In praise of the incongruous

Kirby over at I Make No Promises has written a great post about what it’s like to be the sporty one in a marriage, and how happy she is that her son throws like a woman, that is, he throws like her, which is good.

I have been told my whole life that I am a spaz, and since I pretty much sucked at schoolyard games, and since I was also definitely the one whose glasses were the much-coveted knock-off target in dodgeball games, I believed them. It didn’t help that my sister could master any sport, instantly, it seemed. Whereas I could pretty much be counted on to let my teammates down. More often, I was simply never even allowed to play.

My ineptitude continued even into adulthood. A friend once convinced me to give racquetball a try. After I failed to return 15 serves in a row, she turned around and looked at me and said “Seriously?”

Now I shall tell you something really nice about my ex husband.

He was a great lover of the football (and the baseball, and the basketball), and he decided one day that he was going to teach me to toss a football back and forth so that we would have a tolerably activity for him to engage in all those times I dragged his ass to the beach. Oh my god, he hated going to the beach! He would lay on the blanket, smoking and sulking, or sighing and wondering out loud how the Dolphins were doing at that minute.

So first, he taught me to catch a football. Initially, I was extremely flinchy, and would cover my head and duck if the ball came within ten feet of me. Memories of my glasses flying across the gym floor paralyzed me. Gradually, I attempted to catch the ball, but it would bounce off my hands and smart like hell. Every throw to me resulted in a loud “Ow!” and an accusatory stare from me to my husband. But hubby, to his credit, was a patient teacher, and one day he stumbled upon the correct thing to say to me that made me stop being afraid. “Don’t try to stop the ball with your hands,” he said, “try to join your hands to the progress of the ball.” On the very next throw, voila, I caught the ball effortlessly. I stared at it, open-mouthed. It had been so easy.

I have to admit that a football, thrown hard at me, still scares me a little bit, but I always repeat my mantra: “join your hands to the progress of the ball,” and it always helps.

Next, he taught me how to throw the football. I took to it amazingly quickly. I couldn’t believe that I actually had a natural talent for something athletic! My husband started referring to my arm as the “the cannon,” and he would pull me into football-tossing sessions with his friends so he could brag about me. It was cute. I tried to live up to the various claims he made about “the cannon.” I think I did okay.

So my ex is long gone, and my current boyfriend doesn’t even own a football, but to this day I can go years without even touching a football, and then pick one up and throw a tight 30 yard spiral on the first try.

It’s a great talent to have when I find myself feeling like the freaky, smoking, foul-mouthed liberal at a suburban, frat-boy barbecue-type event. Makes people think twice about you, ya know?