Against the Grain

So, a couple of things. First of all, where have I been?

Well...I can't tell you the number of times I have written a truly great, possibly life-changing blog piece in my head on my drive home from work, only to have it dissolve sometime between eating dinner and zoning out in front of the television watching re-runs of 'The Big Bang Theory!

Secondly, I don't like the new Google Blogger format. I truly detest Google Chrome and I miss my big template area.  I am one of 'those' people. You know, the ones that are frantically searching the net for discontinued products because they have separation 'issues'.  I still haven't completely recovered from the loss of Clearly Canadian Loganberry flavored water sometime in the mid 1990's. In short, I intensely dislike change. You know how you develop a liking for a certain pen... You become attached to the heft of it, the way it feels against your fingers and the way the ink comes out properly and evenly. You live in fear of someone 'accidentally' picking it up and losing it.  That's the way I felt about the previous 'Blogger' template, and frankly this new format makes me uneasy.

Here is one of those blog pieces that I mentally wrote somewhere between Lake Mary, Longwood and Winter Springs Florida:

As the aunt of several nieces and nephews, I've definitely been to a few youth sporting events in my day. Full disclosure is, having no children of my own, makes it less easy to come up with excuses as to why I can't come. I mean, I've gotten better at it, but there have been times where I've been forced to load up on vitamins, pack the car with bottles of water, sunscreen and spend the better part of a Saturday morning or afternoon watching kids play sports of some kind.

There is a kind of pleasure in being only a spectator and not actually a parent anxiously watching my progeny to be sure that they behave correctly and hoping against hope they will actually be a soccer, softball, basketball, or pee-wee football prodigy. Of course being related to this kid makes me hope that they won't disgrace the family name in anyway, but other than that, to use a British expression I love, 'I could give a toss!'

You can always tell the kids that are natural athletes by simply watching the demeanor of their parents, they're the relaxed ones, leisurely seated in low slung net lawn chairs with their bottle of water neatly held by the built in cup holder. Their whole expression seems to say, 'I am the mother or father of the next LeBron, Kobe, Beckham or Ronaldo and I know it!' They barely even seem to break a sweat in humid Florida summer weather.

Then there are the other parents... They're easy to spot. They are the ones who never actually sit down. They walk, they pace, stalking the sideline of the soccer field (or football pitch depending on where you come from) they are the ones hovering around the vestiges of the fence that divides the baseball diamond from the bleachers, eyes rolled back in their head, flecks of foam at the corner of their mouths shouting out encouragement and or abuse in equal quantities because their kid is...not...a natural athlete. They are the ones that fall apart when their kid is benched, the ones you see 'coaching' their kid on the walk from the parking lot to the field and then on the walk of shame back to the car at the end of the game.

Sometimes I wonder what actually goes on in their minds...Do they think that the kid will develop some kind of sporting prowess purely on the strength of their will for them to be athletes? I ponder what it is in our culture all of the sudden that has taken kids' activities from fun family leisure time to a breeding ground for the former NBA, NFL, or MLS stars of tomorrow. And don't even get me started on the scholarship hunters..

Some of these kids simply aren't cut out for it.

I know. I was, am one.

I guess the first stirrings that I didn't actually have any sort of hand eye coordination came when I was in the 5th grade and the kids began calling me 'weedwacker' when I came up to bat. I just never could make any sort of connection with the bat to the ball.  When I was fourteen I developed a mania for tennis, how much of it was due to my crush on Andre Agassi is still a matter of conjecture, but I tried, oh Lord how I tried! I would force myself out on the court in 90 degree temperatures and practice serves over and over again until I became dizzy with heatstroke. But the fact remains, no matter how much I practiced, I just wasn't good. By comparison, my younger sister (one of the natural athlete types) would take my racket and hit stroke after stroke without error and she never even practiced!

The truth is, I was out of high school, and a young adult before I found my true passion. Looking back, I guess I was always going against the grain. I found the love of my 'recreational' life when I was eighteen. Finally ignoring the critics, realising that I was never going to fulfill the societal norms, I did something that I had always wanted to do. I stepped out onto a polished parquet floor in a pair of high-heeled shoes and for the first time in my life, my body did what I asked it to do when I asked it to do it. I didn't have to struggle like I always had with team sports, my feet just naturally seemed to feel and understand music. While it's a fact that you will always have to learn the rules and shibboleths of any sort of 'game' or skill,  it's wonderful when you actually WANT to learn and feel that you can.

Ballroom dancing isn't exactly the easiest or most popular pursuit from a social standpoint. When I got my first 'real' office job and was allowed to decorate and put my own stamp on my work space, while the other ladies in my office decked their walls with racy photos of Brad Pitt and male Chippendale dancer calendars, I had a black and white photo of Fred Astaire in his top hat and tails on mine. I've never dated a male who actually would partner me in a dance. Many people outright laughed at me when I expressed my love for ballroom dance. I once mentioned to an office 'friend' that I was excited about the prospect of Ballroom becoming a Olympic sanctioned event, and she snorted derisively and said, "No way, won't happen!" "Believe me no one wants to sit around and watch ballroom dancing, it's as exciting as watching paint dry!" I have to admit experiencing the slightest bit of schadenfreude while watching 'Dancing with the Stars' dominate the TV ratings over the last few years. Apparently, many people enjoy watching ballroom dance just like I thought they would.

No, it's never easy going against the grain. But it's worth it. Not every kid can be an athlete, but everyone has a talent. I bet many of those kids taking the 'walk of shame' with their incensed parent back to the car after a lost game where they failed to be the athlete their parent demands they should be, are natural scientists, or future editors, fantastic chefs, artists, geniuses who can actually work with the sophisticated equipment on today's new automobiles. Some of them may even be ballroom dancers.

But none of them will know, if they aren't allowed to go against the grain.  Which brings me to the third reason you haven't been seeing my blog as frequently.

I've been out ballroom dancing...