Not Taking the Field - This Year

This is the first spring in many years that no one in our family will be taking the field to play a season of baseball (little League, travel team, high school or otherwise). This is the first spring in many where we are not discussing the upcoming practice game schedule, not hearing the team roster or even the new jersey color and design. I will not be watching from the bleachers, wrapped in blankets, because early spring weather is the most unpleasant at our local fields.

Our middle child and youngest son is a young adult, freshman in college and though initially it looked like he would continue to play baseball at the community college where his is doing his first years of higher education, he has decided not to take the field with the team.


He determined that though he loves the game and though he is actually pretty good, his future is not as a professional, big league, minor league or even college player. He is a smart pitcher, long and lanky, he does well on the mound. However, he evaluated his plan for college and realized continuing to hone his baseball skills there, while personally rewarding weren't the skills he needed to focus on, to become equipped to earn and contribute in our society. He determined that an increased focus on his academic goals is more important for him to grow into the adult he wants to become.

After years of investment as parents; of time, money, emotion, teaching and coaching (on my husband's part), learning (on my part), we are done with the game, as parent spectators of our own children. They are all are done as full out, committed training players. Despite our awareness that this day would come, it is bitter sweet. And in all honesty, a few hopes of our own are being set aside. So much attention is given to highly talented and skilled athletes in our culture that it is easy to hold the dream images, of full ride college scholarships or a pro athlete careers, as a justification for the time and energy spent on the activity of sports with our children.

Every family goes into sports participation with different ideas, dreams and goals. Dreams for our children's future are important, so is their developing useful skills. Factors in ours son's choice, as he began training with a higher level team, was his understanding of what it takes to excel and his recognition of the team expectations and culture. For obvious and valid reasons, the college team focus was athletic skill. The expectation was that players make their team participation their top priority. He recognized, that his long term goals required him to make academic achievement his top priority. Doing everything well at the same time isn't always possible. His decision to prioritize his time to accomplish his academic goals and to surround himself with support for those skills was a smart and mature one for him to make.

The awareness of what it takes to truly be excellent in a chosen area of study or skill development was in no small way, made possible by his participation in sports. To achieve what he did as a baseball player, routinely featured on the pitchers mound on a high school varsity team, took many hours of practice beginning at a young age. There was much fun and many rewards along the way but there were also sacrifices made, on his part, to achieve that goal. All three of our children have acquired the knowledge of what kind of commitment it takes to achieve excellence in any given field through their development of skills as athletes. That knowledge will serve them well.

As a family we also gained; many special memories, community connections, time and new experiences together. We all developed friendships with coaches, mentors and peers. We gained relationships and goodness and joy that we continue to value.

We are letting go of some dreams and the pre-organized ongoing summer family activity.
I will miss; the regularly scheduled time outside, watching my son on the pitchers mound, watching him grow and develop that specific skill. I will miss the opportunity to observe first hand as he excels. I will, especially miss, seeing my husband teaching, working with, encouraging and enjoying his children at the park and on the field.

As much as baseball interfered with plans and ideas I may have had for other summer family activities, there was also the up side of having so much of that planned and organized for us. It may have not been the longed for trip to the beach or Disney but it was something we all attended together, outdoors, with each other, friends and community.

Our family will continue to follow baseball at a few levels. When the Little League World Series comes around we'll probably watch a few of the televised games. We'll reminisce about our own trips to Williamsport as spectators and the seasons we had high hopes of being one of those accomplished and very lucky teams. Favorite college teams will be on our radar and the local pro teams stats (Cubs or Socks?) will provide conversation fodder over a family meal.

But as for active, get your gear ready participation, for Run Ran Fam, that's a wrap.

For a continued worthwhile read with more on the benefit of community team sports participation, read high school senior, John Pesce's award winning essay recounting his Little League experience. Play ball!

Doing Laundry On-line

Life is filled with ups and downs, peaks and valleys. If we are lucky enough we experience more peaks than valleys. Adventures, travel, celebrations of accomplishments and transitions are some of the highlights we all look forward to. But most of life happens in between those events.

Three of my peak experiences were giving birth to my children. But with each of those tremendous birthing experiences came more of what life is really made up of, the tasks and chores of everyday life.

Meals to be prepared, dishes to be done, meals to be prepared, dishes to be done, meals to be prepared and more dishes to be done... Our peak experiences are strung together by daily routines, days filled with work that has to be done over and over again.

We have enlisted the help of machines and devices to help us accomplish all that we have to do and to reduce the drudgery. I use machines to do what needs to be done. But I have not always gone there willingly. I wish I had the option to walk for more of my errands. For years I only owned a bike for transportation. I still prefer a phone call to an email or a text and I consider the little spring thing in a wooden clothes pin to be useful advanced technology.

Laundry is one of those ongoing daily tasks that demand my attention.

I rarely use the dryer.
I hang my clothes to dry. I love to hang my clothes outside to dry.

I like the heavy feel of a clothes basket full of wet clothes balanced on my hip as I lug it out across the yard to the line.I like the bend and stretch of grabbing clothes from the basket and reaching to put them on the line. The movement feels good.

I like the feel of the sun on my back while I work and the smell of clean laundry mixed with the smell of the grass, especially if it's newly mowed.

I like doing chores outside.

When my children were young there was nothing quite as satisfying as a row of clean bright white diapers hanging on the line. Those cloth rectangles hung orderly on the line represented at least one task completed in the fight to keep the chaos at bay. Those diapers were flags waving surrender, (or maybe victory) delivering a brief moment of peace and order.

Photo by Soren Astrup Jorgensen

The sheer joy of a giggling toddler running face first through sun warmed sheets, eased the initial irritation about the smudges left by dirty hands.

Hanging laundry outside connects the laundress with nature and with neighbors. Doing laundry has been, for most of human history, a communal activity not the isolating chore it has become. Going to the river to do wash was something women did together, an opportunity to share work and socialize.

My great grandmother hung clothes to dry on the prairies of Nebraska. Homesteading there a full line of laundry could signal the presence of another family and peace of mind in the midst of desolation.  More recently, the laundromat offers an opportunity to meet neighbors.

When I first moved to the Chicago suburbs, I don't think my neighbor hung her clothes outside on a line to dry. Apparently, she liked the idea. I like to think it was my influence that got her out there. When we were both outside hanging laundry we would usually take the time to chat a bit over the fence. We had an unspoken rule though, we always finished hanging the clothes before our backyard banter.

A kind of friendly competition developed as well. Early on a bright sunny morning, perfect for getting some laundry done, I might push hard to get a load of clothes washed and out to the line. Even though in my mind, I started this thing, frequently I'd see my neighbor's clothes, in the next door backyard already dancing in the breeze. As I was hanging mine, she'd poke her head out her back door, "I beat you!"

Getting clothes back in can be a challenge as well. I've procrastinated bringing the laundry in until the distant rumble of thunder forces the issue. Those storms are most likely to come rolling in right about dinner making time, Trying to complete another task, I wait until I hear the fat splats of the first rain drops to run to save one of the days accomplishments.

There is an art to removing the clothes quickly - pluck, pluck, grab, pluck, pluck, grab, until your arms are full of sweet smelling freshly dried clothes, drop them in the basket and repeat. I may have returned to a crying child (afraid of thunder) and a pot boiling over on the stove but the laundry was safe and dry.

After dinner in a moment of calm, listening to rain drops, a glance out the window reveals that my neighbor isn't home, her clothes line sagging under the weight of drenched and drowning clothing. She may have beat me in the morning but I won in the afternoon.

There are highlights within in the drudgery. Even a bit of fun at times.

When I first wrote this description of doing laundry online for a Toastmaster's meeting, I told my neighbor about the topic and her appearance in my speech, she laughed and had two questions; Was I going to protect her identity? and Was I going to mention that sometimes the clothes hung outside for days?