This is a longer and more personal story than usual (I usually separate my Medium and Substack writing but am publishing this story on both platforms) but it’s related to running. And living! Hope everyone’s finding ways to enjoy the summer. Thank you for reading me.
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There are some experiences in life that I consider uniquely American. One of them is driving on a highway to the sound of a rock radio station. It can be an epic road trip but it doesn’t have to be. A several-hour drive from one city to another can be an emotionally heightened experience, for me anyway.
Then there is the American high school. There are tens of thousands of high schools in the U.S. across vastly different states and places, and I’m allowing myself a gross generalization by referring to the experience in a collective term. But such is my sentiment: I have always viewed the American high school as a very distinct cultural experience with some characteristics that are common across all schools. For one thing, the majority of schools I’ve seen and experienced are vast in their scale. I guess if you attend one, you take for granted all your classrooms and the multiple athletic facilities. If you come from outside the U.S., you’re stunned by the breadth of the schools’ infrastructure.
Then there is the cultural experience.
I came to the U.S. for the first time in 1994. I was fourteen then. I spent the summer in Wichita, Kansas, attending a language school and was then placed with a host family in Enid, Oklahoma, where I was to attend Enid High.
I remember dreading the start of school. My English had improved during the summer, but it wasn’t fluent, and at fourteen, I would be the youngest kid in the junior class. I don’t know why I was never considered for the lower grade or even middle school. Maybe middle schools didn’t allow placement of foreign students. Maybe they looked at my transcript from my Russian school and placed me in that year based on it.
On the first day of school, and throughout the year, my host father dropped me off at the school much earlier than necessary because he needed to get to work on time. I was totally dependent on my host dad for my travels around Enid. I often boastfully refer to my time in Oklahoma as “being in the middle of nowhere,” but Enid was a city of decent size. There was no way to get around it without a car, and public transportation seemed either non-existent or a very rare means of getting around.
So, on the first day, I arrived at Enid High with plenty of time to spare. I sat down on the bench by the library on the first floor and found comfort in seeing a couple of other loners nearby at other tables. I wish it had stayed like that — quiet — but, soon enough, the school filled with the buzz that I had dreaded. Fifteen hundred American teenagers, casually dressed and relaxed, flooded their school. They felt at home. I felt dizzy from anxiety.
I have three memories from the first day of school. The first is the locker and the padlock. That is a bad memory. One would think a padlock is a simple device, but maybe because my hands were shaking, it took me multiple tries to unlock the damn thing.
Second: P.E. class. That’s another bad memory. We had weight lifting and basketball. I was already intimidated as soon as we hit the locker room because everyone was so much bigger and taller than I was. And all the guys seemed to be masterful with weights and on the basketball court. They wore long shorts that hung low on their butts, extra-large shirts, and nice sports shoes, mostly Nikes. I wore my glasses with thick tinted lenses, some tight green shorts that buttoned up at my belly button, and a pair of trainers with pinkish stripes that I had brought from Russia — they were a brand that was surely a mystery in America. In that outfit, I lifted weights for the first time in my life, in the Enid High gym. Fortunately, no one seemed to notice me — or maybe they did but were polite enough to avoid staring at the weirdo that I most certainly was.
Finally, there was the lunch break. Some students headed to the cafeteria, but many headed outside, and I stepped out too, though I had no idea where to go. I walked a mile before stumbling upon a diner. It puzzled me that I hadn’t noticed even one fellow student on the sidewalk. Where had they all gone? I later discovered that many students had cars and went to local fast-food places, often in groups. Driving was so out of reach for me. Even my parents in Moscow didn’t drive.
I felt lonely at the diner and struggled to communicate with the waitress. She asked something about my order which I didn’t understand, then she didn’t understand me and there was the usual round of “excuse me,” “pardon me,” “you got it,” and “where are you from?”
Eventually, I settled down fine at my school and greatly enjoyed the time at home with my host family. Still, I was lonely and shy. I was especially concerned about my accent. I just couldn’t get rid of it. I had become fluent in English, but everyone could tell immediately I was not American.
Being self-conscious about my accent created a vicious circle. I spoke very quietly, prompting people to say “Pardon me?” even more often. If it was unnecessary to speak up, I stayed quiet. Luckily, I was doing great in school, and the teachers and many of the students seemed to empathize with me. In fact, at Enid High, I discovered a new identity: a straight-A student. A rare “B” caused my GPA to slip a little from a perfect 4.0.
My report card, featuring a picture of a Native American wearing a large feathered headdress, would become family memorabilia. It doesn’t hang on a wall like my framed university diplomas from subsequent years, but it has a special place in my heart. I was never sidelined. I paved the road to those other diplomas in Enid. I was awarded membership in the National Honor Society and proudly announced to my parents that it was signed by Bill Clinton himself. His signature was, indeed, on the certificate, and Mom and Dad imagined that I had shaken hands with the president.
Everyone at Enid High was friendly to me, but I didn’t make any friends. I was different — younger and spoke with an accent. I wanted to go out and party, be offered rides in my classmates’ cars, attend school sporting events, and make close friends. But I continued to be shy and worried about my language. There was a handful of foreign students at Enid High, so naturally, I tended to feel some attachment to them. In the spring of 1995, we went on a bus trip to the East Coast, with stops in Saint Louis, Memphis, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, D.C. It was a nice retreat, but even in that small group, I was the youngest.
A new version of me began to exist — quiet, introverted, and often lonely. Shyness took control of me. There was no way to escape it. It fed on itself and grew. Unable to lighten up my days with romance or friendships, I filled the void in my life with hard work on the academic front and a warm relationship with my host family. In their presence, I felt truly at home, forgetting the challenges of adapting to life in America.
My year in Enid ended with a very American experience: a prom. I didn’t have a date. American girls were completely and utterly out of reach for me. I barely dared to say hi to them, and they all had boyfriends anyway.
American high school, specifically Enid High, shaped my identity — that of an introvert.
I mentioned “full circle” in the title of my story.
Last year my oldest son graduated from high school in California:
And then something more dramatic happened very recently. I joined my son’s high school as an assistant coach for the running team. I love running and reached out to my son’s team’s coach about ways to expand my passion for the sport in new directions. He happily offered me several ideas — working with him and also starting a private club for kids. I’ve now spent a couple of weeks working alongside him running a summer camp with some sixty-plus kids, and it’s been a super enjoyable experience. Among other things, I often get to run with the fast varsity team.
On other days, I give presentations — talking about nutrition, the importance of habits, and other topics. I’m still a little shy and aware of my accent, but I feel in my element with this new endeavor and see myself continuing this long into the future. I’m learning a lot from the coach and have a lot of respect for him. I also have a lot of respect for the kids. They are all different, obviously, but they make a great team (incidentally — one of the best in California).
When we do the pre-run or post-run exercises on the track, I look around me and marvel at how the entire vast place is bursting with activities and action, even though it’s summer. Next to us, the football team is practicing, and there’s always hip-hop music blasting from the speakers. Students, coaches, staff, a busy parking lot — I’m at the very heart of the American high school.
Somehow, what I once dreaded so much, what shaped my demeanor, is now becoming an essential part of my life, three decades later. A lovely experience.
Because running!
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