Volleyball

Saturday, I played volleyball for the first time in almost a dozen years.

Growing up, my lack of coordination and athletic ability meant I was picked one of the last for teams and generally developed a sense I was not a physical person. I loved being in the water but was never one for laps, and neither diving down to retrieve things from the bottom of the pool nor staying in the water until your skin turned pruney ever counted as a gym-level activity.

My one ability outside of gymnastics, which is something assumed girls will be good at, was serving in volleyball. My other skills for the game never reached the level of my serve, although still rose above the general lack of ability. I'm not sure if it is solely due to some talent or if there is something more to it, but I enjoy playing volleyball.

In college, I was on the Asian-American intramural team (I think I joined the group with my then boyfriend who was half-Chinese, but by the volleyball days, I was taking Chinese so I could study abroad in China). I wish I remember more from that time, but all I have are glimpses of the gym.

Saturday's game introduced sand to the equation. All my other experience had been in gyms or outdoor courts, mostly playing 6 to a side. There were five of us total playing Saturday, so we did 3 to 2 mixing up the sides between games, until the sun and exertion had me call it quits and be a spectator for the last grand match. The sand definitely adds a degree of difficulty, and I still need to figure out how to back up better.

When I went to bed Saturday night, I saw the court and players. Between the exertion and the learning curve, I was so tired I was out pretty quickly. And don't recall any volleyball dreams.

Independence Day

There are maybe a handful of days every year when you are able to remember where you were (although those often blur together when piled up high enough). Independence Day can one of those days.

I don't remember any in particular before my family moved back to St. Paul when I was 6, and I cannot be sure whether it was that first year back or the next year that we went to the park to see the fireworks. In my memory, it was my mom and I who went, but perhaps my dad did if he wasn't working the next morning (he got up at 4:30 to go to work, but he could never get to sleep if mom and I weren't home). We'd go to the park, lay out a blanket and watch the fireworks. Dairy Queen may or may not have been involved.

I also don't remember the last time my mom and I did this. I don't think we bothered the summer I was home from college. The last summer of her life. The last summer I spent in Minnesota.

The first summer I stayed back East, I spent the Fourth at my boyfriend's. In the evening, I went with he and his high school friends to a lake where they had fireworks. The next year, just back from my first trip around the world, I went with my cousin Joy to the Boston Pops fireworks. I might have gone back the next year, that one is fuzzy. I think I was with other cousins in Pennsylvania the next 4^th.

And then I came to the Seattle area. When I moved here, I lived on Mercer Island and they would have a barge and fireworks off of Luther Burbank park. There were two or three years of that before moving to Seattle proper. I remember going to Gas Works a couple times, one year via a housemate's friend's house. And when I lived on Alki, you could see some of the fireworks from my neighborhood. One year I walked down to the far end of the retaining wall to see the Fourth of July-Iver's better., having also seen them from Queen Anne at some point.

The problem with Seattle and fireworks is that it is often cloudy. Folks only a little jokingly profess that summer in Seattle starts on July 5^th, which makes sitting outside and seeing fireworks through clouds tricky. Last year I began what is now the tradition of going kayaking and having Indian food. It is a lovely day, and the wind seems to have died down from when I was on the way back, so I may see fireworks tonight, but likely only on the way home from a movie, Bobcat Goldthwait's 'God Bless America'. Maybe that will be something to add to the tradition.