tennis rocks

March 11, 2012 By

I thought it might be fun to talk about my insanely awesome athletic skills.  I’m a Texas girl, and everyone here in the Lone Star State should know how to throw a football, identify an offside penalty, or at least jump a hurdle or two.  So naturally, my parents were ecstatic to have a tall girl like me on their hands.  There were so many possibilities.

But reality came crashing down when I dribbled the ball down the court the wrong way, and broke both my wrists (at the same time) in a very polished backward fall.  And there was that one attempt at softball, where my uniform never got dirty and the opposing team just aimed their bats in my general direction to see the ball land directly next to my ankles.   One summer my parents put me in a soccer league, which required an insane amount of running, of all the crazy things.  They even tried to enroll me in ballet, but I argued with the teacher about why I needed to learn all those silly positions.  I felt – more like deserved – to be leaping across the room in toe shoes after three weeks and fall in the arms of well-muscled men wearing tights.  Duh.

But one day, things changed.  Tennis came along.  This was something I could practice alone and advance at my own speed.  I actually liked it.  Seeing a glimmer of hope that I might lead a normal life and not become a colossal choir nerd, my parents enrolled me in private lessons.  They drug me across town to the country club with the rich kids so I could attend tennis camp and bought me little tennis skirts with blue and yellow stripes. I wasn’t that great, but I stuck with it, and in time I (barely) improved.

In high school, the tennis coach had pity on me and allowed me to play on the varsity team.  After all – I was a funny sort that kept everyone else’s spirits high.  I considered myself the team mascot, since I never won a match but got drug along to all the tournaments.  I kept everyone on the bus laughing and encouraged them to keep on smiling (“It’s just one game!  You’ll do better next time! Tally Ho!”).  Okay, so I didn’t actually use the words tally ho, since that sounds strangely English for a blond Texas girl, but you get the general optimistic mental picture.  I played games occasionally, but no one watched because they always knew I’d lose. But I didn’t care because it was jolly fun to smash the ball across the net and watch my opponent race to catch it.  I’d eventually hit a fly ball or miss altogether, which would cost me the match, but I considered those just minor setbacks.  I just needed to work on my consistency.

The Fall of my freshman year of college, dewy with hope and a youthful optimism, I rolled up my sleeves and hit the court with a bucket of balls and my old tennis racket.  It was a good stress reliever, the weather was warm, and I was suddenly filled with the reality that I could actually play.  It was so clear – like a vision laid out in front of me.  All those years of goofing off and I had a talent hidden underneath that finally blossomed like a beautiful flower.  I was a tennis player.  This was my destiny.   I was born for this.

That wasn’t true, of course.  I totally sucked.  I think it might have been heatstroke.

So fresh with my newfound love of tennis, and the reality that I just might compete at Wimbledon if I darn well set my mind to it, I contacted the athletic department.  I was going to try out for the Texas Tech University Tennis Team.  Yes, I was available to meet with the coach for an information interview.  Yes, I was more than happy to work out with the team.  And yes, why of of course I could play tennis at a very professional level.  State championship?  Well, no.  But I have many, many participation ribbons.  That should count for something.

For a month, I got to eat at the athletic dining hall, and made many friends with people from Sweden and Missouri and other far-off places.  I was fascinated by the whole experience and soaked it up with vigor.  I rolled up my sleeves and ate chicken-fried-steak with the best of them.  I ran laps and said “hell yeah suckahs!” and wore the perfect grimace on my face when faced with a tough opponent.

Then, I had to hit the ball.  Just some simple forehands and backhands and volleys at the net.  Nothing difficult or challenging.  Whoops, I said the first time around, covering my mouth.  How funny!  Did I hit that ball clear over the side wall?   I’m terribly sorry.  That just never happens.  And then began the comedic efforts of one who cannot actually play tennis at the college level, bumbling and running and jumping and missing and having a terrific ‘ol time.  The girl from Sweden just looked at me like I just recently landed on this planet.

The coach was so incredibly sweet, and pulled me aside after a few days to give me the tragic news.  “You didn’t make the team,” she said.  She offered some terrific advice, like perhaps years and years of lessons.  Or an arm transplant.  Perhaps a racket that hits the balls for you.  Or sticking with choir. I thanked her so much, and hugged the Swedish girl.  I smiled my big Texas smile.  “It’s just such an honor,” I said as I held my hand to my heart – not sure why since playing tennis isn’t at all akin to fighting in Iraq.   “Thank you all so much for this opportunity,” I bellowed, my eyes full of tears.  But by this time they had turned their heads, back to playing tennis. Glad to get the crazy girl off the court.

This, my friends, is what happens to a young girl with an inflated since of self-esteem with absolutely no talent behind it.  I went on to do fulfilling and wonderful things in college, like being a Resident Assistant in the dorms (is that pot I smell, mister?), singing baroque music in the concert hall (oh the beauty, oh the harmony), or meeting my friends in the dining hall for chicken strips (how do they make this gravy so yummy?).  I had a very dorky useless boring amazing college life, and I don’t regret for one day my near-brush with athletic fame and fortune.

I think the lesson to be learned here is to never give up. One day, you’ll realize what you’re good at and quit making a fool of yourself.

But what’s the fun in that?

Filed Under: Embarrassing Moments, Humor, Texas Tagged With: , , , ,

Fire!

October 8, 2011 By

Last Tuesday night, I ate bad frozen pizza.  I rocked my son to sleep.  I trimmed my nails and waited for my husband to get home from work.  All fairly normal things folks do on Tuesdays.  Until I heard a bomb go off over our house, consoled our screaming children, saw my husband rushing inside wearing his suit with a look of terror on his face, and noticed huge billowing flames in our back yard.  Then, after three fire trucks, water leaks, and a night spent at Embassy Suites, I can honestly say it wasn’t a normal Tuesday.  We normally have tacos on Tuesdays.  Life was in all kinds of disarray.

With all the fires in Texas lately, I’ve played the “what would I grab if my house was burning down” game plenty.  You map out in your head the route you’d take.  Grab the computer.  Load up the guns.  Great grandma’s clock will probably not make the cut and that’s just life.  All your stuff falls like cards into some sort of loose priority order. Eventually, you just sigh with the realization that life’s not easily replaceable no matter how you slice it, but you have a pretty good idea of what you’d grab.

Until it actually happens.

The minute I saw our back yard ablaze – lightning had struck our house and back shed and all I could see through the kitchen window was one huge ball of fire – I did what any normal person would do in this situation.  I went to the pantry and started stocking my purse with nutri-grain bars.

Instead of remaining calm, I shrieked at my daughter, who was standing right next to me.  “FIRE!,” I wailed.  “PUT ON YOUR SHOES!”  Balancing on son on my hip, I grabbed a bag and with superhuman strength, loaded it up with crackers and squeezable fruit.  I then filled up a sippy cup with water, threw in some diapers, and if I remember correctly, I think I might have actually dug up some underwear.

If the flames reached the house and burned it down, taking with it all our treasures and family heirlooms, don’t you tell me we wouldn’t have plenty of applesauce and underwear to remind us of our past.   Because we so totally would.

I then grabbed the photo albums and threw them all into a box and set them by the door.  I was set.  At least we would have food, water, diapers, photos, and underwear.  Then, with tears on my face and nutri-grain bars in my purse, I left everything sitting neatly inside the house in one neat pile and went rushing out to the neighbors in some sort of anxious frenzy, my daughter running behind me wearing sparkly sandals.

“There’s a fire!” I yelled as I banged on my neighbor’s door.  “Big!  Big fire!”  I had resorted to caveman speech, apparently, and pointed in the direction of our back yard.  Our neighbors, bless their hearts, are nearing sixty, but they ran out toward our back yard like spry sixteen year-olds, the wife jumping the fence in her housecoat to help my husband fight the flames and her husband (recovering from knee surgery) turning on the water. Only then did I notice that my daughter, who was standing beside me, was sobbing uncontrollably and was holding my son’s diaper bag with white knuckles.  “He might need a diaper,” she said amidst the sobs.  I so love her.

Finally, three fire trucks came and I directed them to the back, all the while convincing my daughter that her daddy did not, in fact, perish in the flames.  Only until she saw him, standing there wearing a sweat-soaked dress shirt, did she believe me and stop hyperventilating.

Eventually the flames were extinguished and we went back inside, allowing firemen to stomp through our home in mud-soaked boots, peering in attics and corners and closets for evidence of secret fire pockets.  We eventually calmed down our exhausted kids and thought the drama was over.  Until such time as we discovered our carpet was a subtropical wetland and things were sloshing where in fact there should be no sloshing.  Hmm.  Slab leaks.  Six of them, from the size of the puddles.  My husband rushed to turn off the water, we navigated the automated maze of the insurance 1-800 number, and at some point a company appeared like Batman with fans and dehumidifiers and water damage information (we just nodded and promised never to turn the fans off).  I put the kids to bed on a mat upstairs and was ready to call it a night.

At midnight or so, my husband came in the room and instructed me to find a hotel.  “But the kids are finally asleep,” I moan.  “Can’t we do that tomorrow?”  He looks at me, his face soaked with sweat, still wearing his suit and nice shoes (now ruined).  He throws up his hands, and it hits me that perhaps now is not a good time for this discussion.  The “we’re a team” mentality is really the way to go in this situation, so I nod in agreement with any single thing that comes out of his mouth. Perhaps he’d like to shower. Perhaps he’d like to go someplace that might not burn up.  Perhaps he’d like to talk in a normal tone of voice instead of screaming over large fans that make our living room sound like an airplane hanger.  Yes, yes, yes to everything.

At 1 am, we loaded up our kids and headed downtown to a hotel.  They were thrilled, and my daughter asked if it’s really true that we got pancakes for breakfast. “It’s really true,” I said.  I heard her mutter something about it being wonderful as she nodded off in the car.

So now, a week out, we’ve had six plumbers give us all different ideas of how to completely re-plumb our house.  They all do agree on one thing, which is “this is a pretty big deal” and “don’t expect an easy fix.”

We are living in our second rental, soon to be third come Tuesday, and I think about our week.  The uncertainty and the contractor decisions and the reality that we are homeless gypsies for a while.   But mostly I think about how lucky we are.  Many people aren’t in the situation we’re in with a home to come home to. We have each other.  We have great insurance.  We have a problem that can be fixed.  But most of all, we have nutri-grain bars.

Life is, indeed, very good.

Filed Under: Embarrassing Moments, Humor, Motherhood, Texas, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

Texas Forever

July 23, 2011 By

I’ve been around a few places.

I’ve traveled enough in the Pacific Northwest to know that ferns grow rich and heavy underneath huge pines, and wild elderberries won’t kill you if you can stand the sour taste.  I’ve ridden many a ferry from Seattle to Whidbey Island, feeling the salty air on my neck and sipping strong, rich coffee.   Kiwi grows on the island like big fat grapes and the ground is always soggy.

I’ve dug my toes into the beaches of Aruba and the Florida Keys and Jamaica and San Diego, the faint smell of coconut lotion lingering in my nose.  I like pina coladas and sushi and Red Stripe if it’s very cold.  I like sitting on beaches – any beaches, really – and allowing myself to become hypnotized by the waves.  My hair is bleached by sun and sand, and a bronze always hits the top of my forehead and colors my cheeks.

There’s nothing like the richness of Maine, dipping hunks of fresh lobster into clarified butter and sipping on champagne, or sailing in the cold waters off Camden.  Folks vacationing there seem richer and older, with pink polo shirts, collars turned upward, and light blue deck shoes that can slide off for the boat shows.  There are jewelers and carpenters and blanket companies that ship in their wool from faraway places.

I love being nestled in the Rocky Mountains, with a fire and a book and hot tea and anything containing green chilis.  The smell in the air is striking and thin and when you go for a walk, you temporarily forget there’s a place back home.  Our family survived a blizzard once, afraid our children would die and we’d run out of chips and beer.  My husband stayed up all night feeding logs into the one fireplace and taping up windows.  Ah, memories.

But despite everywhere I might travel, I’m a Texas girl.

It’s not that Texas is better than these other places.  I think Upstate New York in early summer is about the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.  I just want to crawl under the patchwork soil that stretches out for miles atop rolling hills and take a nap, drawing the sweet alfalfa around my shoulders and breathing in all that fresh-cut hay.

And give me New York City any day, my friend.  I think everyone should live in the city long enough to absorb the sound of honking cabs as just background noise, like the evening news or a commercial break between Law & Order.  I like to hear the sound of my high-heeled boots clicking along the pavement and I turn up the collar of my wool coat to ward off the chill.  I love Christmas windows and those silly dancing Rocketts.  I am amazed that in the center of so much commerce, tulips burst into bloom in Central Park in the Springtime.   And Dean & Deluca?  Bury me in that store, people.  Just dig up a patch of concrete close to the truffle oil and stick me under.

But then there’s Texas.  Home sweet home. I like to offer people pie and sweet tea and think everything can be reduced to a jelly or preserve or be covered in a flaky crust.   I have yet to bake an okra pie, but I ain’t afraid of tryin.  It’s different than just saying you’re from the South. The south reminds me of big ‘ol cotton plantations and lush greenery.  I’m talking about Texas.  Cotton fields here are long rows of dust in the drought years, especially the dry-land variety, and after the harvest it looks like a brown graveyard, with a few strands of stray cotton clinging to the stalks like surrender flags.

Texas is raw and gritty.  Texas has dirt and longhorns and people really do pick themselves up by their bootstraps.  Hard-working Hispanics infiltrated Texas with good, greasy Mexican food, and folks down here like their barbeque hot and sometimes spicy.  Men are kind.  They open doors and stand when a lady walks into the room and remove their hats in church.  The only fancy shoes you’ll see around here are Luccheses and there are more family potato salad recipes than you can possibly imagine (I have my four personal favorites).  Women don’t think it’s degrading to stay home rearing children and puff their chests with pride over things like blue-ribbon tomatoes and peach cobbler. They aren’t second-class citizens; they work too dang hard to help keep the family unit well-oiled to sit around worrying about their status.

I love being a Texan.  I’m a “ya’ll come back” kind of girl and my dreams come dressed with fluffy biscuits and fried bacon.  Us Texas girls aren’t easily dissuaded, which makes us good at things like law and politics and firing weapons. I think most people are just generally scared of a state that was once its own republic.  We own guns.  We own bibles. We ain’t afraid to use em.

But all hee-haw’n aside, Texas has a certain kindness, like fields of bluebonnets swaying in the breeze.  Folks are always willing to lend a hand, and when you get right down to it, the people really aren’t as closed-minded as the rest of the country thinks.  The morals are to be respectful of other people’s land.  To preserve the goodness of nature the way God intended.  To lift a hand to those underprivileged, and to give of our bounty to those in need.  Texans have heart and raw emotions.  They bleed and they sweat and they pry their dry, dusty boots off with a hard-earned sigh at the end of the day.

I suppose you can’t take the Texas out of this girl.  I love visiting the city.  I’m all over that Maine vacation.  But most of the year, I’ll just settle here in our limestone place with a big porch, listening to the rain pelt down on the metal roof or the cicadas hissing in the summertime, and thank the Lord Jesus he set my feet here so many years ago to start sprouting roots.  I’m now firmly entrenched to this patch of America, sipping sun tea in my rocking chair, complaining about the heat.  If you want to find me, come to the place where people live their dreams big and smile even bigger.

Ya’ll come to see me anytime.  I’ve got a jelly with your name on it.

Filed Under: Texas Tagged With: , , ,

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