Be the Ball

"Just be the ball, be the ball, be the ball" - Good advice from a classic movie.  If you want to hit that ball, visualize yourself as that ball.  Where do you want to the ball to go?  How far would you like it to fly?  Which direction should it head when the course turns up ahead?  You can't just swing wildly and hope for magic to happen.  You have to have a plan for the ball. You have to get into the core of the ball, the "mind" of the ball, and become one with the ball.


Sometimes we call that focus.  Sometimes it feels more like pretending.  Sometimes we are just "acting as if" we are the ball in hopes that we will learn to really feel like we are the ball and maybe we can figure out how to get that ball through the rough?


Sometimes the hardest part in being the ball is remembering where the heck we are trying to get that darn ball.  Other times, it is remembering that there even is a ball.  Sometimes we are certainly not at all "on the ball."  Our focuses wavers.  


Being one with the ball is not a state of constancy.  It is a narrowing of our focus, our focus that is easily distracted and widened and scattered.  


Being the ball.  Being the change we want to see.  Being the selves that we want to be.  It is a reminder.  A mantra.  A way to remind ourselves how to fly.


Be the Ball.  "Just be the ball, be the ball, be the ball"

Story Telling

An old friend stopped by for dinner the other night.  She was one of my best friends in high school and we keep in loose contact here and there.  Her daughter is super smart and has been accepted to several really big deal colleges in our area and is waiting to hear from a few more and they were taking a trip to visit the campuses and would be driving right through our town between one tour and another.

 

Her daughter and my daughter are just over a year apart in age, but two years apart in school due to different states and different cut-off dates for kindergarten enrollment.

So we set up a dinner date for the four of us.

 

A lot of years have passed since she and my other high school BFF practically lived at my house.  And a lot of life has been lived since we last spent considerable time together in her college apartment.  But, it was so easy to talk to my old friend and her daughter.  We talked about the college selection process that they have been going through and we are just beginning.  We talked about what they have liked so far on their tour and what else they have to see.  We talked about the future for both of our girls.

 

And then, we talked about the past. 

 

"Remember when?...." was a common theme.

 

I think both of our daughters found it interesting and amusing and it probably gave them a different perspective on these people that they really only know as mom.  Our daughters, who are living high school right now, heard about high school almost twenty years ago.  And it is amazing how different high school is twenty years later.

 

"Remember when we ditched school and called ourselves off and went to the library on our ditch day?  Remember that neither the school administrators nor our parents could really figure out what to do with two honors students who ditched school and went to the library all day?  Remember that my parents had a hard time believing that we really went to the library?"

 

And, as we talked about religion and my friend and her daughter took the time to pray for their meal: "Remember when you called yourself agnostic? And we would have conversations about religion late into the night and that one night you said excitedly 'what if there IS something out there!' and I screamed, because I thought you meant outside my window and then you screamed because I screamed and it all dissolved into a fit of late night laughter as you explained that you meant God, not intruders?"

 

"Remember when our track team was really bad, but the two of us managed to score every point for our team, one of us in the sprints and jumps and the other in distance and we ran the relays together?"

 

"Remember when you snuck into my house in the middle of the night and went to sleep on my couch in my room, and I found you there in the morning and that really wasn't all that strange?  Because you guys were ALWAYS at my house?" 

 

And there was a lot of explaining about how we got from there to here.  And it was an interesting look back and sideways and even forwards and we look at the young ladies sitting next to us, their futures ready to be made, as well as the changes in our own lives and our kids move on to the next big thing. 

 

Mistakes were made.  Neither one of us took the "easy" road to here.  And we hope that our children don't make the mistakes that we made.  But, here we are, with two pretty darn good kids next to us.  And they will make their own mistakes, but as evidenced by their mothers, we are not defined by our mistakes; we are defined by how we pick ourselves up and move forward.   And I hope that our girls heard through our stories of "remember when" that with your family and friends by your side, moving forward is always possible.

Crash

A crash is coming
It can't be stopped
Headlights flying through the night
Rushing headlong through space and time
Time holds it's breath
And stands in front of the speeding force
Arms out wide
But it's not enough to stop the inevitable

A crash is coming
There will be survivors
Survivors who will hereafter mark time in befores and afters
This will be a day lost
It will be neither a before or an after
But a day that changed everything.

The Worst Cat Story Ever That Was Also Funny, But Not Really

One night, just this past week, after a wife was already laying in bed, the husband realized that the master bathroom toilet was clogged. Instead of walking himself down to the garage to get the plunger and walking back upstairs to unclog the the toilet, he went to sleep. But before he did, he asked his wonderful wife if she could remember to get the plunger in the morning, after she ran.

Being the wonderful wife that she is, she DID remember the plunger in the morning after her run, and she plunged that toilet herself, because she is just that wonderful.

After a shower and scrambling to get herself and kids dressed for a day at work/school, she stepped into the hallway with just moments to spare before she was superduper late for work. As she stepped into the hallway, her lovely middle child, let her know that his bathroom was clogged. Apparently, this wonderful wife is the only person in the house capable of unclogging toilets. Having just unclogged one toilet, she did not relish the thought of unclogging another toilet, plus, she needed to get in the car and get a move on. So, she told her lovely son that she would take care of it later. Thinking to herself that there are three other toilets in their house, she did not think leaving one clogged for the morning would be a big deal.

However....upon returning home with her oldest child who had just finished running and was sweaty and wanted to take a shower in the bathroom with a clogged toilet, the wonderful wife told her daughter to wait while she got the plunger and fixed yet another toilet. Her daughter waited, and the wonderful wife lifted the lid to the toilet and almost threw up with the realization that this toilet was not just clogged, this toilet had been very much used by what looked like an entire household full of non-constipated people.

Wonderful wife then stated aloud and in earshot of her daughter who was still standing there that "I think I might throw up." Before she threw up, she decided to open the small window above the toilet for some fresh air and then get to work on the plunging. After opening the window she turned to reach for the plunger just as a small furry orange cat came streaking into the bathroom.

The wonderful wife and her daughter watched and knew what was going to happen next, but were powerless to prevent the orange cat from jumping onto the toilet, who's lid was in the open position. The orange cat realized this as well, too late and scrambled to find a foothold on the narrow rim of the toilet. This proved to be futile and as the wonderful wife and her daughter watched in horror, the cat slipped and gripped and slipped again falling into the bowl of wet sewage below.

The cat, not too excited about this turn of events himself, leaped out of the toilet as fast as he could, but not before his rear end and his back legs were submerged in the putrid toilet water.

"No! No! Nooooo!" The wonderful wife yelled, in a high pitched voice she was not sure she had ever heard escape her lips before.

And quick as a flash, before anyone could think to contain the now wet cat, the small orange cat dashed away, leaving a trail of stinky wetness behind.

Also left behind, were the wonderful wife and her daughter, who were now, not only faced with a disgusting toilet to plunge, but an entire bathroom to clean and disinfect and a carpet trail to clean and a cat to find, contain and sanitize.

In the wake of this horrid turn of events, there was not much that the wonderful wife could do but laugh in that hysterical laugh of someone who is about to be committed to an institution. And as she cleaned, and laughed and sobbed quietly to herself, she heard a cry from yet a third household bathroom, "Mom! The toilet's clogged!" And she vowed that no longer would she allow her family to eat solid foods, ever again. The End.

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A not nearly as disgusting of a post is up over here, talking about homework, and whether kids should even have homework.

Nervous, In 100 Words

Hollowing out the book was harder than she had though. But she kept carving. Slowly, the knife edge went around the rectangle hole, that started on page 56.

She was not normally patient, but she took her time, cognizant of the sharp knife edges pointed towards her legs, sprawled out on the bathroom floor. She had made many mistakes, but did not want her next one to cause her to need to explain a knife wound.

The scraps, were slowly brushed into an empty tampon box, in the trash. Her husband, she was sure, would never look in that box.

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A 100 word challenge, issued by Velvet Verbosity, and introduced to me by Slouchy. Go visit them both for more Nervousness.