Brey Willows

Card 55, Writing Down the Bones: What is a sport you love?

When I was little, Mom enrolled me in soccer, as so many parents do. I stood in the middle of the field, watching everyone run around me, not really understanding what I was supposed to do or why. When I did run, it set off asthma attacks that sent me to the side lines to suck on an orange and get a hug.

When I was in junior high, I was playing touch football (because, you know, girls don’t tackle) and I got hit in the face with the ball. I had braces on.

The metal got caught in my lip. My two bottom teeth got chipped. (They’re still chipped.)

I told my mom I fell during PE because I didn’t want her to be mad at me for playing sports (badly). But a friend of mine told her, while I was on stage singing (badly) with the other kids, how it had happened. My mom still tells that story to this day.

When I hit puberty and started playing softball, I didn’t want to wear the helmet because it flattened my hair (it was the 80s). I also wore big hoop earrings, and didn’t like the running part around the bases. I think I might have lasted about two games past team pictures.

In high school I played on the girl’s football team. I was chasing down someone running with the ball, she looked back and saw me, and thrust back an elbow. Into my eye.

By the time I got to the side lines it was so swollen I couldn’t see. It was a badge of honor, and I wore it proudly for the next couple weeks.

We went skiing for our honeymoon, in the Italian Dolomites. I was ready. I’d skied, gently, in California a decade or so ago. I could do this. My wife kept an eye on my Find My Friend to see that I kept moving. It turned out, I couldn’t ski. She watched my dot not move for too long and skied over blacks and blues and reds to get to me, and found me butt down in the snow, unable to get to the bottom.

She put my skis over her shoulder, and skied backwards down the slope, videoing me as I slid on my butt to the bottom. We haven’t been skiing since.

I’m a reader. I’m a coffee lover. I like warm blankets and cozy places to sit and enjoy stories. I enjoy slow, stretchy yoga and meandering walks. If my wife tosses something to me, it’s more likely to hit me in the chest than I am to catch it. Me and balls don’t have a great history, and I’m not in the least sorry about that.