fun in threes, sometimes fours
L wanted new furniture in her room. Truth be told, she’d outgrown a lot of what she already had, so it was a need rather than a want — surprising, I know.
So Saturday, the Girl and the Boy hopped into the van (we still haven’t sold it) one last time and headed to their favorite Sweedish store.
How did I come to love music so much? Nature or nurture? Well, I can’t say much about nature because I have no idea about the genetic magic that might lead to a love of music. I can say there was some nurture involved.
I can’t understand how some students get so fixated on some perceived slight from the teacher because they got called down for something they didn’t do or something someone else was doing at the same time and “Why are you picking on me?” type nonsense that they end up escalating the whole non-issue into a referral-able offense. It’s like someone getting pulled over because the officer wanted to give them a warning about their speed and the person ends up assaulting the officer. What could have ended in a matter of moments will stretch out to a few years as a result of their decision.
“Why am I in trouble?” she asked.
“You aren’t in trouble,” I said. “I’m just talking to you.”
But soon enough, the disrespect of her body language and tone of voice does indeed end up getting in trouble.
I just can’t understand that.
A teacher tells you to be quiet; you feel you weren’t talking then and that it’s unfair -- say “Okay” while showing at least a modicum of respect and let it die a quick and natural death. Don’t start arguing about how it’s unfair or how someone else is talking, all the while letting an aggressively disrespectful edge take over your voice. It just won’t end well for you.
A police officer pulls you over and says you were speeding; you feel you were going about the same speed as everyone else -- say “Okay” and be respectful and hope for a warning. Don’t jump out of the car and start cursing the police officer, threatening physical violence. It just won’t end well for you.
L's club coach sent an email to everyone this afternoon before the evening's practice. One passage really stood out:
Quite a few of our fellow Excell coaches sang the praises of your girls at the tournament this past weekend mentioning how far they have come already, how much better they are getting in skill, game knowledge, teamwork, and in some of the ‘intangibles’ they as athletes have to develop on their own. This is a direct result of how hard they have worked so far and how much they have wanted to learn.
That outsiders (so to speak -- they coach for the same club but different teams and often only see our girls playing at tournaments) see the change in our girls' team is very encouraging.
The Boy decided he wanted to have a snack. "I want a burrito," he declared.
He still had to take his medicine, though.
The Boy was keen on spending some time with me today.
"I missed you from the moment you left," he explained, "and I missed you the whole time you were gone."
"We were only gone a couple of days," I clarified. "In fact, it was only one full day that you didn't see me because we left on Friday and came back Sunday, so you saw us those two days."
"I know. But I missed you."
So when it warmed up a bit in the afternoon, we decided to go adventuring. We headed to one of our favorite spots, crossing the creek twice on bridges we'd built ourselves long ago, crossing it a third time in an entirely new location.
One of the things I like most about these adventures is the conversations we have along the way. I can't remember what we talked about today, and that's sort of the point: they're just carefree conversations about nothing in particular.
We have been coming to this area for years, in fact:
Exploring
Friday Exploring
Exploring with the Boys
Today was a story told in two scores:
Our first match was against a team from our own club. They were the premier team -- the best, in theory, of our club's players.
We lost the first set 18-25. We'd been up by about five but lost the momentum and the set. We started out the same in the second set, and we managed to hold them off to the end.
The girls were completely ecstatic. Such joy. Third set -- the momentum was, theoretically, theirs. And then they decided not to play but instead to go out on the street, pick ten random girls, throw some jerseys on them, and ask them to play. That's what it seemed like, anyway, for the other team won trounced them in final set 15-2.
That's okay -- we were still in it. We headed over to play a second match of the day against another team who'd also lost their first match. It should have been a match. It was, instead, more of the same:
They lost the first two sets by ridiculous amounts. Eye-popping differences in the score. It was if they'd reverted to their very first time batting the ball around.
The coach's view: "We've got to get you girls to where you can play two days!"
A somewhat frustrating day for the girls: they lost their first match in straight sets to a team from Chattanooga wearing red. The reds hit well, made few mistakes, and powered through our girls in back-to-back sets. They won the first set 25-14 and then came back from something like 13-7 to win the second set 25-23.
The girls played two other teams, beating them both. Our second game was against the DiamondT Spikerz. We beat them fairly convincingly in straight sets, 25-19 and 25-22.
The final team our girls beat was the Volley One team. They won one set against the Chattanooga Reds, who'd beaten us the first match. Our girls demolished them -- and they'd won one set against the team that demolished us.
After playing three games, the girls scored the final game. It was against the Diamond Ts and the Chattanooga Reds. The DiamondTs, whom we'd beaten in straight sets, crushed the Reds 25-19 in the first set and demolished them 25-14 in the second.
The team that we beat in straight sets beat the only team that beat us in straight sets in straight sets.
"We were so annoyed," L said of it.
In the end, the Reds did the same thing against the DiamondTs that we'd done against the Reds: they beat themselves.
Watching these girls play shows me again and again how important that mental game is, how it's often more important than the physical game.