Question Of The Week

Name an important event in your life?

Watching the Americans win the gold metal in soccer for women was a great experience in my life. It was the first time women’s soccer was introduced as a sport at the Olympics in 1996. As a suburban child living in a lower to middle class neighborhood my family was far from tennis courts and golf courses. It seemed the most popular sport offered to girls at the local rec center was softball in which I was awful. My hand-eye coordination would always be limited and my height, or lack thereof, made me a bad candidate for basketball as well. My love had always been running and that led me to soccer. At that time there were no teams for girls but my friend’s father coached an all boys team and asked me to join. After the first practice I cried all the way home and begged to quit because I felt so isolated and I had let the teasing of some of the boys get to me. After my mom shut the engine off in the driveway she took my face in her hands and told me this “I don’t mind of you quit because you don’t like it, but don’t quit because it’s hard.” I went back the next day and the rest as they say is history. Soon I made friends with the other boys and they accepted me as an equal teammate. It was actually harder to get a few of the parents to accept a girl in the league. There were a few parents who did not want me to play with their sons so they would cite a league rule that clearly stated that all players had to wear an athletic cup. They had me there because I didn’t have one but my coach always took my defense and sorted it out so I could play. I played several more years on all boy teams until teams for girls were finally formed.

It wasn’t just watching the American women win the gold that moved me. It was sitting in the stands with thousands and thousands of largely little girls all screaming at the excitement. One little girl sat next to me and had cards of all of her favorite players. She knew them all by name and could recount their stats. She had something wonderful. She had positive role models and she had gotten the same thing I had out of playing soccer that had nothing to do with women’s lib at all. I had learned the spirit of social interaction through cooperation, teamwork and friendship. Experts say that sports help kids think critically and solve problems, build self-discipline, trust, respect for others, leadership and coping skills, all of which form the foundation of character building. The last time I saw my friend’s father several years ago I let him know how much he impacted my life by being my coach. It’s amazing how we all impact each other without even knowing it but I supposed that’s the beauty and undercurrent of life.

The picture above is one I took of Carla Overbeck after the team won the gold. She rushed to the side line in tears to hug her husband and I happen to be standing there.

Please feel free to share your great events!

Bucket List

I found this survey on the net called 100 things to do before I die..I'll try to put the link but you know how I can't do those techie things: http://brass612.tripod.com/cgi-bin/things.html

Because I'm nosy, I put my answers here in hopes others will post their own answers.

1. Attend at least one major sporting event: the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the U.S. Open.
2. Throw a huge party and invite every one of your friends.
3. Swim with a dolphin.
4. Skydive.
5. Have your portrait painted.
6. Learn to speak a foreign language and make sure you use it.
7. Go skinny-dipping at midnight in the South of France.
8. Watch the launch of the space shuttle.
9. Spend a whole day eating junk food without feeling guilty.
10. Be an extra in a film.
11. Tell someone the story of your life, sparing no details.
12. Make love on a forest floor.
13. Make love on a train.
14. Learn to rollerblade.
15. Own a room with a view.
16. Brew your own beer.
17. Learn how to take a compliment.
18. Buy a round-the-world air ticket and a rucksack, and run away.
19. Grow a beard and leave it for at least a month.
20. Give your mother a dozen red roses and tell her you love her.
21. Be a member of the audience in a TV show.
22. Put your name down to be a passenger on the first tourist shuttle to the moon.
23. Send a message in a bottle.
24. Ride a camel into the desert.
25. Get to know your neighbors.
26. Plant a tree.
27. Learn not to say yes when you really mean no.
28. Write a fan letter to your all-time favorite hero or heroine.
29. Visit the Senate and the House of Representatives to see how Congress really works.
30. Learn to ballroom dance properly.
31. Eat jellied eels from a stall in London.
32. Be the boss.
33. Fall deeply in love -- helplessly and unconditionally.
34. Ride the Trans-Siberian Express across Asia.
35. Sit on a jury.
36. Write the novel you know you have inside you.
37. Go to Walden Pond and read Thoreau while drifting in a canoe.
38. Stay out all night dancing and go to work the next day without having gone home (just once).
39. Drink beer at Oktoberfest in Munich.
40. Be someone's mentor.
41. Shower in a waterfall.
42. Ask for a raise.
43. Learn to play a musical instrument with some degree of skill.
44. Teach someone illiterate to read.
45. Be one of the first to take a flight on the new Airbus A380.
46. Spend a night in a haunted house -- by yourself.
47. Write down your personal mission statement, follow it, and revise it from time to time.
48. See a lunar eclipse.
49. Spend New Year's in an exotic location.
50. Get passionate about a cause and spend time helping it, instead of just thinking about it.
51. Experience weightlessness.
52. Sing a great song in front of an audience.
53. Ask someone you've only just met to go on a date.
54. Drive across America from coast to coast.
55. Make a complete and utter fool of yourself.
56. Own one very expensive but absolutely wonderful business suit.
57. Write your will.
58. Sleep under the stars.
59. Take a ride on the highest roller coaster in the country.
60. Learn how to complain effectively -- and do it!
61. Go wild in Rio during Carnival.
62. Spend a whole day reading a great novel.
63. Forgive your parents.
64. Learn to juggle with three balls.
65. Drive the Autobahn.
66. Find a job you love.
67. Spend Christmas on the beach drinking pina coladas.
68. Overcome your fear of failure.
69. Raft through the Grand Canyon.
70. Donate money and put your name on something: a college scholarship, a bench in the park.
71. Buy your own house and then spend time making it into exactly what you want.
72. Grow a garden.
73. Spend three months getting your body into optimum shape.
74. Drive a convertible with the top down and music blaring.
75. Accept yourself for who you are.
76. Learn to use a microphone and give a speech in public.
77. Scuba dive off Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
78. Go up in a hot-air balloon.
79. Attend one really huge rock concert.
80. Kiss someone you've just met on a blind date.
81. Be able to handle: your tax forms, Jehovah's Witnesses, your banker, telephone solicitors.
82. Give to a charity -- anonymously.
83. Lose more money than you can afford at roulette in Vegas.
84. Let someone feed you peeled, seedless grapes.
85. Kiss the Blarney stone and develop the gift of gab.
86. Fart in a crowded space.
87. Make love on the kitchen floor.
88. Go deep sea fishing and eat your catch.
89. Create your own web site.
90. Visit the Holy Land.
91. Make yourself spend a half-day at a concentration camp and swear never to forget.
92. Run to the top of the Statue of Liberty.
93. Create your Family Tree.
94. Catch a ball in the stands of a major league baseball stadium.
95. Make a hole-in-one.
96. Ski a double-black diamond run.
97. Learn to bartend.
98. Run a marathon.
99. Look into your child's eyes, see yourself, and smile.

Reflect on your greatest weakness, and realize how it is your greatest strength.

My Weekend

One of the highlights of my weekend was spent at the High Museum seeing the Impressionist exhibit. I have been enjoying my annual membership where I can just pop in and out for a few hours whenever I feel like it. For me the museum is a place I can go and let my mind muddle over things that I don't quite understand. I really can not tell you the difference between a Monet and Manet but enjoy the process of letting my mind drift over an image as I ask and try to answer questions such as do I like this? If so why? What do I like about it and just who is this guy/gal anyway. What was he or she thinking here? The audio tapes and little description signs are a big help.

Several of the paintings really moved me to the point where it was difficult to walk away. There was a landscape painting by Monet that showed a lake with lots of tree reflections in the water. When I stepped up close to the picture it was just a bunch of blurred strokes but as I stepped away my mind put the image together and it became a non-realistic foggy dreamscape where I felt lulled and peaceful.

He also did 3 separate paintings of the same object but each painting held an entirely different perspective even though the object was exactly the same. I liked that a lot and it reminded me of life and how people can experience the exact same thing but have an entirely different perspective. For example getting pregnant can devastate one person but thrill another. I want to learn more about always being on the thrilled side. I guess it's like Laura said, learning to embrace the waves.

The Renoir pieces were mostly portraits. The exhibit stated that portraits was a style in which he was known best. There were many portraits of nudes, especially women. Renoir said "A nude is never quite finished until I feel I can pinch the flesh." I was beginning to think he was quite a ladies man and this whole artist thing was just a ruse. I mean, just who were all of these naked woman anyway?

I smiled as I imagined myself sitting around drinking French wine in little street cafes like they often did, complementing each others work and flirting with the admirers. Alas, it's back to my banking job for me but what a great escape for the day! I can't wait for the Georgia O'Keefe exhibit next month.

Plane Talk

On my flight back from Chicago to Atlanta I sat next to a 21 year old who had just left Navy basic training that morning and was in route to her new training school in Mississippi. She kept saying she was still a little overwhelmed as she spoke and I could tell. She had lived in a vacuum the past 8 weeks in a rigid routine, in another city, on another base, and as simple as stepping onto a plane, her life would now change. I listened to the conversations of the other new recruits as they were trying to decide if Atlanta was in Georgia. She had never been to Georgia before and this was her second trip on an airplane. One recruit asked another if they had heard of Stevie Ray Vaughn. The recruit replied 'No' and the asker said that you've never heard rock and roll until you've heard Stevie Ray Vaughn. They discussed that the old bands they liked were Nirvana and Pearl Jam. I smiled but said nothing. I always wondered why I got carded when I was 21. Now I knew why. I never knew youth was so apparent.

Sara, the new recruit sitting next to me explained that her mother was in a nursing home and could barely recognize her due to a disease. She wanted to make a stable living so she could take care of her mother. Her father's relationship was described as 'he works a lot'. I remember this age. The age where I felt an overly sense of responsiblity, where I could change the world. Sara would never be able to fix her mother and I wondered if she'd accepted that fact yet. I'll admit, I still feel this challenge in my own life, but now I guess I have a better sense that some things in life are just not in my control. For some reason I wanted to parent her, tell her everything would be okay, give her a hug even, but I didn't. She was so very adult sitting in her polished Navy suit that she fiddled with like a toddler with a new toy. I did tell her how proud we all were of her as well as all of those who serve. I tried to offer the words her mother could not.

After training school she would embark to a job and place that the Navy would decide for her. Her own future was unknown to her at the moment. At first I was so shocked by this. I could not imagine not knowing what city I would be told to live in as well as doing a job in which I had no input. But then the more I thought about it, and here's where my spiritually kicked in, I suppose that is the way I live my life. I don't really know about tomorrow but have the wisdom to know that I will most likely never have exactly what I want but I also have the faith to believe that I will always have what I need. In that I feel comfort. Mick Jagger is a profound guy.

Last night I said a little prayer for Sara and the new recruits. God bless them everywhere.