Apr. 15, 2003 - 23:46:46
Dear Vincent,
Please forgive this letters delay. It was absolutely hellacious around here yesterday and up until right about now today. I anticipate that the following letter will be a rather light one (topic wise) simply because I am feeling a bit airy right now. Rather than betray what the letter will actually cover (which would be the equivalent of reading the last chapter of a book before you read the book itself) I think I'll just launch right in.
This afternoon as I gazed distractedly into the distance while attempting to teach my tap 2 class the fundamentals of 'shuffle step' I caught sight, through the window of a little league practice occurring on the baseball diamond centered like a picture in the back window. (It should be noted that the tap 2s did not learn 'shuffle step' by the end of class, because it is not possible to teach 5 year olds anything if you're distracted. They know you're distracted and they 'zone.' More on zoning later...) I regarded the little boys in their oversize baseball t-shirts dangling oversize gloves (as everything seems to be oversize in little league.) They always carry gloves too big for their hands and it give them the appearance of loping everywhere, sort of like a lopsided chimpanzee. Their hats never tighten enough to be secured anything more than precariously on their heads and so I watched more than one little boy chase, glove abandoned in the dust, after his hat being teased and flipped away by the wind. Interestingly enough, I also watched them chase the ball, glove abandoned, as well. It seems perhaps they just aren't stressing the whole 'glove' deal in little league anymore. And I remember when I played softball.
(Side note for the sake of historical accuracy: I only played softball until I was 12. I then gave up, having deemed myself not 'sportistically' inclined. Alas, the declarative statement "I am not sportistically inclined" did not bode well for my English endeavors either.)
My first glove was small, and blue. It was the only blue glove in the league. When my hand grew too big for it, I was loathe to give it up. It disappeared under the same suspicious conditions that my hamster, Sparkles, went missing under. Okay, when Sparkles went missing my mom said he went to join his cousins on the farm. Admittedly, she did not tell me my blue glove went to join his cousins on the farm, but she did say, "Meg your glove is with all the other too small blue gloves." "Where is that?" I demanded. She didn't answer. "With Sparkles?" I prompted. "Yes." she said. This is why parents should think things through when they lie. Because I told my father that "My small blue glove is with all the other too small blue gloves with Sparkles and his cousins on the farm."
I remember how the dust used to blow on the field and into my nose. And even worse, when it blew into my eyes. Then I had to spend time rubbing it out and I'm convinced my team forfeited more pop flys that way. "I've got it!" I yelled like they taught us. All of a sudden, a gust of wind and dust ferreted its way in between my eyelashes. Stopping I'd scrub my eye with the back of an already grimy hand. 'Thud.' That was the sound the ball made when it hit the earth (err, dust) next to me. With a little puff of silt it sat there, a mockery of my blunder. So I would pick it up and hurtle it to first but the runner was already on second. Yup, good one Meg. After a bad slump that lasted from little league onward the coaches eventually started putting me in the outfield (nobody hit that far at our age). Twas there I spent many blissful innings blowing the dandelion fluff into the plumes of dust billowing from the field. "Put the dandelion down!" my coach would bellow from the sidelines, hands cupped over his mouth in megaphone fashion to magnify his voice it would carry to everyone on the field and consequently everyone in the grand stands, and usually to everyone a few fields over. Then, many pairs of accusing paternal eyes would swivel to look at me, and I, like a naughty child would pause, and swallow the breath intended to send the dandelion fluff careening off to aggravate someone's allergies. Deliberately, I would put the dandelion down on the grass, and pretend to be attentive for a few minutes before I casually stooped to pick the dandelion back up.
Opening day was a grand event in the town. Families spent the entire day at the recreation complex milling about from games, to team pictures, to food etc. and so forth. I remember how everything was louder when I wore my cap, as the sound reverberated off the bill. I remember how the boys were so determined to emulate the real baseball players that they chewed bubblegum and spit it out at dramatic intervals like chewing tobacco. A hazard of opening day was that you usually inadvertently collected four of five pieces of someone else's chewed bubblegum on the bottoms of your shoes. By the end of the day everyone seemed to shine slightly, from sweat and the silt that had settled on their skin and from the sunburn.
And on opening day they always played "Put me in Coach" by CCR over the loudspeakers at least 8 times. My lucky number was my jersey number for as long as I played softball- 13. Except the year it was 3 because the 1 peeled off the back in the wash.
There was a cheer we used to sing on the bench that went something like this, "Like, totally, for sure. I just got a manicure. The sun, I swear has totally bleached my gorgeous hair. Fifty two, twenty four, I don't really know the score. Win! Win! Fight! Fight! Gee, I hope I look all right." It was a real morale booster. I can't really imagine why.
There was a girl named Stephanie on my team for a few successive years. She slid into every base, even when she didn't have to. Steph would cut up her legs and scabs would form over the course of the week. The next week she'd rip them open again. In the course of time I knew Steph I never saw her without her scabs. (These scabs, though painfully won earned her the lovelorn affections of every first grade boy we knew.)
And it must be said, that a softball is not soft. It still hurts when it hits you. I remember for years my coach saying, "Keep your eye on the ball." I always wanted to remind him that it doesn't matter if you can see the ball or not if you can't catch it.
There was one baseball coach who used to fondly knock the caps off the baseball players heads from time to time and impart this wisdom: "Don't let your baseball cap limit your view of the world." I still believe him to be a very wise person indeed. I wanted very much for him to be my coach because he seemed patient and non-competitive, but Vincent, they don't have blue gloves in baseball.
Naturally you will understand why the tap 2s did not learn 'shuffle step.'
The store Diane works in assigns each employee to a certain 'zone.' Diane's is the 'kitchen zone.' Diane finds her new manager vile. Occasionally, when the manager catches Diane even a foot outside her zone he says, with a forced smile and intonation hurtling upwards at breakneck speed, "UHOH! Is somebody zoning out?" Diane thinks she's going to quit because she's not sure she can tolerate the bad puns, among other things, any longer.
Driving down the main road of my neighborhood today, my friend remarked on how scrawny the flowering white pear trees that line the sides of the street for at least two miles are. They are scrawny- now. "Give it ten years." I offered, "This street is going to be heaven then." Which called to mind "The Lovely Bones." Something interesting to think about is Susie's concept of heaven as opposed to what your own would be. It is interesting to suppose, that if we truly know ourselves, we can hazard a guess as to where we are going.
Things are going to calm down for the next few days so I'll begin toying with the color cooperation.
Catchy,
Meghan
what they said - what they will say
