Alyce's coach

I'm not sure how it happened but there on a great green grassy expanse of lawn at Innis Park in Columbus, Ohio, on one of April's finest spring days I became Alyce's gym coach. It's an unlikely role for a 60-year-old who never managed a cartwheel in her youth let alone in her "later years. My only affinity with the term is that I do like to direct things. And this strawberry-blonde 6-year-old seemed miraculously amenable to my direction.
It was our first meeting, Alyce and I. Although I'd been reading about her daily from her mother's blog, I had not yet met her. And to be honest, I was a bit nervous. She and her mother had just arrived at the park fresh from a soccer game. Alyce had played goalie. The team had lost. She seemed unperturbed and decidedly disinterested in meeting her Ogram's best friend. I was prepared for that. She was barefoot and just as her mother had described: wirey, willful, skittish, wary and oh, so sweet.
We wound up on the grassy lawn by way of meandering through the children's garden of this vast outdoor garden and park. Alyce was doing summersaults, cartwheels and other active, kid-like things. I had kept my distance, giving her space. I had also opted for lying on the grass rather than sitting by the other adults, my first real gambit at wooing her. I had been carefully watching her but not so she would notice.
A shameless poser, I simply acted like I knew something about gymnastics. It was risky. I knew nothing and if she found me out it I would have squandered that opening. But she never suspected. And eventually it really wouldn't matter. She willingly let me lead her through a series of summersaults, cartwheels and handstands. I had her finish each routine by standing on one leg with her toe pointed and telling her that was called "the gull.'' I told her she was gifted. And I kept worrying that my thin knowledge of gymnastic routines would bore her. It didn't. I "mixed it up'' simply by having her do more cartwheels. That seemed enough. And when I had her stand on her other leg, she rolled her eyes not out of boredom but by seeing this as a challenge she might not be up to. I told her she was ready for this advanced movement. We both believed it. But careful not to over-praise for fear she'd know it was a ruse to just be in her company, I also told her to point her toe. A coach, after all, is all about form and detail. The gull pose was the best opportunity for refining the form.
It was Alyce who referred to me as a coach. And for me she was / is a gift. For I had come to that park more wary and weary than open and engaged. That night she asked her mother if she could text coach to tell her she'd done the gull for 18 seconds.