If you could go back and witness any historical event, which one would you pick?
I would go back to Montreal, July 1976, and watch Nadia Comăneci score the first perfect 10. I was fourteen then too, which makes the moment feel uncannily close. I imagine the hush before the routine, the contained energy in the arena, the sense of everyone watching something fine without yet knowing it will become history. Then she finishes, and for a heartbeat there is uncertainty: the scoreboard says 1.00 because even the machine cannot conceive of perfection. Then the truth dawns. A girl of fourteen has done something the world had not properly prepared for. That is the sort of history I would like to witness: not slaughter or spectacle, but grace, surprise and joy.
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