And she was absolutely right. It was wonderful to have a village behind me. So for me to tell her that I in no way would accept this coach, and there was no other coach good enough in Geneva, filled my mother with rage. So much rage that it turned her into a mad woman.

  The whole train ride back home that lasted about two-and-a-half hours was outright torture. She took me into the area where the two train carriages meet and beat me hard for the longest time. I cried quietly since I did not want anyone to see, and I knew my mother did not want that either. The thought went through my head that my mother was going to kill me. Really kill me. I was so frightened and hit so much that I felt like I was going to die. I was defeated and crushed when we reached Zurich and my father met us at the station to bring us home. My sister had come to visit us from England where she was working at that time. I did not speak. I was hurt like never before. I could not look into my mother’s eyes and I could not muster a word.

  My father, sensing something was wrong asked what had happened and I told him, but he just kind of dismissed the fact, not taking it too seriously, and even my mother was surprisingly able to put on a happy face. I did not. For about two days I could not voice a word. I was frozen in time and in emotion. I could not believe what just happened. I wanted not to speak for longer but I always managed to feel sorry for my mother and couldn’t forgive her quickly enough. I did want everything to stop. I wanted time to stand still. I wanted not to be alive in this way. I knew it was never my parents’ fault. I never blamed anyone but myself. But at that time to feel like you were going to be hurt by someone you loved so much was unbearable. Maybe parts of me did die. I don’t write these words freely either. I write them with care and precision expressing only what I truly felt and what was going on at that time. I do not intend to hurt more when it is time for joy, but the truth must be written in hopes of healing others now.

  I had to compete at my national championships and since I could not change my surroundings, I changed my hair color. I went from blond to fiery red. I often would just dive into things without any fear. So my hair was red, red. It looked gorgeous and many said I looked like a model or a sophisticated actress but the national Swiss Figure Skating Championships was a disaster.

  It was the first time in my life I did not want to get on the ice to compete. It’s not that I did not want to, but I could not. I could not force myself to get on that ice. I knew I would eventually have to when I had no choice, but I was so tired and sick at the same time. I was crying most of the day and even told my mother, “I just can’t anymore, I just can’t.” No other words could express what my body was telling me. I had turned into a little kid who just looked up to my mother with tearful eyes wanting guidance and I was crying with exhaustion. I looked very pale but I knew I would have to skate. And I did. I went on that ice, with a big smile on my face and did my programs with no coach by my side.

  My mother actually stood there for me. She in the end was the only one who had gone through everything with me so who would be better than her? I went through the motions emotionless like a puppet with someone pulling my strings. I felt nothing. I was dead inside. No one outside of my family knew what had happened. We did not explain and how could anyone understand what I had gone through the last ten years? Some things are better left unsaid. I placed fourth. I was still the best skater in Switzerland if I could have done what I knew, but I did not land one jump. I wasn’t disappointed, sad, or angry at all. I was frozen. I was thrilled to not even be on the podium so I wouldn’t have to go out there again. I was thrilled to get out of my costume and out of the rink and go home. I was thrilled it was over. I was thrilled I did not have to fake my smile.

  True exhaustion is detrimental. When you start not feeling anything anymore you know you have hit rock bottom. I did not care anymore. We arrived back home and unpacked. I decided this was it. I would stop skating. It was not worth it anymore. Not worth the pain, the illness, the hurt it was not only causing me, but my whole family. It was not worth the work, sweat and tears just to be judged by nine people giving you numbers that would be erased from the face of the earth with tears of sadness. No, it was not worth it anymore. But somehow it was all I knew and if I did stop what would I do? I did not know myself without skating. Who was I?

  So oddly enough, or actually not odd at all, I kept on letting myself be driven to the ice rink near our home. I would lace up my skates, left foot then right foot, and like a good soldier go on the ice and train. I had no more purpose to live, no more goals, no more dreams, yet I plodded on. I continued like a man at war who has lost all he has, but just keeps on going with the beliefs he first had, when he joined the military. The reason I first skated was tucked away in my heart. Maybe for that reason I skated on. My heart and brain wanted to stop but my body just continued. It had been doing skating routines for fifteen years; it could not just stop at once. If it is stopped cold turkey it could be even more detrimental than to continue with the addiction. So there it was. It seemed I wasn’t going to rehab yet, because I didn’t realize my addiction at that time. I was just going through the motions as I always had done. It was more comfortable to stay in the pain I knew then break from it into unknown territory.

  At the Swiss national competition many coaches had come up to my mother offering their teachings to us. One Swiss coach that stood out for her was a coach at an ice rink near our home. We decided to go pay him a visit. Being totally out of it at that time I don’t remember much of what was said. But what I did hear and remember was that if I wanted, he could make it possible for the federation to give me another chance to be the one chosen to go to the world championships to be held in about two months time. I felt lightness in my heart.

  The 1999 World Figure Skating Championships were around the corner and I still wanted to compete in them. I decided to give the coach a try. I did tell him one thing though: that I would be in contact with my Chinese coach every day and I would train on and off ice exactly as my guru said. I would not follow his training regimen. He agreed and we started to work together.

  I really have to give him credit for accepting my proposal and for instilling in me hope and enthusiasm again for the sport. He gave me confidence and joy again. He did not pressure me into doing anything I did not want to do and let me do exactly as the Chinese coach instructed me. He gave me weekly plans for my training regimen and off-ice I would do on my own. My new coach had patience and things were looking
up. The feeling of working hard on the ice was always an upper and when you do it full force it masks a lot of sorrow and pain. The more you do it the more you start feeling good again, at least when on the ice. I also knew that he was more of a manager and agent to skaters than a typical egotistical skating coach. He was always on the phone while coaching. It took the pressure off of me. He had shows he was producing and they were his first love. It felt like we were a good team. Our relationship on the ice worked well.

  Badminton was one of the off-ice exercises I had done in China and my new coach willingly played with me even on the weekends, not to the liking of his wife. He really cared for me and he arranged makeup lessons for me so I would know how to do it at the competitions. He even had me going to tanning sessions to look healthier and have a glow. He went with me to a famous Swiss fashion designer to have new costumes made. He made me feel like Cinderella. He was producing me into a whole package ad I appreciated it very much. I liked that he let me do my own thing but supported me fully throughout it all.

  I did not, however, ever listen to his technique suggestions while on the ice. His mouth would move but I heard no sound. The only coach that could make me land all my triples was my Chinese coach and I was not to have any disturbance with that technique that had worked wonders for me. Unfortunately due to not having my guru physically with me and having gone through so much turmoil, I was back to doing three triples out of the five but for me it was good enough at that time. I just wanted to be happy on the ice and do what I really loved to do. I was injury free, although my stomach illness still presented itself and hindered me in many ways.