I’m a soccer coach.
Assistant, really.
The idea for Katie and me to lead the team came from wanting our daughters to be on the same team. With her coaching last year, she knows the ropes, and I’ll just swing alongside her.
Or that’s the plan.
Will the competitive streak of hot pink in my hair surge to the forefront? Will I stay up countless hours on YouTube studying plays and techniques, bringing an intensity no one in the county has yet seen from a first-grade assistant soccer coach?
To be determined.
I’ve never been a coach before. I’ve led summer camps, but that was 20-plus years ago, when I was a high school basketball player.
How do I teach kids not to all crowd toward the ball? How do I get them to stay spread out? To work within the chaos, not against it?
Uh oh.
My mind has latched on like vampire teeth into a neck. Yummy. Tastes sweet as a Georgia peach in mid-July.
New topic. New topic. Fingers drumming.
What in the heck are people shooting at?
I hope it’s just target practice, because I’ve seen that poor fawn without a mother twice now, and they better not be doing any illegal killing.
One continuously relieving thing is something that is not happening.
The property owner who last year cut down trees, limbs, and brush to clear for a driveway has all but stopped. The line of his property borders ours toward the back, and if that marshy bit caused too much trouble for him, my worry told me he’d cut right into our nothing-but-woods backdrop.
Nothing done in a year. Everything has grown back to overgrown.
Every so often, I send out wishes that I’ll get a letter or a knock on the door saying he’s interested in selling the property. I’d said as much when I ran into him and a surveyor in the back of our property.
Land is cheap enough out here that, to protect the peace, nature, and our view, I’d be willing to break open my piggy bank.
What a great freaking day I had.
I hope you did too.
Love,
Jaclynn
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