Listen:

Katie has come unstuck in time.

Katie was sitting on her bed, wrapped in a blanket, trying to wake up just enough to process her Mock Trial team competition on January 23, 2021. Listening to the wind whip by the window, she finds herself back at the UPenn Benjamin Franklin Invitation on January 24, 2020. Getting off the train at South Street, and immediately stepping in a puddle while walking up the cold, wet stairs, and hearing the whined whip by, Katie realizes her team will never be able to walk to Warton.

“Hey guys, we should probably get an uber”. Her advisor’s umbrella gets turned inside out and suggests their team wait a moment before going outside. It was unbelievably cold and windy, but the rain had always been a calming presence. Looking up at the sky, Katie was 6-years-old again, reading a book. This picture book was one of her favorites, and she was trying to teach her sister how to read it. It turns out that it is frustrating reading with a 3-year-old, so Katie looked up to the sky to zone out. The rain is calming, giving her the patience to work with her sister, and improving her reading skill, going slow, so her sister understands. Soon, she is watching the rain again. It was calming, watching the rain pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter.

Oh, another puddle. Katie stepped in a puddle getting out of the uber. Cold feet, that is no way to start the day. This isn’t fun, and now she is sitting in a cold classroom that had to have been built in 1960. The chairs were the same ones her parents sat in, without a doubt, should have even been in a museum. 

It helped to move during the trial, to talk during her opening statement, and direct examination. It was fun. She forgot how fun it was. Making objections and successfully argue cases. “Objection, hearsay”. Oh no, what is that rule, the same one that always tripped her up?

Nothing changed either even a year later, as she tried to understand the hearsay exception. Wait, “party opponent”. A lightbulb went off, and it made sense. Yes, she wishes she knew this last year, she would have killed that rebuttal. 

She can’t remember the rule, can’t respond to the objection, but it doesn’t matter. A confident response always helps; she’ll learn eventually. Turns out not all is lost. They won the case, a good start to a two-day competition. Now the team walks outside for lunch, something Katie has been looking forward to for a while. But wait! First, the Penn Love Statue, her team takes a picture in front of it every year. The day warmed up, the sun began to shine through the gloomy clouds, and the air smelled fresh after the rain. 

She wishes it could have been the same in 2021, to not sit in her room listening to the wind and watching the sky turn to the sun, thinking about what this year's competition may have been. How walking around campus would have been even better this year, as a senior, as a better attorney. Walking towards the same twelvish foot, red-colored statue, to take the same photo. 

It’s been eight years since that wish. She’s now a litigation attorney, using Locust Walk as a shortcut to her train stop. It is no longer a place she wished to be but was one she visited often, bringing a smile to her face as she reminisced. Who knew a trial attorney's job was more difficult than a high school mock trial? While passing the statue, that old wish re-enters her mind, one that was long forgotten, but now it is a happy thought. Now Katie realizes that her at-home competition was a blessing in disguise. It helped her for future cases, for future competitions, something she didn’t know at the time.

Katie had just finished eating her reheated pizza, nervous for her first online trial. About a million and a half things could go wrong. It is easier to present in person; she can be animated. She can read the atmosphere of the courtroom. 

Of those million things, only about seven came to fruition. She learned a lot from this trial and found out her closing needed work. It isn’t an unfamiliar feeling, one of frustration and wishing to do better, the same way she had to rewrite her opening the year before. 

The fresh rain gave her confidence for her the next day. It gave Katie the confidence to take all the feedback from the day before and used it to perform better. During the plaintiff’s morning trial, she felt calm, watching the objection battle, a back and forth of hearsay and speculation. Calm enough to rewrite her entire opening.  

Katie wishes at the moment, it could be as easy to rewrite a closing during the trial, but that just isn’t true. Sitting in her living room, tapping her fingers to pace her speech, she tried to find the same confidence to make her second performance this year as amazing as last. To find confidence, ha! easier said than done. Maybe her cross will help; a successful cross always does. She got her witness to admit to killing someone; good now they can win the case, she considers that a success. A good closing, a confident speech, this happy feeling was a familiar one, as she lived between two realities of her past and present, she spoke calmly and with ease. 

Standing in front of the Love Statue years later, it turns out that this was the beginning of her success story. Not everything needs to run exactly how you planned. Her old Zoom photo of her 2021 year means just as much as the photo from a year prior. As she looked at her phone and realized the time, Katie felt a wave of panic. She was going to miss her train, so she began to run, but not before stepping in a puddle once again.