letter to a younger/invinsible version of myself

dear me,

a couple of things to please consider: (....despite your resistance to taking advice from any "elders")

• you don't know everything/much of anything
• even smoking "a little" is bad for you, and is gross - you will feel/understand this more when you try and play soccer as an adult
• reading in dim light may, in fact affect your eyesight when you are older (but im not entirely sure about this one...)
• you know how people always said "lift with your knees"? you will go camping in the woods circa 2002 and pick up a very heavy box. please, please, please use your legs to lift it.
• when choreographing modern dances, remember that the body you will perform it with is the body you keep for the rest of your life; be mindful of what you are asking that body to do.
• why the hell do you think you were given a retainer? yes, you need to wear it, you dummy.

love,
me

winning isn't everything...but it's nice

my soccer team (the thighmasters) was on a losing streak until last night. we won our first game of this summer season and it felt really gooooooood.

birthday

it was my birthday today.
i don't know why i have always had trouble on my birthday
have i always? i can't remember when it started
something about this day depresses me
and it doesn;t have to do with getting older (as far as i can tell)

it helps when the people you care about make sweet gestures -
shots with, and paid for by, the soccer team
flowers left at my workplace the night before so that i could find them the morning of
the happy birthday song sang by 3 and 4 year olds
a birthday rocket
cake
family plus tony dinner out
short and long distance phone calls
sharing wine, beer, wine, wine with friends
and even a fed ex package that will never actually be delivered.

fútbol

volveremos volveremos
volveremos otra vez.....

pain - it's relative

i went to the doctor today and he told me that despite the bump still living on my shin (a fraction of the size it was two weeks ago, but still very much present) i had his permission to play soccer again this week. all he said was, "it's all about how much pain you can withstand"

and i remembered a friend of mine saying once how pain was so "personal" (she is french, and so maybe she would have chosen a different word, but i think personal works). there is no way to measure pain except against one's own history and memory of it.

it sort of reminds me of this conversation that comes up again and again with people about perception, and for some reason it is always explained/described through the way we see colors. "what if my red is your purple?"

it also reminded me of a show i went to see a couple of weeks ago called bellona: destroyer of cities. it was an interesting piece - way out there, for sure. and there were so many things going on that i think many of them alluded me. but i remember the protagonist getting the shit beaten out of her in one of the beginning scenes and reacting unsettlingly unaffected by it. later in the play a woman gives a very honest/harsh criticism of the protagonist's poetry and this time her response is something like "that was the most painful thing i've ever felt". it's all relative.

soccer in the rain

almost ten years after graduating, i bumped into my high school track coach on the street.
he asked me about what i had been up to and then said:
"oh i see; a jack of all trades and a master of none."
that stupid expression has stuck with me ever since. i've always been afraid that my inability to stick with something and master it was born from my lack of passion in any one thing. real passion.
while i am certainly by no means a master of soccer (or anything else) tonight reminded me that i do not lack passion.
i heart fútbol.

CABJ

club atletico boca juniors