Sports Night

I have never been a fan of sports. I haven't even been able to successfully pretend to care. I have never seen any use for kicking or throwing or batting or catching or running with a ball. I've long admired the enthusiasm people have for their favorite sport or team or athlete, but it doesn't stop me from thinking it could be put to better use. If fifty thousand people came out one afternoon to cheer on the arts, I couldn't be happier. If people spent a quarter of the money on educating their children that they spend on memorabilia or merchandise, we'd live in a vastly different world.

I was never comfortable with sports, never liked how black and white they were. Some kids felt like superstars and the rest of us felt awkward and leaden, judged and discarded. I was never the guy picked last for the team, but it was close, standing there feeling sorry for Tom or Jason, hoping just once they'd get picked sooner, but still hoping I'd get picked before them. Sports change people from rational individuals into lunatic mobs. And I hated what it did to me, even when I was made a team captain once in boys PE. Rather than do the nice thing and pick Tom and Jason, just to make them feel better, I did as all my predecessors had done, I picked the star jocks, ignoring the pleading looks from my true peers. I hated feeling like I wasn't fast enough or strong enough or brave enough.



Aside from running cross country in junior high, which I did for two years–and even then only to hang out with my friends after school–the only other sport I ever took any interest in was soccer, and that happened for all of about one week. In elementary school, our PE teacher, Mister Lucky, introduced us to soccer, which I immediately fell in love with. I was good at it. I felt fast and agile and graceful and capable. Until I mentioned it to my father while on a weekend trip to visit him.

"Soccer!" he proclaimed in that radio announcer voice of his. "Soccer's no good. It's not a real sport. Nobody likes soccer, except Europeans. And girls." The implication was enough that I don't remember touching a soccer ball again.

I get all the positive things that sports can do for kids, I just don't see them as often as I see the negatives.

My walks with Duncan at the park have not been entirely pleasant as of late. The junior leagues have taken over our turf and it's pissing me off. Every day I steer clear of not one, not two, but four kiddie football teams, ten soccer teams and the Columbine Cross Country team, not to mention the six baseball fields that see three games a night. I haven't been able to throw Duncan's ball for him, I'm constantly restraining him from going after soccer balls or footballs, and don't get me started about the baseballs. It just hasn't been fun because I've been feeling strange about myself and strange about the enterprise as a whole.

I do not like listening to coaches demean kids who are still too young to deliver newspapers, or accuse them of running like girls, or call them fat, all within earshot of parents, who sit on the sidelines in their Sports Authority fold-up chairs and watch it all. "It develops character," they say. Or, "She'll learn to be part of a team," and "It teaches responsibility."



Bullshit, says I! That kind of sportsmanship alienates, scars and breeds the very resentment that led to the tragedy that took place not half a block away.

I just want my park back. So I can play fetch with my dog, the ball lover!

Sports Night: Number Twenty-Two

It's no secret that I am not a sports fan. There is much about it that does not make sense to me but I have always been able to appreciate the ideals for which sports stand: the dedication and work it takes to participate, the courage required to stand up and put your abilities on display, the devotion of the fans. And of course, a good underdog story is always heartwarming.

Much of my exposure to sports this past year has come through my walks with Duncan as we navigate the various teams which swarm over the fields in the park across the street. While I detest the surprising majority of parents who seem completely inattentive, talking on their phones while standing on the sidelines with their backs turned, or sitting in their cars reading a book or the paper while their children run and kick and jump and cavort for them, I genuinely admire the kids who give their all. I remember what it was like to stand there, awkward and fearful, praying the ball stayed as far away from me as possible 'less I blow my one chance. To this day when I see a ball I careening toward me across an athletic field I see a lifetime of childhood and adolescent anxiety. Duncan merely sees a ball bouncing across the grass and wants to join in the fun. On more than one occasion we've accidentally interrupted a kiddie soccer practice when he's charged into the fray to wrest control of the ball in a mad attempt to slather it with drool.

The football teams finally returned today. They appear to have lost some of their status along with the privilege to play on the main fields and have been relegated to practicing on the now abandoned baseball diamonds. While Duncan paused and sniffed the trunk of a bare Aspen tree, I watched the kids slam into each other, their pads colliding and groaning under the strain of their impacts, but one kid, rather thin and gangly, was a little more forceful than the others, running a little harder, catching a little more air just before crushing into the others, grunting louder but catching his balance and pushing on before his teammates did. It was only when he turned away and moved back into formation that I saw the long ponytail hanging halfway down his back, noticed the grace of his movements and realized that number twenty two was not a he but a she. And a damn feisty one at that. When it came time to rush her coach, squatting behind the small kiddie-sized tackle sled, she nearly knocked him over and moved right on past as he struggled to keep his balance and prepare for the next kid.

I could've stood there all night, watching this small, bird-like girl throw better than some of the boys, run faster, dance on her feet with much more agility and repeatedly push her coach back, gaining ground on him each time. I was never a fan of team sports, but she was the kind of person I'd definitely want on my team. I was always one of the last kids picked when it came time to choose teams (except at dodge ball!) but that's something number twenty-two will never have to worry about. I guarantee it.

The Ugly Side

For two and a half years Duncan and I have made the park our own, running its vast lengths in the hot summer months, appreciating its every nuance in Spring and Autumn--stopping to gaze in wonder upon the blossoms, or reflecting with terrible but sweet nostalgia on the fallen, curling leaves. Even in Winter, my least favorite season, we coast over the snow and blue ice as though gliding over a bright but forgotten moon on the far edge of the galaxy. We know its scents and flavors, the sound of the wind in the elms or the calls of the boys who play late night Frisbee on the baseball fields. We know the way the stars look in June as well as January, the Dipper held firmly in the northern sky or Orion on the hunt days after Christmas. There have been long February nights when snow covers everything and I believe our feet have been the only ones to crack the frozen crust of white.

But there is a dark side to the park which breaks my heart. More times than I could count I have written about the soccer hoards or the children athletes and "their wretched parents." Duncan and I have navigated their gatherings with great difficulty in the Fall and Spring, sometimes staying away for weeks, not returning until they have moved on, their discarded water bottles and fast food wrappers the only reminder that they were there at all.

I do not like sports. I never have. I find them brutal and arrogant and lacking the very sportsmanlike ideals they claim to foster. The public, and especially children, have been duped when it comes to turning athletes into role models, coaches into sages and paradigms of wisdom.

The soccer hoards have left, as have the baseball teams. Now the lights of the park are lit for the kiddie football league, my least favorite of all sports. Tonight we circled the baseball diamonds where they practice and I winced each time I heard a coach scream at his charges. It's not the yelling that bothers me so much; after all, it can be a great motivator, but the language they use, the things they imply. It was a warm and lovely night, but I felt myself hardening up, growing angry and more than once I stopped and listened and considered saying something.

One coach growled at his team as he strode back and forth in front of them. "What the hell was that?" he roared. "You're all prancing around out there like a bunch of pussies. C'mon, you're in the fifth grade! Act like it!"

Another accused his team of being girls and then paraded before them, his wrist falling limp, a distinct and offense sashay in his step, an intolerant lisp in his voice. I got the message.

Another made the boys run laps, calling the one who'd fallen behind a fatso.

And where were the parents? There were none on the perimeter or in the stands. None watching at all. No, they were seated in their running cars, some asleep, some talking on the phone, none involved in the training of their children. It was heart breaking.
So we climbed the hill and sat on the swings at the jungle gym. Duncan rolled in the sawdust below the slide while I tried to block out the sound of the whistles, each one a violent shove, pushing childhood further and further away.

Night Snow

We awoke to snow, and although Duncan didn't get a long walk this morning (more like a quick pee, a well-thought out poop, and a quick jog once around the building before I left for work), he saved it up for tonight's long romp in the park.

I can't think of many things that make my dog happier than snow. Shortly after Ken brought him home it snowed and he spent his first days with us plowing through drifts bigger than himself, chasing after powder that rolled ahead of him as he careened forward. Duncan loves the outdoors, loves wind in his face, loves playing fetch or tug of war, but little compares to his joy at playing in the snow. While I spend all year dreading it and then enduring it, he revels in it, delights in snapping at it and rolling through it.

Tonight at the park he was finally able to release all of his pent up energy. The plans he must've made this afternoon as he gazed out the window while it fell, then stuck to the ground. Looking across Bowles he must've seen the park, white and pristine with fields of unmarred snow waiting for him, calling to him.

Once again we were the only ones out so I took him off-leash to run free. Considering it had been seventy-three degrees on Monday, today's temperatures seemed almost unendurable. I've never been a fan of the cold or snow, I do not ski or snowshoe or participate in any of those other winter sports. I spend the long, cold months in sweaters and heavy socks, sitting on the couch reading, occasionally knitting, watching movies. We could not be more different, homebody me, who hates sports and Winter, and my ball-crazy, snow-mad dog.

Because it was so cold I worried all day about our walk and how displeased Duncan would be with me when our nightly trek was cut short. Maybe Duncan knew this and came up with a plan to distract me. I'll never know, but somehow whatever he did worked and we spent more than an hour playing and chasing and rolling around in the stuff. I even managed a snow angel, my first since college when a group of us got drunk and did them naked on the field behind a church. When Duncan tried an angel his came out more like an albino ink-blot test, but I'm not judging. His approach to keeping me out was direct but not aggressive. Rather than allow me to focus on how miserable my feet felt or how my nose wouldn't stop running, he distracted me by doing little more than standing in front of me, blocking my path and demanding I play his favorite winter game, Kick Snow in Duncan's Face. It's very simple: he positions himself down low in front of me while I turn my foot sideways, scrape the snow up in one swift moving arc and kick it in the direction of his head so he can leap forward, snap at it and watch as it rains down, catching in his muzzle and ears, coating his nose and eyebrows. We did this for over an hour, leaving a strange, sideswiping trail as we moved across the covered fields, up the hill and to the top of the memorial where we sat in silence, side by side, looking down on the empty park, the loud orange clouds and the city spread out all around us. When it was time to go he stood up, grabbed his leash and led me back down the hill to a nice, undisturbed patch of snow where we resumed our play.

I wonder what he thinks when I take him out into a world remade in white. I'm meticulous about rotating out his toys, giving him his Buddy for a few weeks before exchanging it for his Baby and then eventually replacing that with his Berry. Does he think I'm in charge of the snow, too; that I pick and choose when it falls and when he can enjoy it. There was a desperation in his play tonight, as if he wanted to get his fill of it before it went away again. Does he love me more in the snow, or come April, when the wind turns warm and he can turn his face into it, does he love me more all over again? Or does he just love me?

I know that I could watch him play all day in the snow. And all day in the grass. Or all day in the leaves.

I could watch him play all day.

Sports Night Revisited: Kickball!

Kickball! Now there's a sport I can get on board with!

For the last three nights the baseball fields at the park have been taken over by a much merrier band of athletes who play Kickball. At first I couldn't quite believe it so Duncan and I stopped and watched. I looked around to see if perhaps someone was filming something, if maybe I was part of an elaborate prank, but it turned out to be the real thing. I hadn't thought of kickball since the sixth grade and didn't even know people actually played it.

The fields at Clement Park have been overrun with baseball players since before we moved in July and that part of me that was traumatized by sports decades ago always appears and feels small and inadequate whenever we walk past the quad of baseball diamonds. The players are exactly as I remember them from high school, jockish, brutish, sometimes older and a little wider around the middle and most unappealing in their ridiculous baseball pants, but others–the young ones–look as if they've stepped right out of my worst PE flashbacks, circa 1986.

But not the kickballers! They're wonderful! Saturday night two different games were going on in the same baseball diamond and Duncan and I had to stop and watch them. Duncan normally doesn't like to stand too long in one place, unless it's to choose the location on which he wants to do his business, and even then he doesn't really stand so much as turn in slow circles, nose to the ground looking for that single, perfect 4" X 4" spot in all the world that's good enough. But even Duncan seemed entranced by the games going on. Or maybe it was just the big red, rubber balls bouncy willy-nilly before his eyes. I myself couldn't look away from the players, who were tall and short, fat and skinny, young and old, jock-types and nerd types. It was the true American Melting Pot, and even better was the fact that they all wore goofy hats and costumes–enormous yellow afro wigs and hats with wings and horns, cowboy hats, hockey masks, clown hats, cat-in-the-hat hats, capes and boots. It was like a league of bizarre super heroes at a company picnic. And they all cheered for each other, even the opposing team. It was brilliant and even though it probably won't happen, I really want to sign up next year. I'd ask if Duncan could join too, but I imagine they might have rules about slobbering on the ball, or running away with it and not coming back.

We'll have to see.

Spring Night

It's been a long time since I've really looked at the stars. It doesn't seem all that long ago that most of my walks with Duncan were spent under cold dark skies, Orion rising in the south and prowling across the sky above the park while we plodded through the snow or laid down on the firm crust of ice that covered the hillside above the lower soccer field. Those were such magnificent evenings despite the cold, simply because they were quiet and all the night seemed ours. Now, when Orion has moved on and the Big Dipper is righting itself in the northern sky, Duncan and I are settling in for the evening and cuddling on the couch while we wait for Ken to come home. We make a few trips out for quick bathroom breaks, but we don't stay for long and I can't remember ever stopping to look and listen to the night.

Tonight, because it was our first hot night of the season, I refused to cook and made a nice salad instead, and although we took a quick walk through the park after work, I saved our big stroll until after the sun had set and the Ultimate Frisbee players had gathered in one of the baseball fields to chase their red and blue glowing discs. Except for the grunts and cheers from the twenty or so players, the park was quiet after the traffic died down and it seemed our own again. No runners, no crowds of after-work leaguers vying for time on the diamond, no thugs menacing the skate park. A nice warm breeze drifted over us and even in the dark I could see the snow falling from the Cottonwoods which ring the soccer field. The lower field is my favorite because it is the darkest and the shadows are the deepest and the willows, which stand at the northern end look magnificent under the moonlight, their long, slender, branches swaying in the breeze, their long fingers reaching out to stroke the dancing moths. Duncan and I could lay in the cool, clipped grass and go unnoticed by anyone who happened to be walking at that hour. Last Winter, after the after-school sports teams had moved on and the park emptied out, I felt as though we were its guardians, there alone to enjoy and revel in it, but when Spring returned, with her noisy kiddie soccer teams and their terrible SUV-driving parents, it seemed as though our devotion to it during the long, dark months meant nothing. But tonight, under a clear sky overflowing with stars, the park was ours again, and the sway and rustle of the willow tendrils and the slow arc of the moon and stars above us were reminder enough that the park has not forgotten our devotion and has saved some of her best moments for our eyes alone.

Air

It is no secret that I have a difficult time enjoying sports. I was not the strongest child, or the fastest, and I was certainly not the most competitive when it came to throwing, catching, lifting, pulling, or knocking people over. I was never the first kid picked to join a team (unless it had something to do with words or storytelling) and sometimes I was even the last. Athletics were never my strong suit and even after all this time I'm uncomfortable in that realm. Perhaps that's why I dislike the Soccer Hoards and get so angry when I witness unsportsmanlike behavior.

The Little Leaguers have invaded the park where Duncan and I walk all year. During the long winter months there are weeks when we don't pass a single other soul while on our tromps. We are there as the sun is rising and even long after it has set. We are there when the snow is deep, when the rain is falling, when the strong winds rip the branches from the trees. And because of this I get a little protective of it. We love it unconditionally, not just as the season suits and nothing annoys me more than walking after a soccer or baseball game and discovering piles of trash, mostly water bottles, strewn across the lawn. So when I saw the crowds of boys and parents and coaches spread across the park yesterday I immediately felt myself tense up.

I have witnessed coaches and players treating each other in the most despicable of manners so when I saw a group of boys standing in a semi-circle practicing hitting I watched them carefully. The coach was kneeling in the center of their circle tossing balls at each boy. One by one they hit the balls, which shot straight up into the air, a hit that could have easily been caught by even the most novice of catchers during a game. And then came the littlest boy's turn. The coach tossed the ball at him and he swung and missed. The coach tried again and once again the boy missed. He was the first not to hit the ball so immediately the other boys began jeering at him even though they were teammates. The coach tried again and again, on and on, and even though the scorn of his teammates escalated while the coach did nothing to contain it, the boy persevered. And then finally there was a solid swing and a strong hit. The ball ricocheted off the bat, low and fast, cutting through the air as it sped past the coach and the boys. It flew far, uncatchable by his teammates and landed well outside their circle. Immediately the name-calling stopped and was followed by a profound silence.

I pumped my fist and called, "Good one," and gave the kid a thumb's up as they all turned and looked at me. "Way to go!"

He smiled, gave a slight nod of his head and smiled softly.

I felt vindicated and proud of him.

Thirteen

It was a damp morning in the park, the remnants of last night's rain evident on the sidewalk and in the streets, in the drops still slowly slipping down the trunks of the trees or dripping from the branches, their impact making soft smacking sounds on the mat of yellowed grass and once-leaves below. The clouds were low but moving fast away toward the south and east, as though embarrassed at being caught in the act of doing something illicit. There was a chill in the air but not enough to keep Duncan and me from the park, or the Little League players from the first game of the season.

As we strolled around the baseball diamonds, we sized up the players, all of them twelve or thirteen, the most awkward of ages. Some of them were surprisingly tall and husky for their age, while others were still scrawny and bony and hardly looked ten. Their voices were as varying as their builds. While they warmed up, their uniforms still crisp and white, they shouted and called to one another, some in deep baritones, some in gravelly awkward cracks, and others in tones and timbres that had not even considered puberty.

Duncan was indifferent, of course, sniffing his way along the line of the fences, using his nose to turn over discarded potato-chip bags, until an occasional stray ball rolled toward us, and struck the other side of the fence, then he perked up and watched intently while the player retrieved it. I watched and listened, though, because the world of sports and thirteen year-olds are things I have never understood, even when I was that young.

A group of four small boys were warming up on one side of the field, throwing a ball back and forth between them, all of them eying their competition, who––looking much older and larger––were doing the same on the other side of the field.

"Do you see that big one," one of them asked conspiratorially. His teammates followed the jerk of his head in the direction of a tall, dark-haired boy across the field who was barking at his team in a deep, confident voice.

"Taylor Mitchum?" another asked.

The boy, gangly and small, nodded. "He looks old enough to shave," he marveled.

Another boy nodded. "Yeah, but check this out," he said, lowering his voice. "My cousin goes to school with him. Not only does he shave, but he has pubes."

There was a strange silence and I had to fight to keep from laughing.

Finally another boy spoke up. "Dude, I have pubes."

"Me, too," another confessed.

"Yeah, I do, too," the third admitted. They stared at their teammate in silence, sizing him up, the ball frozen in his mitt. "Dude! You don't have any pubes yet? What's wrong with you?!"

"Shut up!" he protested. "I got one!"

I still don't understand them.

The Full Curt

Perhaps it was the soccer hoards that set me off, the wildly tame throngs of vanilla-coated parents milling around, polluting the wide sidewalks with their talk of mini-vans, which sports darling Shelby and little Jackson plan on playing this year, the extremely anti-hip whine of their ring-tones emanating from their L.L. Bean pockets and their refusal to step aside when Duncan and I pass through. "Excuse me.... excuse me...." I say as we wind past them while they merely stare, slack-jawed and vapid in their refusal to budge an inch, as hostile as if I were asking them to co-sign on a loan. "Excuse me," I say again, but what I really want to yell is "Get the hell out of my way for once, won't you?!"

I do not like them and what they and their shrill children do to my park. Each night after they depart they leave the field covered in empty, crushed water bottles, forgotten socks, crumpled bags of fast food and their careless, selfish disrespect. Duncan and I walk the park every day, several times, picking up after them, playing in the grass, laying under the trees, chasing bunnies, and they could care less. The park I call a second home is simply backdrop to them. They don't see it. Hell, most of them don't even notice their children being screamed at by the coaches they've hired to babysit.

This time of year is always difficult, the slow transition from the Summer's exuberance to the tame melancholy of Autumn and the invasion of the inconsiderate after-school crowds. I should be used to it by now, but something about today has convinced me that I can't do it again. As much as we love the lake and the rolling hills, chasing the bunnies, being close to the mountains and our magnificent and violent sunsets, I don't think I have it in me to spend another year in the languid indifference of this suburb. I would gladly trade it for a small apartment in an old converted Victorian down on Capitol Hill, surrounded by diversity and excitement. I'd gladly trade the nearby Applebee's and Red Lobster for a quiet mom-and-pop joint. And I could certainly do without the two hours of commute time each day. Duncan and I could use a change of scenery and people.

And we could certainly do without this particular brand of mindless insanity greeting us in the mornings and following us around the lake each night.

It might have been the soccer hoards but I'm quite sure this was the cherry on the banana split of our walk this afternoon. It took all the strength I had to not scream out, "No one likes you! No one likes your music! The only people paying attention are your parents and even they can't wait to sell that  damn trombone!"

But I'm nicer than that so I'll move next Spring and we'll find a more Duncan and Curt-like place somewhere out there in the world. There has to be some place. I'm sure of it.

Kites and Shadows

The light off the kites in the park this afternoon was luminous. Duncan and I stood on the hill overlooking the lake, watching seven or eight kites flap in the cool wind. They were not ordinary kites, not the kind I bought at Grand Central as a kid, with their goofy faces or racing stripes, but big, heavy grown-up things, the kind of kites that you need a license to fly. Their operators used both hands to steer them with fancy plastic grips and brightly colored synthetic string, perfect for landing a swordfish. One kite, much smaller than the others, but still quite impressive made a buzzing noise––like a six-foot long wasp–– as it dove, cutting through the air, careening earthward at a remarkable speed, only to turn sharply and suddenly, just above our heads before it raced back into the blue. Another kite, perhaps ten feet long and four feet high, and made of bright red fabric, the kind parachutes are made of, was so big that each time it caught the wind and lifted higher, its driver was pulled briefly off his feet and set back down onto the ground as though fastened to a giant, lazy yo-yo.

I became just as enamored of their shadows as I was of the kites themselves and spent several long minutes watching them speed across the grass then across Duncan's face and back before momentarily vanishing until they interrupted my patch of sunlight once again. The shadow of a small child floated into my field of vision, its arms outspread as it danced a loping gallop from behind me. "Look daddy," it cried, "I'm flying! I'm an eagle!" I smiled and glanced up at the four year old who was racing amid the kite shadows, watching his own shadow intently, oblivious in that wonderful childlike way I love so much about Elijah.

I was an eagle once, too, I thought, recalling my years at Edahow Elementary, Home of the Eagles. I was a panther during junior high, an Indian in high school, briefly a Bengal for two years at Idaho State University, and finally, at Lake Forest, a forester, whatever that was. I'd liked being an eagle although our school lacked any organized sports teams so I'm not quite sure what purpose our mascot served, but it seemed a grand thing to be nonetheless and painted in gold on the maroon t-shirts they sold at fund-raisers it was quite handsome. I was an eagle the last time I actually flew a kite and as I watched that little boy fly from the grass where he danced and chased the shadows under the eyes of his father, I wondered what I'd be this time, nearly thirty years later. My various alumni associations would like to think I'm still an Indian or a forester and I probably am, but only nostalgically. Childhood and youth sometimes seem far away, a dim blur of sepia memories.

No, I'm not those things any longer, but if I had to choose, if someone pressed the issue I'd probably be a Retriever. Watching Duncan watch the kites, watching him watch the sunlight on the lake and the little boy playing around him I thought that there are far worse things to aspire to be and far few things better.

Place

Three days a week I go into the office where I tend to the things I'm paid to tend to and interact with people I actually enjoy interacting with. Until I got my present job three years ago, I'd drawn pretty clear lines about socializing with the people I worked with. Work is work and my life is my life and rarely did the two intersect. There were exceptions, of course, but for the most part I was a pretty private person at work. But the people I work with now are incredible and I enjoy spending time with them. I love my work and don't dread going there. I was ill-suited for my last job––I loathed it, in fact––and the sound of the alarm going off each morning was almost more than I could bear. But now when the alarm goes off I don't think, "I don't want to go to work," I think, "I don't want to get out of bed." But once I am up and on my way I actually find myself looking forward to the time I spend there. I am fortunate to finally be one of those people who loves what they do.

It would be easy to pick a place to post about that I share with Duncan but anyone who reads this blog would probably be able to draw a map of the places we frequent, from the park to the lake, the dog park to Hero's Pets, and all the places in between. But I've never really talked about work and where it is I go when I'm not spending time with Roo.

My office is the first on the left when you come through the door. I share it with Ben and almost as soon as we moved in together someone posted a picture of The Odd Couple on the window outside our office. Ben is much too young to get the joke and even after we explained it he seemed unimpressed. I'm Felix to his Oscar apparently; he's a jock and spends much of the day listening to sports talk radio on his headphones while I have somehow earned the reputation of being the fastidious one, which couldn't be further from the truth. One has only to look at my desk at home, or my closet, or my bookshelves, to find the proof. But we get along well and spend much of the day taking pot shots at each other. I enjoy Ben and although he wouldn't admit it, he probably doesn't mind spending time with me either.

 

My desk is probably not the most professional in the office. Last Thanksgiving when we held a turkey bowling event I protested by making a sign which reads, "Bake don't bowl." It hangs in the corner above the bulletin / dry-erase board I have yet to discover a practical use for, aside from holding the copy of How to Speak Wookiee my mother gave me for Christmas two years ago. For a time I kept my Star Wars action figures there but they kept falling so I moved them down below, propped against the wall.

Two years ago Duncan and I narrowly avoided being hit in the parking lot when a woman backed up without looking at us. I yanked Dunc out of the way but was struck and knocked into a parked car (all of this the morning before my grandfather passed away, which was also the day I got the most severe food poisoning I've ever had). I was lucky in that I wasn't injured so much as bruised and shaken up but when I returned to work my friend Lisa had left me a recreation of the event, complete with a small, red dog, a Lego Han Solo laying flat on his back, police tape, and a Hot Wheels car. It is one of my most prized possessions and I've taken great care to preserve it as it was presented to me.

In the corner behind it there's a small Zen water fountain, a frame with photos of my family, friends, and the cats, a wonderful piece of art my friend Denise made for me, a digital scale for the shipping I occasionally tend to, and a lamp which gets far too hot. The fountain, the newest addition, has a light that glows as water drips down on three separate tiers, and rocks that I get to arrange as I like. It's cheap and maybe a little tacky but the sound of the water bubbling is soothing and keeps me focused throughout the day.

Above my desk there are a couple of locking shelves where I keep my personal items as well as snacks and the best damn tape gun in the world. I haven't quite figured out what to do with them so I put up a quote I liked from a Ted Talk I listened to along with a couple of pieces of art my boss's daughter drew for me for my birthday.

There's another lamp on the other side of the desk, near my computer where I sit, along with a sinking Titanic, a postcard from Metropolis, Illinois with a picture of Superman, the origami Star Wars pod racer my friend Sean and I constructed on New Year's Eve, a framed photo of Duncan and me that my sister took, and a large Superman action figure given to me by my godson, Elijah. Everyone thinks I'm a Superman fan, and I am, but Batman is the real hero in my book, I just haven't been able to find a cool enough action figure to put up. I look every time I go to Target, though.

The truth is that while I spend a large portion of those three days at the office away from Roo, he's never out of sight. He goes with me everywhere.

And while I sit at my desk answering emails, talking with instructors and students on the phone, and joking with Ben, Duncan is always looking back at me from the wallpaper on my computer monitor.

Duncan is present in all my important places. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

No Longer Our Own

Duncan and I, under the constellation Orion, have been faithful guardians of the park since October when the last of the after-school sports teams packed up and called it quits for the year. Dutifully we strolled the wide sidewalks, cut our own paths through the snow, protected the fields from the varmint geese and played as much as we could, keeping that park magic alive during the long dark months and the quiet cold mornings when we were its only occupants. Yes, there were times the park didn't feel as safe as it could've, but most days we were content with the silence and the vast emptiness, alone with the snow halos around the street lamps, the owl which stared down at us from its tree perch, the sound of our feet crunching the snow and cracking the ice echoing between the trees, across the fields and over the frozen lake.

This afternoon we ventured across the street to discover that the teams have returned. Children had flooded the fields and I was unable to count the number of different soccer practices which were taking place around us. There was the girls team in the lower field with the blue jerseys and the matching purple backpacks. There were two different boys teams, the taller ones in gold and black, the smaller ones in red and blue. Further down toward the skate park the jerseys bled together until it seemed like a mass gathering, a protest, perhaps, or even a gay pride parade exploding with all those colors. The parking lots were packed with minivans and SUVs, barking mothers, fathers talking on cell phones, toddlers playing on the edges of the sidewalks, their parents too busy catching up with other parents to notice their children were playing with the crusty remnants of green goose poop. I felt invaded and a little sad that with the return of Spring and green and sunshine we'd lost the thing that's meant the most to us these long months. We were glared at as we made out way through a particularly loud group of people. One of the kids was lazily bouncing a silver and red soccer ball and Duncan took an interest in it. The child's mother hastily pulled the kid away and the unattended ball rolled down the hill with Duncan straining his leash to follow after it.

So we left and ventured down Leawood, the neighborhood which reminds me of the place I grew up. The new Spring light falls at a nostalgic angle on the 80's-model homes, on the gently sloped curbs, the red mustang––just like the one Kenny Mecham's older brother drove––parked in the decaying driveway. There is something comforting about Leawood and her side streets, Newland and Marshall, where we walk. Something friendly about the people tending to their yards or clearing our their overly-packed garages. There are the monkey bars at the school, an exact copy of the one we played on at Edahow, the elementary school I attended (several readers of this blog just saw that picture and smiled). It's nice to walk there, even though it's not my neighborhood or 1982 when I rode my faithful black dirt bike up and down that hill to and from the homes of my friends.

Tonight, on our last walk, I noticed that Orion has slipped in the sky. For months I have watched him hover in the southern night directly over the park, his dogs Canis Major and Minor nearby hunting Taurus the bull, keeping their eyes on Lepus the hare. As the days have grown longer Orion has started to move on, beginning his nightly hunts further west, perhaps aware that all those kicking children and their loud-mouthed hovering parents and coaches, have chased away the good game.

We will watch over the park without him. And we will relish the daylight, but we will miss calling it our own.