Friday, November 4, 2011

Something

Sinking under the waves, overly sensitive to imagined slights, raw and naked and hiding from the light.

I have been reading but not commenting. I hope you'll bear with me. The words are stuck, as if frozen into a solid block, refusing to arrange themselves in coherent thoughts.

A woman is on the television screen talking about corporate greed. She marched with the rest of the Occupy Wall Street protesters to Goldman Sachs yesterday. Also yesterday, the corporation I work for released third quarter earnings that were through the roof of their expectations. And yet we have not rehired a single soul since the six successive layoffs of the past five years. We are beyond cut to the bone. We are a chair with two sawed off legs, manic and hopping, about to tumble. This cannot be sustained.

Forgive the wildly mixed metaphors. And the hopping chair.

We are all on the mend from that nasty flu that blew through our house. That's something.

Here's something else. Our daughter's soccer team played their hearts out at the championship finals in the slicing cold Monday night. The two highest scoring teams in the league completely locked each other out of scoring. They took the game into double overtime, then a heart-stopping sudden death round, and still no score! God, they played hard. My daughter was fighting the flu and yet she was on the field almost the entire game, clearing that ball with her powerful defensive kick, racing to the ball, refusing any quarter. Finally, they lined up for penalty kicks. One of our kicks missed, and that was the game.

Our girls were heartbroken, but the girl who missed the kick has nothing to be ashamed of. Her game was awesomely powerful! With great admiration, my daughter calls her The Wall.

This photo was in the New York Daily News. That's my baby on the right. They saved this goal, but the photo gives you an idea of how hard each team pressed and how constantly our hearts were in our throats.

After the game, some of our daughter's teammates ran over to my husband and me and instructed us to keep her home tomorrow because she was really sick. I know she was, but she refused to not play. She refused to let her team down, and she didn't.

I did keep her home the next day. I stayed home with her and we had a wonderful cozy hidden-from-the-world day. That was definitely more than something.


13 comments:

  1. I would love a day to "hide from the world". But that's not happening on this day.
    Your Friend, m.

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  2. Owen and I are sort of hiding from the world today. We are cozy. It is very, very much something good.

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  3. Take care of each other because the corporations definitely are not going to do it.

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  4. Wow. What a game. So heartbreaking to lose after all that. But I love how it played out the next day. I hope they really are proud.

    xoxo

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  5. As I was reading your post, my eyes gravitated towards the photo and I noticed your daughter right away. She looks intense, very serious and focused. All of that while feeling absolutely horrible...She is definitely something wonderful.

    I understand the stuck and frozen words. Sometimes they just won't come. I'm here to listen when you are able to free them.

    So much love and gentle hugs.

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  6. Oh your daughter! And the hopping chair which is spot on. I'd like to gather leaves at Deirdre's place then come to your place and cover you with them. Gently. To bless you with them I mean. I'll bring mac & cheese. I made a ton of it.
    love,
    Rebecca

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  7. I feel you, sister. It's okay. I think a lot of us are in that place. I've been getting traffic but no comments lately. I don't get upset since I haven't been commenting on people's blogs either.

    We love you and know you love us too so no worries. Your daughter looks strong and awesome.

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  8. I can always feel you hovering about. No worries -- and I'm sorry about the soccer loss. As much as I am uninterested in sports, when my sons play and lose, it's heartbreaking. I can't imagine how hard it was to lose such a significant, close game --

    Feel better soon.

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  9. I admire your daughter so much. Sorry about the loss, but she is so clearly a winner, as they all are.

    Boy, I feel you about the hopping chair. As my department gets more and more familiar with our new systems, it is really starting to seem that the only goal was to save money. Our jobs will not only be harder now, we will not have near the efficiency we used to. Of course the expectations placed on our department have not changed...

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  10. I know only too well how the world can be "too much with us;" and nowadays with the Internet, cable "news," and all the rest, it's in our faces all the time. All emphases are on the frivolous and the wrongheaded. It's times like this, I force myself to turn and take another look at the Sermon on the Mount. That Jesus, He sure turned His world upside down and inside out!

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  11. If all the world is mad - surely we are allowed a slight wobble now and then?

    Isabel x

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  12. Bravo to your daughter for her dedication!

    I know what you mean about rehiring. I think many firms, even those whose earnings are recovering, aren't adding workers because they perceive economic conditions as too uncertain.

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  13. We are kindred spirits in some things... xoxoox

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