The Swamp

Just like every other day, I find myself walking down to the Swamp. It’s overcast and chilly. I’m tired and achy and my ankles click uncomfortably loudly as I amble down the hill. I am heading to lacrosse practice, just like every other day. We call the lower field that we practice on the Swamp because no matter how long its been since it rained, it is always muddy. During our warm-up laps, the corner of the field closest to the adjacent pond is typically standing water. The wildlife is large factor of the Swamp life; geese are often a pre-practice issue and have to be shooed away with a few lacrosse balls launched their way. The goose poop is not so easily dealt with. When it is warmer, later in the season, frogs and turtles will turn up in drills. It really is the worst field I have ever practiced on. The grass is never cut, the well-tread parts of the field are bald, the lines are never painted, and the field itself isn’t even regulation size.

I hate that field for what it is, but I love it for what it has given me. For two and a half hours a day, five or six days a week, for four and half months, that field has been my second home. As the saying goes, a house does not make a home. I don’t like that field for what it is, but I love it for what it has given to me. The memories I have made on that field are so incredibly precious to me. Over the past three years, the Swamp has always been a constant, somewhere that I know I will have love and support. The Swamp is where I have built a sisterhood with my team. That field is where we fight with each other and for each other.

One particularly raining and difficult day stands out in my memory. It was a particularly wet and chilly day. Much like the sky above, the mood on the field was gloomy. The day before, the whole team had been ten minutes late to practice for some reason or another. Needless to say, Coach was not happy. After our warm up laps around that mushy field, he called us in.

“Since you were all ten minutes late yesterday, today you’re gonna run ten full field suicides.” said Coach. This was met with quite groans. “Or… you can go double or nothing. If you give me the best practice of your lives, I will cut down the sprints depending on hard work. But I will be cutting down from twenty sprints.”

This seemed like the best option, because we always work hard in practice, right?

We were wrong. About 20 minutes into practice, Coach called us back in. “If that is what you think hard work looks like, you’ll be running 20 sprints in 2 hours.” he said, frustrated. “Get some water and then get back out there!”

For the next two hours, we hustled and worked. At one point in a shooting drill, I started crying. I was homesick and tired and I really, really did not want to run 20 suicides. Coach called for a water break and I started really crying, big ugly tears. At the water cooler, the other girls noticed I was upset. I whisper screamed,“I really don’t wanna run! I hate running, I hate lacrosse, and I hate this freaking field!”

“Hey! We all hate this field and sometimes we all hate lacrosse.” said our captain Emily. “But you’re gonna get yourself back out there and you’re gonna put the work in so we don’t have to run.”

She handed me my stick and pushed me forward. I wiped my nose and jogged back to the field.

Well, we did end up running three suicides that day, but together we worked off 17 suicides. That practice was one of my favorite of all time. We were all there working for each other, we pushed each other to be better. When I think of the Swamp, I think of that day and the feeling I had.

That feeling was knowing that I will always have real friends in the swamp.

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