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mrtroy · 6 years

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Little Things Revisited: Embracing the Sweat Stains

This week marks the five-year anniversary of publishing my book, Little Things in a Big Sky. I’ve finally started to go back and read it for the first time! Ha. It’s been really interesting to reflect on that time in my life and read through what I was thinking, how I thought about things in general, and to notice changes in how I think now, and also in how I write now.

When I say I’m reading the book for the first time, that refers to reading it after the editing process ended. When I was working back and forth with the editor, I would of course read what I wrote and make comments on what I was okay with changing and what I wasn’t. But, since the book has been finished I’ve never actually read it. Hopefully after five years, I’m finally ready to do so!

The process of writing a book – especially the way I did it – is mentally taxing. Being that Little Things is a collection of short stories, I essentially wrote one story a day for about 60 days in a row. Most of the stories are around a thousand words in length, so I wrote 60,000 words in 60 days. Most days I would write and re-write that day’s story and then outline, or at least jot down some ideas for what I thought I might write the next day. After those 60 days were up and I felt like I had a good solid core for the book, I edited it back and forth with the editor for about three straight weeks – roughly 2-3 hours each night.

By the time the whole process was complete, I was fried. I was doing this after work each night, and I remember most nights falling asleep in what seemed like seconds after my head hit the pillow.

By the time the jacket artwork was done and everything was worked out with the publishing platform, truthfully, I really had no energy left to actually read the book.

As I started to get feedback from those who had actually read it, it made things even harder. Objectively, the book isn’t all that great, and most of the feedback was nice, but there were twinges of honesty in people’s well-intended critiques. I respect that – and actually prefer it that way – but it didn’t make it any easier to want to go back and read my work.

So now, I finally am, and I’m going to react to it here.

In my efforts to read Little Things for the first time, I pulled up my original source file from when I wrote it. Because of the way I wrote it – daily, when time allowed – the original source file is actually a Google Doc. I did it this way so I could write on the go. On my phone if I wanted to take a note, or even on other machines when I traveled. It worked well.

For some reason when I saved the final, final Google Doc, I saved it in reverse order to how it appeared in the book. The last page was first and the first page was last. I have no idea how I did this, and don’t consciously remember doing it, but as I opened the file for the first time since December of 2013, there was the last section of the book on page one of the doc. Strage, but true, apparently.

Five years is a strange amount of time to go back and reflect on writing. I write a fair amount, and do so in a fair amount of formats. I’ve started writing three other books since publishing this one, and between three those three have about 80,000 more words of ‘other book content.’ The point here: As I read my words from 2013, I knew they were mine – they definitely sound like me – but I only vaguely remember writing them.

Here’s the last story from Little Things in a Big Sky:

Embracing the Sweat Stains - 11/15/13

I’ve been thinking for about a week about how I want to end this book. The rest of the book has been written on successive days - the Afterward will explain that - but when it came time to write the last story, I needed some time.

I’m not always one who waits before I express my feelings and in many instances that hasn’t always worked in my favor. In the moment, it’s easy to say something that isn’t necessarily that well thought out.

But at the same time, if I think about things too long I over analyze them to the Nth degree.

So, in many ways, this process has been an evolution and a compromise. Writing every day, but not publishing or sharing any of it for months. By the time anyone reads these words, it will have been three months since I started writing. While that might not seem like a long time to you - and in terms of publishing a book it’s no time at all - to me, that may as well be an eternity.

The biggest thing I’ve noticed about myself during this process is how much I have grown to love sweat stains.

Yes, you read that correctly. I have really grown to love sweat stains.

Let me explain.

The groundwork for this love was laid when my brother was in middle school track and field. Loosely speaking, he ‘ran’ track, and his event was the hurdles if I remember correctly. I admired my brother for joining the track team. He is three years younger than me, but in many ways has always been an inspiration to me

For a long time, I’ve had a fear of getting involved in activities. For whatever reason, I have a hard time ‘just going for it.’ I think it’s probably due to over analyzing things and being worried about a negative outcome, rather than expecting a positive one. I’m working on that now, but back when my brother was in middle school the thought of my joining a sport or activity I had no previous experience in was as foreign as could possibly be.

I was so proud of him for joining track and I gave him even more credit because he was so, so bad at it. We’ve laughed about it since then and he excitedly reminds me that he beat a kid once. He’s not referring to a match race, or a rival, or anything like that. All that means is that one time, in one race, he finished ahead of one kid.

It was after a feat like this that he was able to proudly wear his track team shirt. I love shirts like that. On the front they have the school name and which sport you’re associated with and on the back is some team slogan or team saying. We’ve also laughed in the present day about the fact that this middle school track shirt’s slogan was ‘Pain is temporary. Pride lasts forever!’

The hilarity of these words is never lost on us. Of course the Madison Jr. High track team didn’t come up with these words. I’m sure they’ve been used for generations to inspire world-class athletes to train and compete at the highest level.

The fact that my brother - many things, but not a world-class athlete - owned a shirt with this saying on it is just too funny.

As someone whose reluctance to try things kept me from joining many teams, I have always thought these shirts were so cool. More than anything in the world, I wanted a shirt with a cool slogan on it.

I was in high school at the time my brother was running track and I remember that one of our teams had a shirt that said ‘Sweat is Pain Leaving the Body.’

I don’t remember which team it was, and the overly cliche-ish nature of the statement insures that it could have been just about any team. Heck, I’m sure the debate team could have sweat quite a bit outlining some very painful point-counterpoint arguments…

I remember seeing this shirt and wondering how it applied to me. Despite being decently athletic and having been active most of my life, I never really sweat.

I caddied for ten summers in the sweltering Chicago heat and despite nearly passing out from heat exhaustion on Men’s Guest Day in 2000, I barely sweat at all.

To me, sweating was something that old men did.

That day in 2000 when I almost fainted, I was caddying for Tom Garvin. Tom was the former CEO of Keebler and if the man knew anything better than making cookies and biscuits, it was sweating. Actually, he was a huge fan of track and field as well, come to think of it...

The more I caddied, the more I noticed that old man sweat is super gross. I’ll never forget caddying for a man named Wil Gillet who very politely asked me to loop a washcloth around my front left belt loop. I was fourteen at the time and didn’t think much of it. I did as I was told and tried not to lose his golf ball in the tall grass.

About twenty five times during that particular round of golf, Mr. Gillet asked me for the wash cloth. He’d wipe his brow, his face and his neck and then he’d hand me back the washcloth to store in my belt loop.

By the end of the round Mr. Gillet had sweat completely through his golf shirt and his shorts. What started as little dabs of sweat underneath his nipples connected with an ever-expanding circular pool of sweat that started at his belly button. The lower back sweat then made its way around his hips and connected to form a salty suit of armor that may have been able to repel an entire Roman Army.

But it didn’t repel me. I faithfully stood by his right hip and he grabbed for the washcloth on my left hip. Walking down the eighteenth fairway I started to look to my right to see what time the old clubhouse clock said it was. The clock was rarely right, but I was still too young to know that yet.

I never got to read what time it was because Mr. Gillet needed his sweat rag.

“Hey, boy!” he said. Old man golfers often referred to their caddies in this way. Trying to remember the name of one hundred caddies is much harder than remembering, ‘Boy,’ so I was often just ‘Boy’ or ‘Sport’ or ‘Pal.’ This may sound disrespectful, but it rarely was. For his part, Mr. Gillet was one of the kindest men at the club and someone that I would enjoy getting to know over the coming years.

What I did not enjoy was his final request for his washcloth.

“Let me get that rag one more time,” he said.

He was a few yards away and up the fairway a bit, but he wasn’t walking back towards me. So, to my horror, I had to toss him the washcloth.

Right before you toss a washcloth, you have to grab it a little bit more tightly so that it doesn’t fly out of your hand as you swing your arm back to execute the throw. In this case, doing so caused sweat to come pouring out as my strengthened grip wrang the cotton fibers to the point where the cloth could no longer contain all the electrolytes the old man had lost.

I almost puked, but Mr. Gillet was thankful.

“Thank you, son” he said. “It sure has been a hot one out here today!”

Yes, yes it had and I was ready for it to be over. What I wasn’t ready for was the washcloth, as it came hurling back my way from up the fairway. Mr. Gillet had tossed it back to me and in my state of unawareness it had landed on my left arm and was slowly sliding towards my left hand. My own saliva curdled in the back of my throat.

I let the rag sort of just settle on my hip and then I picked it up like an investigator might pick up an exhibit of evidence from a crime scene and put it on Mr. Gillet’s golf bag. This round was over. I wasn’t going to be needing it anymore.

So to say I was glad that I wasn’t much of a sweater growing up would be an understatement.

I’d see people at the gym and out running and they’d be sweating profusely. I never thought much of it. I was thankful I wasn’t a sweaty person, but figured it was just good genes or something.

And then it happened.

I started to sweat. A lot. I’m not sure exactly when it started, but it did and it was a problem.

All the sudden all my undershirts were heavily stained yellowish brown, even in the neckline area. Really, I thought to myself, my neck is that sweaty that it stains through my shirts?

I haven’t changed deodorants. I haven’t changed my diet. I haven’t gained a lot of weight. But nonetheless, I’ve turned into a sweaty mess. It’s rather off putting.

It culminated this week.

I’ve been noticing lately that I’ve been working out with my t-shirts tucked into my sweatpants. I swore I’d never be that guy, but it’s as if all the sudden I’m this middle-aged dork that can’t help himself. I never recall tucking my shirt in, but it always seems to happen.

The tucked in shirt keeps the fabric in much tighter order than if left untucked and thus sweat collects in the same concentrated areas.

You can see where this is going.

I now get nipple spots like Mr. Gillet. And belly button pools. And the little trail that connects the two. I came back from a run the other night and I could barely look at myself.

My shirt was dorkily tucked into my pants, which were hiked up unnecessarily high above my hips. The pool of sweat that had formed around my belly button kind of looked like the state of West Virginia and I could feel a small amount of sweat accumulation up near my collar bones. My hair was actually dripping with sweat and my glasses were so filthy I probably could have used a pressure washer to get them clean.

The next night, while coaching basketball practice, the same thing happened. I was running with the kids doing a defensive drill and I just started to gush sweat. I looked down at my light blue shirt and saw that it was drenched through.

At first, I was embarrassed. This type of thing happens all the time in gyms, but never to me, so I didn’t know what to do.

I felt self-conscious as I quickly hurried to put my jacket on. I walked to my car carrying my basketball and my whistle. The cool air on my moist neck made me uncomfortably cold, but a strange feeling began to come over me.

Two minutes later I sat in my car. Sobbing. To add to my sweaty mess I was piling tear after tear onto my blue shirt.

These were not painful tears, though. These were tears of joy. I looked down at my sweat-stained shirt. It was gross. I was so gross it was almost intolerable.

Our team colors for the basketball team are light blue and white. As I looked down at the light blue shirt I was wearing everything came full circle.

All of those teams I’d been afraid to join; all of the pain and uncertainty that I unnecessarily infused into the situations that led to my refusal to try; all of that came pouring out that night.

Not only was I a part of a team, I was a coach of that team. A kid even called me ‘Coach Troy’ that night.

I remembered back to a conversation I had had with my brother a few weeks earlier. He coaches high school soccer and his kids also call him ‘Coach Troy.’

This thought brought more tears to my eyes. I hadn’t told him, but his coaching soccer was what had finally put me over the hump to coach basketball. My little brother. That same one who could barely clear a hurdle on the middle school track team was that last piece of inspiration I needed to finally conquer a fear that had haunted me for so long.

I looked down at my sweaty light blue shirt. I smiled through my tears and realized what I had just learned.

Sweat IS Pain Leaving the Body.

As I read this now for the first time in full, I cringe a little – what was I thinking with such vivid description of sweat?? And did I really reveal the name of the sweaty golfer in the book?? – but in general, I feel okay about it.

It’s me.

It’s goofy. It’s a little odd. It’s all over the place in terms of jumping back and forth between past and present tense, but in this moment, I like it.

There are certain parts of the story where I can see myself trying to show off a bit – using unnecessary strings of descriptors and superlatives. I used to do this a lot – especially after I had just learned a new word, or if I had read something where another author featured the word prominently.

Also as I read it now, I realize how much fatigue I must have been experiencing at the time. This was the last story in a long string of stories, and the ending seems very abrupt. Here I was ending the book, and it’s as if the story just ends without warning. I wish I would have closed a little bit more eloquently, but hey, what ya gonna do? I was so focused on wrapping it up and getting it edited and published, I probably rushed through the story itself.

I really like the sweat stains analogy, though, even if it’s hard to actually read through the descriptions.

At the time of writing the book, I was in the process of trying to get over a relationship that had just gone bad. Mentally and emotionally, I was hurting. The book was my release. My refuge. A reason to look forward to the day and be excited.

Sweat really was necessary to do the hard mental work of processing my thoughts, and trying to learn from some of the mistakes I had made in the relationship.

It’s also fun to look back and see that my admiration for my brother still remains today. Earlier this year, even without recalling the story from the book, I wrote a letter to my brother that hit on a lot of the same themes. Believe it or not, he’s still three years younger, and I’m still looking up to the way he attacks his life!

I’m thankful to be able to go back to this writing to have a snapshot into my life from five years ago that isn’t just a picture, or a video. Writing exposes a lot of what’s on your heart, and it’s cool to see such a large sample of it here.

I wasn’t sure if I’d ever go back and read these stories, but I’m definitely glad that I am. And that I’m enjoying them -

One final note: I can’t help but think back on my buddy, James ‘Mav’ Sudeikis as I revisit Little Things. Mav tragically lost his life this fall, and his legacy will always live on in the cover of this book. He worked tirelessly to shoot the jacket photography for me, and then format the dust jacket to fit around the hardcover of the book. He was so proud of this piece of his work, and I was so overjoyed with how well it came out. He was living in Illinois and I was living in Nashville while I was writing the book. He and I had to communicate electronically and over the phone to make things happen. He called me time and time again to see if I liked certain design ideas, or to discuss which pictures worked best to span both the front and back cover. He could tell at one point that I wasn’t liking any of the photography options he was presenting, so without me having to ask, he went back out to the shoot location and got more shots to consider. Quickly into his second batch of shots, he absolutely nailed the cover, and that’s the final art you see in the image at the top of this post. Revisiting the artwork reminds me of all the different kinds of help and support required to complete a project like this. I’m forever grateful to my editor, Rob Bignell and Mav for their help. Maver, I miss you, buddy. Five years later, and that cover still looks fresh as ever <3

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