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Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Implosion and Renewal
Greater Louisville, KY
By: Holly Brockman-Johnson
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Photo(s) By: Kyle Danztler/MyActionPortraits.com
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At 6 am the day after school let out for the summer, I took my exhausted children out of town. My son had played in a ton of baseball games and watched his school’s varsity team play in the post season. He’d played in a handful of end-of-the-year band concerts and acted like he was studying for AP tests. My daughter performed in her annual ballet recital, which added rehearsal time to her usual three-day-a-week ballet class calendar.
A sense of imploding crescendoed as May moved along. Quality time spent, for sure, but we didn’t seem to be home very much, and getting a meal on the table had a very precarious window of opportunity.
So, when my children didn’t wake up until well after I’d gotten gas for the first time, I knew the first few days of our vacation might be spent in front of mindless television.
But, I was surprised.
Every day, I saw Kennan at the bat: on the porch, in the driveway and a couple of times in the living room that he doesn’t know I saw… Imagining a pitch coming his way and swinging. He took walks to the beach and ran in the afternoon. He even ran with me one day--at the same time--different sides of the street, of course, but essentially we existed in the same area at the same time. We covered the same ground. He rallied one night and took batting practice outside the car in the driveway and cleaned up his ball bag. (He left the dome light on in the car all night, but that’s the subject for another time.)
At yesterday’s ballgame, as the summer league season opened, I fished leather strings though his ball glove and cinched them. I looked for some shade to stay cool. I sat in a very familiar, soft comfortable space on my stadium chair. And, I found myself in a place of gratitude for my children and the gifts they continue to give me through the sports the play, the art they make and the love they give.
Real or intended is beside the point.
Holly Brockman-Johnson’s writing has appeared in Runner’s World, The New Southerner, Conversations With Wendell Berry and ghotimag. She trades time between Louisville cheering for the Ballard Bruins and Cape Cod cheering for the Hyannis Mets with her children Kennan and Laney. Holly can be reached at hollymb@bellsouth.net.
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