This I know for sure: tomorrow the kids will not go to school. Tomorrow there will be statewide closures. Tomorrow we may lose electricity and internet. We have been warned: tomorrow we're getting our big snowstorm of the season.
And today? Today I'm thinking about sports. You may love watching them. Me, not so much the watching, but I've always had a love for doing sports recreationally. Ever since I was a kid, I'd want to give any and every sport a try. Early childhood was limited for me to biking in the Polish village where I spent my summers, and winter skating in the city. With a very occasional ski episode thrown in. Then came the real sampling. At the university in Warsaw, my friends and I plunged into skiing. Of the kind where you side step your way up the hill and go down and then repeat that for maybe 100 times. (Not much by way of ski lifts in postwar Poland). When I moved to the US at age 19, I reveled in the skiing possibilities that were suddenly before me. East coast, west coast, Europe -- I loved all mountains everywhere. But, by mid twenties, I was settled into a married life with a guy who hated the cold and, too, we lived in the Midwest and none of our friends skied and we had no money for it anyway, so there closed that door. Were there other sports? In grade school in NY I was a good basketball player, but then I moved back to Poland and no one was playing basketball -- they were all keen volley ball players. I had to hustle to learn and honestly, I never caught up to the good players. Ed got me going on tennis, but I was nearly a senior then, so again, I'd say that no advanced tennis player would ever ask me to be on their team.
The point is, that to be good at a sport, it's best to start young and to keep at it. Therefore, despite the fact that I was a so called "tomboy" growing up, very athletic, very in love with the great outdoors, all that moving between Poland and the US, all those changes of friends, of geographical spaces, of cultures meant that I never stayed with anything for long and thus I became excellent at none of it.
But is this so awful? One could argue that being a little good at many things is better than being a lot good at just one, or two. Dabbling -- my specialty! -- allows you to sample a culture, even if you are never quite a member of the select club of experts. You can feel comfortable in many homes. You don't feel lost and out of place. You've tried it. You know the basics. I could pass around a volley ball if pushed to do so. Or dribble a basketball, or swat a tennis ball. I could certainly whizz down a ski slope at dizzying speeds, even if my technique is on the side of wild rather than refined.
You could say that I'm at peace with my very many imperfections!
All this is in my head because today my daughter asked me to deliver Snowdrop for her first evening class of volley ball.
To date, Snowdrop has had lessons in tennis (meh....), skating (me as coach; she loves it, but doesn't do it enough to be really good), softball (loves it, but there are friends who play, so that may be the motivating factor), swimming (coached by me, infrequently, so she isn't nearly as good as her swimming friends), soccer (double meh...), and now this -- volley ball. A distant friend does it and so she wanted to join her. I'm thinking she's on track to imitate me: many things, but none of them have really sucked her in big time. And that's okay, though I'm hoping that something will draw her in so that she will rise to a level where she can say -- I'm good because I've been doing this forever, since I was a kid...
This is all evening stuff. I do have a morning and an afternoon and they're both busy. The usual...
And the less usual for this day: breakfast with my friend who is having the kind of life's worries most of us do not ever have to face. All I can do is listen and balance our meetups with more lighthearted stories which perhaps is a good distraction, but maybe, too, a little too trite and trivial considering what she is facing.
Then (after all my luggage deliberations!) I return my new suitcase (too small). And pick up Snowdrop.
Here is the issue: her mom and I have been trying to coax her into a haircut. I've said to her that not a single child in her school has hair as long as hers, thinking that perhaps peer comparisons will sway her. Her hair is so difficult to manage, and made more difficult by the fact that she hates tying it back. But, she wanted to grow it out ("all the way to my butt!") and no one wants to be firm about something that is seemingly so important for her. Until this December, when, armed with parental support, I finally told her that at some point, she has to get it cut. Not until after my birthday! -- was her reply. So I made an appointment. For today.
I have a lifetime of trying to be firm with the kids, at the same time that I know I'm a terrible pushover and they can pretty much talk me into anything reasonable. So leaving me with a girl who does not want that hair cut was doomed from the get-go. Indeed, she got it trimmed by three inches (according to her, by a whole foot!), but it will make little difference. It is still very long. And it still will hang down and get tangled and not stay out of her face. Bottom line -- she's unhappy about the shortness of it and I'm unhappy about my own failure to accomplish what I set out to do -- get it to a reasonable length.
Back to the farmhouse now.
Snowdrop has had quite the ride in the past few weeks -- the never ending holiday celebrations, the birthday stuff -- all great highs. I do think she needs some recovery time and today we try to do stuff slowly. To read, to eat well, to go easy on life.
And at 6, I take her to her volleyball lesson. (Pony tail needed for that one!)
I have no idea how that went. I did not stick around to watch. May she find joy in that game, in some game, in being with friends, in feeling herself grow competent at many, many things.
Me, I go back and reheat some soup for us. It's been a long day!
with love...
