The Pumas

July 13, 2013

Its been two months since my surgery. My how times flies. Hideous night back pain causes the sweats, agonized reach for the pain pills in between rolling over and throwing the down comfort off of my legs, in another twenty minutes, returning the white quilt to it’s original position. No wonder I am bleary-eyed and at times unable to complete a full sentence.

Went to the soccer fields in Blaine today, to see one of my ten nephews bobble the ball around the grass with his friends. It gave me the chance to spend time with my baby brother, his wife and sons. They are a chatty family, informative and friendly, intense about soccer, and finding their way from field, to hotel with a pool, to dropping me and picking me up, then back, only to repeat the process tomorrow. I admire my brother who is one of the nicest men I know, a superb father and, unexpectedly, a social butterfly. Eager to jump out of the vehicle, to say hello to someone he knows from Rochester. Maybe he just wanted to get away from me, the sister who constantly nods off, mid-sentence. I had never known that gregarious side of him, since I have not spent probably more than an entire week with him, since I left the family home at eighteen. How do we get hatched from the same incubator and become strangers, knowing our friends better than our siblings? 

I saw my friend, the then ancient fifty-six year old, playing goalie. I was a “striker” and my best friends were on defense twenty-four years ago when I sauntered onto a soccer field in Sacramento. It was an “Over 3o League” yet I snuck on as a gal whom had never put on a pair of soccer cleats before and had the time of my life for four years. We made tamales for fundraisers, shared stories of heartbreak, laughed a lot, traveled a bit, and failed to win many games though we tried very hard to get our old butts moving in-sync. Our coach was one of the players husbands and I doubt he got paid for the toil. When I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, it was just after our tournament and all of the teammates were furious considering what disasters could have happened, though none of them did. It was a wild and glorious time with friends I’ll not forget. We were called the Pumas. Some of them continue to play together and I admire their weary bones.