Thanks and A Box of Porn

When I was rowing, we went to Europe once or twice a summer. Once for a World Cup race, and then for the World championships at the end of the season (on non-Olympic years.) After the Worlds, we were allowed to fly home from any city, on any date. So even if we flew somewhere in Germany, we could fly home from Barcelona, Dublin, or anywhere. Young, very fit, broke, anywhere in Europe. We just had to get ourselves to that other airport.

The racecourse in Račice, about 24 miles north of Prague, in the Czech Republic, at the 1993 World Championships. We are pictured in the lower right foreground. From left to right: Melissa Iverson, Annie Kakela, Jen Dore, Catriona Fallon, Mary McCagg, Betsy McCagg, me, Amy Fuller, and Yaz Farooq.

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One year, my boyfriend and I— he was on the men's team, told US Rowing to fly us home from Amsterdam two weeks after racing ended (which had been in Tampere, Finland). There was an overnight ferry, trains, hostels, and lots of walking, dragging our big duffle bags around. In his case, because he had been in Europe for six weeks longer, training in Lithuania, he had more stuff than me, including a taped-together cardboard box, which contained, he said, his vitamins and various other sundries.

We took turns carrying the "box of vitamins" throughout the entire two weeks.

We flew home and broke up a few months later— which is only just tangential to the story.

Anyway, some time later, my friend Terry who had picked us up at the airport called to tell me that she had found a box full of porn in her basement. She said it was the box we brought back from Europe. He had never retrieved it. It was not full of vitamins, but full of VHS tapes of his—I guess— favorite porn. Which meant I had unwittingly taken turns carrying his porn-vitamins around Europe for two weeks at the end of the summer in 1995. I had never thought to look inside the box.

I wonder how much other shit I've carried for others that wasn't mine to carry.

I noticed this Thanksgiving that some of the people I follow on social media were talking about being grateful for the things that didn't go as we had hoped.

This resonated with me.

It reminded me of the box of porn I carried around Europe for two weeks in 1995. Dragging our heavy burdens around can make us stronger and we might be carrying something we don’t actually need to.

It may be worth a look inside.

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Supplies for Rowing in Europe in the 90’s

• American Express Travelers checks

• a huge duffle bag (rolling bags were not yet invented?)

• cardboard box filled with porn

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