Granny, You look like a big beautiful Easter Egg. His little arms were reaching around my calves and hugging me so tight that I almost fell over onto him.
I love you, sonny, but you are going to knock your granny over, if you don't let my calves go. I love you Granny! I was beaming at the wonder of our enjoyment.
I walked him over to my chair and we sat down and I started to tell him how I got that big lump on my shoulder. It was a day that I could tell him. When I was young, I was on the volleyball team and I had a fierce underhand serve. One day, Mr. T said you are going to take a chance and serve overhand. I remember hitting the ball as hard as I possibly could. The ball looped up in the air and didn't even make it to the first line girls, much less to the net. I remember saying to myself, I will never be able to serve overhand. We lost the scrimmage that day against the lesser players and it was all because I couldn't even get one serve over the net. We had grown accustomed to depending on my serve for some many points. Even as a Freshman, I could get that underhand serve where I wanted it. Mr. T seemed puzzled and quiet that whole practice session. He said, I am not going to accept this. We are going to work together and get your serve to work. I am sure it will help your tennis serve, as well. We spent the rest of practice hitting serves against the wall of the gym. It was a muscle that I hadn't even known that I had. I just felt like a weakling. I kept hitting it and hitting it and it took about 2 sessions for the ball to trickle slightly over the net. That was the first trickle in a scrimmage.
Then there was trying it in a real game. Oh no! I was determined to keep my trusty dusty underhand serve, for confidence sake. Mr. T made me willing to let go of my confidence in my identity as a safe and consistent server for the power and wonder that became my identity when I developed my real serve.
By my senior year and even now. I could look at a spot and hit it without as much effort as it was in the beginning. All of those many serves strengthened my shoulder muscles, but also strained it. That muscle was my identity for many years. The girl with the unreturnable serve. Many girls would prefer to duck than to try to hit it and I can't count how many aces I had under my belt. All of this great enjoyment has a price to be paid and this lump reminds me of a wall that I was helped over, by a man with a vision of an overhead serve that I couldn't see and didn't even want. The power of his vision gave me something I would never have had, if he hadn't pushed me past my petulance.
God bless Mr T and I am grateful that my injury is not the same testimony as my dads testimony of his arm injuries! God can turn around the darkness and bring it to victory. When somebody sees over the wall of impossibility.
So many questions flooded my mind, from fearful ones about lions and bears to more comforting ones about the animals that I could see. I had decided that, if there were fierce maneaters stalking me, they'd have shown themselves already and I went about entertaining myself with the views of the peaceful tranquility that surrounded me. Very soon, this felt as though it were my own home. Conversation seemed easy with small sparrows and whippoorwills, as though they could understand me. Perhaps they all did. All at once my eyes lighted upon a large and hidden nest of some sort.
The marshy area had a constant water sound and the chirps and wildlife sounds were interesting and calming. This silenced me, for some reason. Chattiness was drowning out the real subject of my exploration. A swift loud crunchy sound attracted my attention that there were some busy beavers, looked like 6 of them, working on some construction project in the farthest corner of my eyeshot. Certain that my talking was annoying to them, hushed me even further.
I, very carefully checked every step as I tried to get closer to that nest in the distance. It was about a stone's throw away, but one never knows if there are soft-spots or holes in the marshy area that I was in. Everything looked gray in the distance. As I came closer, I heard some very sharp bird sound that was alarming. I retreated immediately. The beauty of a happy Crane couple, staring at me in alarm, convinced me to do my investigating through my binoculars. Both birds came up swiftly and cawing profusely convinced me that it was time to pack it in.
I put out my fire and took a drew a swift sketch of the nest and ran back to camp.
Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow were caught, by me yesterday, shopping together for a new home. They flitted and flirted, just outside my window. Talking and discussing and lovingly disagreeing, if not arguing the benefits and the pitfalls of living at our house. Mrs. Sparrow was very impressed with the 2 "ready made" nests hung outside our window. Mr. Sparrow hadn't even thought of them as "ready-made" nests. He used them for the provision of building materials for the private home that he had in mind in a surprise and hidden place. He doesn't like the openness, at all, of our porch. It's much too populated. When Mr. Sparrow gets it into his mind to give his sweet chicky a peck, he wants the freedom to do it without a bunch of younguns peeking over the nest to see what comes next. Mrs. Sparrow was impressed that the porch was fully protected from hailstones. We all know what happened to a great many of last years' nests in that surprise hailstorm we had. Male birds seem to have a very short memory for storms. They have only one thing in mind in the nest building season... 03/09
Granny, You look like a big beautiful Easter Egg. His little arms were reaching around my calves and hugging me so tight that I almost fell over onto him.
I love you, sonny, but you are going to knock your granny over, if you don't let my calves go. I love you Granny! I was beaming at the wonder of our enjoyment.
I walked him over to my chair and we sat down and I started to tell him how I got that big lump on my shoulder. It was a day that I could tell him. When I was young, I was on the volleyball team and I had a fierce underhand serve. One day, Mr. T said you are going to take a chance and serve overhand. I remember hitting the ball as hard as I possibly could. The ball looped up in the air and didn't even make it to the first line girls, much less to the net. I remember saying to myself, I will never be able to serve overhand. We lost the scrimmage that day against the lesser players and it was all because I couldn't even get one serve over the net. We had grown accustomed to depending on my serve for some many points. Even as a Freshman, I could get that underhand serve where I wanted it. Mr. T seemed puzzled and quiet that whole practice session. He said, I am not going to accept this. We are going to work together and get your serve to work. I am sure it will help your tennis serve, as well. We spent the rest of practice hitting serves against the wall of the gym. It was a muscle that I hadn't even known that I had. I just felt like a weakling. I kept hitting it and hitting it and it took about 2 sessions for the ball to trickle slightly over the net. That was the first trickle in a scrimmage.
Then there was trying it in a real game. Oh no! I was determined to keep my trusty dusty underhand serve, for confidence sake. Mr. T made me willing to let go of my confidence in my identity as a safe and consistent server for the power and wonder that became my identity when I developed my real serve.
By my senior year and even now. I could look at a spot and hit it without as much effort as it was in the beginning. All of those many serves strengthened my shoulder muscles, but also strained it. That muscle was my identity for many years. The girl with the unreturnable serve. Many girls would prefer to duck than to try to hit it and I can't count how many aces I had under my belt. All of this great enjoyment has a price to be paid and this lump reminds me of a wall that I was helped over, by a man with a vision of an overhead serve that I couldn't see and didn't even want. The power of his vision gave me something I would never have had, if he hadn't pushed me past my petulance.
God bless Mr T and I am grateful that my injury is not the same testimony as my dads testimony of his arm injuries! God can turn around the darkness and bring it to victory. When somebody sees over the wall of impossibility.
