Reworked in Lightroom some shots from a few years ago.
Wieliczka Revisited
Trying
A busy evening for the Girl. Cross country try-outs from 6:00 to 7:15, then volleyball practice from 7:15 (obviously we were a bit late) to 8:15. Two things — sports, no less — about which she has never shown any interest until the last few weeks and now is bound and determined to participate in.
We arrived ten minutes early, and since the Girl is a rising sixth grader and most of the other kids were already attending the middle school, she stood around and looked like she felt a little lost. Friends were bantering back and forth, and she just stood and watched them.
She missed yesterday’s portion of the try-out due to her final choir concert for her elementary school, so as everyone began repeating the stretching and warm-ups from yesterday, the Girl was left looking around to see how everyone else did it. At one point, to stretch the quads, the coach told the kids to put their right hands on the shoulder of the kid to their right to help with balance. She did so, but the girl to her left didn’t put her hand on L’s shoulder. When it came time to repeat on the left side, L hesitantly reached her hand out to the girl on the left, noticed she still wasn’t balancing herself on anyone and managed to stretch without support.
How well I remember those moments of uncertainty at that age. Always looking about to make sure I’m doing what everyone else is doing. Trying hard not to call attention to myself in any way at all. Truth be told, I still behave that way in new environments with new people, but such a subdued L is an uncommon sight. I felt I was getting a little peek into what her first day of school might be like when, in a few short months, she begins middle school.
When did that happen? When did our little girl become a 5’3″ young lady who no longer looks like a little girl? I knew it was coming, but somehow I’d convinced myself it wasn’t just around the bend.
The try-out itself was instructive, for me and for L. She completed two miles in 22 minutes. It’s probably the longest distance she’s run. I sat in the car, reading (I’ve decided it’s time to reread a book that I promised myself fifteen years ago when I first read it that I would — must — read again, Steinbeck’s East of Eden), and I was aware of kids running in the field in front of the car, so I stopped and watched, waiting for the Girl. I was actually doing a bit of both, so when I didn’t see her, I just thought she’d passed by when I’d looked back down to read for a moment or two. Then I heard the kids behind me, laughing, complaining, resting. I went back to reading when a flash of blue caught my eye: L ran by, alone, dead last.
“I had terrible cramps,” she explained later.
“But do you know how proud you can be of yourself for not stopping?” I asked. It’s a big thing: our princess is learning to finish what she started, no matter what.
We jumped into the car and drove the few miles to the Y, where she’s going to be playing volleyball for the first time.
Almost everyone on the team is a complete beginner, so the coaches have to explain everything. The rules. Rotation. How to pass, to set, to serve. How to move once the ball is in play. At one point, L and a few other girls were on the sideline.
“You have to listen as I’m explaining to the other girls,” one of the coaches explains. “If you’re talking, you’ll have to run laps.”
A few minutes later, I heard him call out, “You three, take a lap!” L and two other girls began jogging around the court. I caught his eye, smiled, and gave him a thumbs up, which he returned, laughing.
After practice, I mentioned that to L: “Good job taking that lap without fussing,” I said.
“I wasn’t actually talking,” she explained. “I was just looking at the girl who was talking.”
“Better still,” I said.
That girl is maturing, I tell you.
Bonfire in Spytkowice
Mother’s Day 2018
E was born the day after Mother's Day in 2012. This year, his birthday falls on the exact same day, the day after we celebrate K and Nana. So it was a long but wonderful day.
Saturday in the Yard
The bushes in front of the house had just gotten out of hand: they shaded almost 3/4 of the height of the windows in E's and L's rooms. Every time I trimmed them, K suggested that I didn't do enough, so today was the day: the bushes were getting violently trimmed.
That was to take only a couple of hours. I'd planned on mowing the backyard, trimming the bushes, mowing the front, and finishing before four. Two things slowed me down: E and the difficulty of radically trimming the bushes.
The Boy always loves helping me mow, which usually entails slipping between me and the upper bar of the lawnmower, resulting in an awkward position for me and generally slow mowing. Today it struck me: our lawnmower has rear-wheel drive, and so theoretically, the Boy could mow all by himself, with me just walking along beside to help control it.
When we got to the flattest portions of the front yard, I let him mow without my hand on the bar to guide it.
"I'll just let you mow," I said, "and then the spots you miss, you'll have to go back and get."
He loved the idea and promptly went zig-zagging across the yard. He tended to pull to the left, so he made strange arching patterns instead of the regular straight lines I obsessively put into our yard.
The period of time between the first bit of mowing and the second bit (the "flattest portions of the front yard" mentioned above) was approximately six hours, evidenced by the changing shadows in the pictures above.
In the intervening hours, we worked on the bushes. I trimmed; he loaded the cuttings into the wheelbarrow.
When we started, the foliage was so dense that it blocked most of the light and all of the sky.
When we finished, nothing was really blocked. I worried as I cut back the branches that it might be too late for such work, that I might damage the bushes by doing this. In the end, I thought that that might, in fact, be a blessing.
In between the first and the second bushes -- lunch and a concert.
K and L spent most of the day inside, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. Cleaning clothes, floors, bathrooms, and anything else that would sit still long enough. In the end, though, K had to come out: her garden beckoned.
"When will we ever have a relaxed Saturday?" K asked as we sat on the front steps watching the kids, who still had energy, play in the front yard.
"A relaxed Saturday? What's that?"
Jumping
Dinner
Spent
After-Dinner Play
After dinner, everyone went out to practice sports.
The Girl finished her second day of tryouts today, and she came home feeling pessimistic about her chances of making the team. But did she give up? No way. On the way home, she and K stopped by the Y and signed her up for youth volleyball. And after dinner, she was out practicing an overhand serve as well as her underhand serve.
“You really should master the underhand first,” I suggested.
“I know, but this is what we were working on during tryouts today,” she replied.
The Boy finished soccer this weekend, but he’s still keen on practicing. For a while there, I was tossing the ball to L for her to practice passing and trying to kick the ball back to the Boy.
Occasionally, the two activities almost collided.
Finally, the Boy, exhausted, took a break
and then gave me some tree-climbing lessons.
Monday
A few Two random thoughts from the day:
The Girl is trying out for volleyball. She started working on her skills Saturday after having bought a ball that morning.
"How did it go?" I asked when I got home.
"I was the worst one there," came the simple reply.
It turned out that it was a two-day tryout session, and so I immediately wondered if she'd be discouraged from her first experience and say, "I don't have a chance of making the team. I don't want to go to the second day." And I was wondering how I might handle that. Is it something I should make her do in the interest of building character -- following through on what you set out to do and all that? Or should we just let it go?
Turns out, the dilemma never presented itself: after gymnastics, she asked if we could go practice volleyball for a few minutes.
Second thought: While the Girl was in volleyball, I did some shopping, and I went through the self-checkout lane when I was done. If they'd had these things in Poland twenty years ago, I might not have stayed. It was tough, those first weeks; it was especially tough making friends when I didn't speak the language. The store saved me. No self-service there: no, just a counter and a packed shelf behind it, with a sales clerk between you and your merchandise. So I had to ask for every single item. Which led to funny mistakes and misunderstandings. Which led to laughter. Which led to friendships.
