Kale has two teeth now. I forgot to mention that with yesterday’s entry, but we had that first one Saturday and Sunday – poof! – there was the other one right beside it like a little buddy holding hands in a game of Red Rover. They are sharp, those little gnashers. Kale likes to chew. So far, not on me – thank god.
I’m listening to Kale mutter and squeak in his room at the moment – not sure if we will escalate into full on unhappiness or if we are just awake and talking in our space.
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Well, its about four hours later now. It did escalate and so I rescued him and we played and then we took Mooki for a walk in the gorgeous weather. It smells like spring. It smells like spring soccer, actually. That’s a smell I haven’t smelled in a while – the smell of muddy grass and early flower buds. I love that smell. It reminds me of so many soccer games in my past. Important games. Games we lost and games we won. Games that were do or die. Games that I came home bruised and grass stained. Games that we celebrated afterwards.
I miss soccer, a lot. I miss the game, and I miss the comraderie of a team, and I miss that smell.
I’m half thinking of looking for a spring soccer team. Here in the Lower Mainland, soccer is played September to May, with cup play starting as early as March, and a summer league that goes June-July. There are four divisions and within those divisions there are some subdivisions. I’ve only ever played division 3, although I very easily could have played in division 2 but now I doubt very much that even division 3 is in my cards. They have a classics league which they divide into silver and gold and it’s an over 30 league. Years ago, when I played, it was over 35. I remember there was a great to-do when they announced they were hoping to lower the age to 30 in order to get the number of registered players up. I turn 35 next month (!) and so either way, I’d fit into that league. There is a New Westminster team in the winter – I don’t know if they field a summer team or not.
But there it is, festering and growing like a gremlin fed after midnight in the back of my mind and on days like today when I smell the smell of muddy grass all I want to do is pull out my cleats and smack around a ball and I can practically hear the whistle and hear the thwock thwock as the ball gets passed and the field chatter of the game.
I kept all my gear – I had just bought new cleats before hanging them up. My gear is in storage and would require a dust off and my cleats a new layer of dubbin. It’s been years since I played. I quit for a few reasons – the team I coached / managed / played on was self-destructing. Too many players lost, not enough coaching staff… it just wasn’t the same team anymore and like all things that change, sometimes they change into nothingness. And it was also easier to simply stop playing because I had so many health issues going on and was spending far too much time at physiotherapy.
A sports injury specialist told me that one of the occasional symptoms of ulcerative colitis when its not well managed is what’s called symptomatic arthritis. Your body displays all the signs and pain of arthritis in the joints without actually destroying them. Once I started seeing a new gastroenterologist and we worked out a new treatment regime, the ulcerative colitis became managed and my joint pain faded and eventually disappeared altogether. I feel strong now, and joints that once felt stiff and rough feel fluid and capable. But it was easier to remain sedentary. I justified myself by joining a gym, which I only half heartedly worked out at.
I wonder if I still have what I had. I was a skilled and strong defender, not afraid of the ball and not afraid of making plays. I had a voice on the field – I was a drill sergeant and a leader. I don’t think I have run more than five minutes at one time since I quit soccer, a fact that depresses the crap out of me, to be honest. I’m not woe-is-me about my weight anymore, and I hardly care about the shape of my body, but man, my conditioning is non existent and I’d like to get more active. I wonder if a team would take me. I wonder if I could still do it.
Inspired by a blogger I read with regularity, I think I’d like to try geocaching in a few months when Kale is older. Fortunately, my workplace sells GPS units so I have put an email in to get a price quote to see if my staff discount can justify the purchase.
Ross has his mountain biking, in which he elects to hurtle himself down the side of a steep hill on a cobbled together collection of thin metal protected only by a plastic helmet and some decorative elbow and shin pads.
See also: dislocated ring finger. Or possibly, exhibit B:
(Insert harumph-y, I-told-you-so type of look, here)
He’s also into snowboarding, in which he elects to throw himself down similar steep ice- and snow- covered hills covered only in fluffy clothing, a plastic helmet, and some gloves. I, as I am sure you can tell, think that doing anything that involves travelling down any sort of a hill at a high speed is a waste of a perfectly good afternoon that could be better spent sipping a chai on a patio, or better yet, drinking a Strongbow in some sort of reclining chair. (There are times when I wonder if sedentary is a sport – because seriously, I could take Olympic Gold if it was).
Until a few years ago, I was an avid soccer player and then an injury and chronic illness made me stop with the slide checking. I like soccer not only for its flatness of field, but for the simplicity of the game. I very specifically remember being enrolled in soccer because a) it was cheap and b) the season was a long time. I actually got scholarships as a result of playing and frittered them away on Underwater Basketweaving 101 when I attended Malaspina University College (now renamed Vancouver Island University) the year after graduating from high school. Here is me playing one of my first games (I actually think this is the first game ever, to be honest) - I am the one in the foreground with the mullet, in the orange shirt and black short-shorts with my back to the camera, doing some crazy dance step praying they pass me the ball:
Here is a slightly more recent photo. The interesting thing about this photo is that since it was taken (in about 2003 or maybe 2004), I have cut my hair off completely, dyed it at least three different colours (not including my natural colour when I attempt to cover the expanding grey), and now look – it is more or less back to the exact same freakin’ style! To every season, turn turn turn… In this photo I am doing what I do best – watching the game from the defense line, waiting to make my move, looking mean:
There is also a photo somewhere on our hard drive, that I am currently unable to locate – woe for you – of me in full field hockey goalie gear - including sweet red Axl Rose-style headband and figure-enhancing rugby jersey. Field hockey is a game I played for a number of years and still never managed to figure out all the rules. I actually made “select” teams – I think because I was the only one willing to play goal. It’s a stupid, stupid sport. Seriously. Why not just play real hockey? (Oh right, I can’t skate worth a damn – such is the price you pay for growing up on the West Coast where skating COSTS and you can’t make an arena in your backyard with a hose).
More recently, I’ve become interested in slo-pitch. Originally, it was simply an excuse to drink in the hot summer evenings, but last year I took it a bit more seriously, and actually bought a new glove for the first time since I was 15. There was even a night of batting practise if you can believe it. I look forward to finding a new team next summer.
Are you guys noticing a theme with my “activities”?
I have lots of other non-field type hobbies that I am looking forward to getting back into as soon as the colder weather starts to appear on our horizon. Things like baking, correcting grammar, fundraising for lost causes, and sewing sock monkeys:
I’m also anxious to try out a few other new hobbies: geocaching, as I mentioned, and scrapbooking, for example. I bought all sorts of gear to do the scrapbooking and now just need to get off my butt and do it, but its hard to motivate yourself to do stuff like that when the weather is nice. I can see myself getting into floor hockey (hello, cardio workout!) if I can find a place to play.
I’m also interested in, of all freakin’ things, fencing. Like, Olympic-style-poke-your-eye-out-with-skinny-little-swords-complete-with-white-outfits-and-mesh-helmets – fencing. I started thinking about it a while back (who knows from where I got the idea – I blame pregnancy) and last week I got the new “Community Guide for Active Living” from the New Westminster Parks Board and lo! – they offer FENCING. (WTF???) The only catch is that I am just not quite ready to be doing that what with the whole newborn thang and I hope they offer it for the spring season next year because holy man will I be signing myself up if they do. Talk about a co-inkydink! Cue mysterious voice: If you think it, it will come!
(Sidenote: Hmmm…. I thought about fencing and it appeared in my junk mail…. ONE MILLION DOLLARS. ONE MILLION DOLLARS. ONE MILLION DOLLARS….. Damn. No luck.)
Where was I going with this post? Oh, right -activities we can do with our son. Like I said, I am interested in geocaching as an activity to do with Kale, and am actually writing a list of things to do with him as a family. I’d like to think that stuff like geocaching could be fun even when he is a passenger in a backpack carrier or later, when he is a toddler obsessed with finding treasure and possibly even later, when he is able to lead the chase himself. I remember camping as a child and later, going gold-panning… and it was nice to be outdoors doing “stuff” as a family that wasn’t necessarily a team sport. I want the same for Kale.
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