I Liked Your Speech or Whatever

I discovered that major moves activate a secret video room in a remote hallway of the brain where tiny staffers cycle through footage collected in the place you are moving from for you to do with what you will. They don’t waste time with the people and places that captured your heart since you could never forget those. (Unfortunately, same goes for the people and places that led you to reflect on the word throat-punch.) I think they are clearing out space for the new memories to come, so these scenes are apparently endangered, the ones you just might forget, and it feels like you should take the time to salvage the treasures.  

One recently came to mind from Illinois that I want to keep for sure.

I do a lot of public speaking, and last winter one of my assistant coaches invited me to be the keynote speaker for a running club’s holiday banquet that celebrated high school cross country runners from throughout the region. I drove to the restaurant on the evening of the event, and it was a bigger deal than I anticipated, honoring a male and female runner from fifty or sixty high schools, plus coaches and parents in attendance. I ate my banquet-hall chicken in a crowded room and got ready to do my thing.

Other public speakers will know what I mean, but I was really on that night. Like, really on. When I got up, I immediately felt like the entire room was mine, like Steph Curry must feel every time he touches a basketball. I was funny and inspiring, and most importantly, didn’t speak too long, and when I finished, I could tell that it was a hit. A couple of folks whispered kind words that I won’t repeat out of modesty.

Well, the rest of the program came and went, and since Midwesterners aren’t much into sharing their feelings, I didn’t have to fight through too many people to head to the exit afterward, which is where it happened.

I held the exit door for some folks on the way out, and a dad walked by with his award-winning daughter dutifully walking behind him like a little duckling. After the daughter passed, I noticed that she hesitated, then stopped, shyly half-turned toward me while her dad kept walking, oblivious to everything, and without making eye contact said to me, “I liked your speech or whatever.”

It was a heroic moment, but I instantly knew that she was disappointed with herself. Her body language was clear: she had flubbed it all up, said the wrong thing, sounded silly. I looked at her eyes and willed her to make eye contact and said with all that is sincere within me: “Thank you so much. You have no idea what that means to me.” Somehow, that must have been the right thing to say given the obvious relief in her very posture. Then, she did look at me, smiled, and with a new spring in her step turned to catch up with a still-clueless dad.

It felt good to deliver an inspiring after-dinner speech that night, but what felt a thousand times better was getting to be the only person in the world to witness the very moment that a young human had the courage to test drive independence and say something that was entirely her own reaction to a strange-looking man that had shared something somehow meaningful to her. I don’t know her name or even remember what she looked like. Well, not true: I remember what it looked like to see her dash away, a talented young runner sprinting off toward a life of her own making. I want to keep that picture as a treasure, which is far more inspiring than anything I might ever say.