4. Concussion

Tags

100 words, athletics, concussion, exercise, hockey, http://ibecameashepherd.blogspot.com/, life, NHL, one hundred, Pitsburgh Penguins, prompt, Sidney Crosby, sports, writing

I felt the hit, lowered my shoulder.  With my face like flint, pads lowered into the force, I waited for the pushback. For the equal and opposite push that him hitting me and me hitting him would return, smashing us both into the corner boards.

Instead, I felt a falling sensation. Not the equal and opposite that I expected from a solid shoulder check. My vestibular sense had betrayed me. I’d misjudged his angle. I felt his shoulders graze and bump me on the wrong side as I writhed and twisted to see where I’d gone wrong.

Black. Ice. Nothing.

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Relationships cannot be maintained by mail.

Tags

chance, change, coffee, communication, effort, envelope, friendship, hockey, letters, life, love, mail, past, speculation, talking, travel, writing

I cannot win you over or back by affixing the self-adhesive stamp.
I will not turn time to hallways and hand-written notes, wide rule notebook paper
With bi-fold cards, sentiment on scrapbook paper, newspaper cutouts, gift cards

If we cannot have a cup of coffee,
Sit hours in uncomfortable chairs to tell stories,
I cannot know that you like the foam extra dry, that you don’t even like coffee
Peppermint tea with soy milk and honey

If I cannot be in the folding stadium seat beside you
On the ice, behind the boards or in the balcony, beer in a plastic cup
Swimming in the sleeves of my right wing who was on the Maple Leafs—
Now the Flyers

I cannot send myself to you
I cannot cross state lines
I am liquid and perishable
I am hazardous and otherwise fragile
I have crossed state lines, I have sent myself to you
I have bore this bridge
Unbroken this chasm, if only now, by mail.
And—

There is the possibility that this cannot be maintained by mail.

Confident in Cowboy Boots

Tags

arena, beer, confidence, conversation, cowboy, cowboy boots, drinking, friends, Grand Rapids, Griffins, hanging out, hockey, life, love, marriage, Penguins, Pittsburgh, relationship, self-confidence, winter

Black cowboy boots, scuffed on the side, loose at the heels, hand-me-downs from a student, feet planted in favorite territory, resembling Calvin from the comic strip.

Penguin hockey jersey—the name on back my fantasy future husband, injured with a broken wrist—showcased boldly in a hockey town hating every team that’s not their own, drawing boo’s and tossed beer on the street outside the arena.

Hands, gloved from the chill, not warmed from the beer like the hands bare-skinned all around me, tucked quietly, comfortably in front pockets, shying from the chaos of rapid-fire questions, this-crowded-place or that-down-the-block-tap.

Small talk about cigarettes when I wasn’t walking arm-in-arm with a mister and you felt awkward swimming on the sidewalk of married pairs, keys in hand after six dollar-beers, double whiskey sour and a straight scotch. Leave me thirty minutes on the roads without you.

I stride behind, while they plan a triple date at a steak and sushi. They don’t know sushi, by the way they talk, I tell. My ears don’t ring, my mind does not wander, my heart doesn’t hope. I walk tall, confident in cowboy boots, wanting to be only right where I am, right then.

The Point Is

Tags

break-up, emotion, forgiveness, God, grace, history, hockey, love, past, relationship, repetition, spiritual warfare

There’s all that garbage about the repeating nature of history and all that. Has anyone confirmed if all of that is real? Maybe I should be the one. Because I’ve never had that déjà vu feeling, where you’re certain that this moment has happened before. It’s an eerie few seconds and then it passes. I’m not even sure if I think it’s real.

The point is, who really knows. Who knows if history is the repeating sort of thing or not. I mean, who are we to say what happened here before we came around, anyway. The point is, I can talk about me, and I’m more self-aware now than I once was. That’s the point.

No. The point is, it’s happening again. Whether this is history or just my story stuck on a scratched CD, it’s all happening all over again. I’m standing with the hostess at a sports bar; I’m the gal from out of town, asking for obscure hockey games on one of their twelve hundred televisions. They say no and I’m not sure how to follow. I’m hanging on words from one o’clock in the morning as I fall asleep hoping for holiness to overwhelm me. If I fall, I fall to foolishness, not ignorance.

You see, there was distance and drama in this abbreviated melodrama, but my heart was always for him. There was a man and he left and he’s back and I’m stuck. I think that’s the point, that I’m stuck. Stuck between here and him, want and should, go and never move, what else is really new? It’s all exactly the same. The same rotating and uneven schedule of wanting good and wanting more.

And it isn’t archaic Evangelical b______, either. The point is, I don’t have another motive. I do not love so that— I just love, so there. Some of my kind love so that, and I’m not one of that kind. Is that the point—that I’m not one of that kind? No. The point is that I just love him. The point is, love love love. That’s all. No more, no less. No strings, no consequence. He could leave me, hate me, tear me up. He could hide from me for a year or more. He did. But the point is, love love love. That’s all I have to give him. It’s real and it’s me and it’s inexplicably tied to the fact that I’m madly in love with a Savior, a King, the giver of all things.

He promises not to hide in big cities, behind women, but he promises after two rounds of beer. The point is not, still, that his words stitch me up. Or not that he’s done me wrong. We aren’t regular, we’re abnormal, your standard uncouple. The point is that I’m giving grace. If my God is my God, then this one gift will not end. I’ll give on both emotional ends. The point is or is not the way that I’ve missed him, the things that remind me of our time. Or that I’m proud of who he’s become. The point, I suppose, doesn’t matter so much. The point is getting lost in the details.

Whether or not it’s all happening again, the point is I wish both were true. The point really is that love is so American; it can’t be relied on for anything. These truths, I’m not finding in the way that I feel. The point is these feelings can lie.

NHL Playoffs: Round 2

Tags

Blackhawks, Chicago, hockey, Jordan Staal, NHL, Penguins, Pittsburgh, playoffs, sports

Hawks vs. Canucks

Hilarious locker room shorts of Vancouver Canucks players listening to the song that plays after every Blackhawks goal in the United Center.  My loyalty to Jordan Staal as my celebrity dream boyfriend has not waned, but Shane O’Brien is quite the looker.  I must say.

Pens vs. Canadiens

To all the haters out there: it is completely acceptable to maintain dual-loyalty.  Furthermore, any girl who follows professional hockey to the point where she shifts her schedule according to the playoff bracket and knows how to describe icing to her friends affords at least the freedom to cheer on two of the top eight teams in the NHL.  Sheesh.

Excerpt: On Aphasia

Tags

aphasia, bananas, communication, conversation, daily life, depression, family, grandpa, grandparents, hockey, love, memory, primary progressive aphasia, sleep

An excerpt from a piece-in-progress that yet has no title and less organization.  Just a collection of scenes, so far.

We stand in the kitchen. He can’t believe I brought five bananas, as if it’s too many. My mom says he doesn’t eat enough as it is, having only rice for lunch some days. He puts the bananas in a wicker basket and places the basket on the top of the fridge, the same place it’s been since I was a kid.

“Did you go golfing today?” Tuesday is his day for golfing. In the winter, his senior version of a foursome golfs courses from around the world at an indoor, electronic golf complex. Monday and Wednesday are bowling days. Uncle Harold picks him up now that Grandpa can’t drive and any combination of family and elderly friends might meet him at the bowling alley. This is not to mention the fact that he knows every employee and regular bowler at the alley by name, well, he has since forgotten most of their names because of the aphasia. But he knows them, still.

“Oh, no, no. I didn’t golf today. You see, I was supposed to. Henry and George and I, we were going to go golfing, but I called and cancelled. I was too worn out.”
“Oh.”
“Last night, you see, I didn’t sleep very much…” And, not to be insensitive, but he launches into his diatribe about lying awake every night and then being dead-tired the next day. So tired, in fact, that he cancels the things he loves and the activities that keep him social and active. It’s a horrible cycle. But I can’t find a soft spot in my rock hard soul to be empathetic about it because any suggestion I try to give he brushes off.

Tonight, he actually laughs me out of the house. At the end of his venting session about sleep, I suggest an activity before bed. Because, here I am on the early side of eight o’clock at night standing in a mostly-dark kitchen with pajama-clad Grandpa. At my house, we just ate dinner. All the lights are on, we’re watching hockey on TV, the place is alive. Grandpa’s surely been ready to go to bed for over an hour, and he’ll be there as soon as he can shoo me out the front door. So the man who’s basically going to bed at dinnertime after doing nothing all day wonders why he can’t sleep. I’m no doctor but I offer my six hundredth suggestion anyway.

“Maybe we should all come over for a movie and some popcorn around this time one night, maybe seven o’clock or so. That way, you wouldn’t be thinking about going to bed so early. Then, when we leave, you’ll be more tired and maybe it will be easier –”
“Ho, ho, ha, honey. I don’t think so.” He puts a hand on my shoulder, lost in a patronizing belly laugh, as if I’m the foolish one, here.
“You have to try different things, right?” I say to a still-laughing old man, not giving up.
“I suppose, dear, I suppose.”

Hockey: A Gentleman’s Game

Tags

Blackhawks, Chicago, Dallas Stars, Hawks, hockey, Huet, ice, NHL, Niemi, sports, teamwork, Toews, Turco, United Center

My mom thinks hockey is a “goofy” sport what with all the fighting. She especially loves when they throw down their sticks and gloves after a face-off to fight on purpose. You should hear the way she loves it. But people like my mom don’t watch hockey with the kind of affection that I do. And an observant eye makes the difference.

I wait for the end of the period when the television camera shows Blackhawks team captain, Jonathan Toews standing on the ice while the team files onto the bench and into the locker room. He waits until his entire crew has gone before him and then he brings up the rear. For a youngster, he shows immaculate leadership and poise.

When all the fans are standing from their stadium seats to rush to the red line train and to their cars in the parking lot, I leave my shoes stuck to soda stains on the ground and wait for the Blackhawks to skate in a circle at center ice and salute the Madhouse on Madison fans with their sticks raised in the air. It shows true fan appreciation and a touch of humility.

At the sound of the final buzzer, with a big W on the board for the Hawks, the bench empties onto the ice and every player heads straight for the goalie, whether it’s Huet or Niemi.  Some of them give him a jab to the chest pads or a push in the shoulder.  Most of them tap helmet to helmet and exchange a few words.  It’s all to say, in their uniquely “gentleman” way, nice win, because a goalie’s fate hangs on every puck that finds or fails to find the back of that net.  Raw teamwork.

In tonight’s game vs. the Dallas Stars, it was a priceless moment to see Marty Turco  from the visiting team hand over his hockey stick to a little Hawks fan in the front row after a forecheck had popped a glass pane out from the boards and scared this young fan half to death. That little dude will never forget the night an NHL professional skater handed a huge game stick to him through the boards. Turco didn’t think twice about it – he reached over and made this little kid’s night…life…in the middle of all the chaos. Selflessness, unity.

This is what I love about hockey.

8140 Chancellor Dr: Home of the Impossible

Tags

adventure, bee, bee sting, Colorado, hockey, injury, summer

I have hikes and photographs, mornings in the Glen gardens and lightening bolts that could destroy the MidWest. But Colorado’s most mysterious, slightly painful, and sure-to-make-you-laugh story to date is about sitting on the living room couch and how there was a bee in my pants.

It all started yesterday, when Colorado felt like Chicago: cloudy and wet with a fog sliding down the mountains that will just eat you up. I went to work, told time by my bathroom breaks, and got a smidge of editing done. Drove home to cook dinner: stir fry and steak. Hooked up the TV that buzzes when the volume’s too high and watched Corrina, Corrina – my favorite old school flick. It was a typical, very relaxed Penguins day off.

After a phone call from a dear friend and a moment of stirring honey into my freshly brewed raspberry hot tea, I was back to the couch, ready to hit play. No sooner had I sat down and snuggled under the blanket, than my knee was itchy…then pinchy…sort of prickly-feeling. Then I was sure, so sure, that something under that blanket had moved.  I slowly lifted the blanket and swung my legs off the couch cautiously, still relatively confident that nothing could possibly be down there except my own legs.

That’s when it stung me. Poked it’s little spiky butt into my leg right on the inside of my knee. I let out a frightened kinda yelp that ended in a question mark. I still hadn’t seen it. I stood up and threw my sweatpants to the floor, hopping out of them in only my socked feet and a Venice Beach hoodie. And that little sucker calmly climbed right out of the pants I’d just been wearing!

I smashed the pant-dwelling bee with a flip-flop, iced my leg with frozen vegetables, and suffered sporadic fits of laughter at the impossibility of it all.  I’m glad to report that no major injuried were sustained. In my recovery, I’ll be a healthy scratch on the Penguins bench tonight for Game 4 of the Stanley Cup.

Colorado Haters

Tags

Blackhawks, Colorado, entertainment, Hawks, hockey, sports, television, tv

The folks in Colorado don’t so much like hockey.  This, as you may know, doesn’t really work out so well for me because I very much like hockey. 

 

Exhibit A: My Television, the Hater

I moved into a house in Colorado Springs; it’s a temporary sort of thing.  It’s also the perfect time for first-time buyers to get in on the housing market which makes my roommate the next Albert Einstein.  She got in while it was hot and then brilliantly rented out the upstairs bedrooms to her friends (plus me) to help pay her mortgage.  Smart girl.  I found her living room television, however, was not prone to the same stroke of genius. 

 

The Blackhawks were nearing what looked like the end of their playoff run, the success of which was anticipated by few.  The easiest team to hate in the NHL, the Detroit RedWings, were going to soon take the young, beardless faces off our televisions and replace them with a buncha hairy men and missing teeth [okay, so Detroit has experience].  But the TV in my house was confused about the importance of this hockey game.  We had maybe 6 channels altogether, every one of them clear as day except the one I wanted.  I could’ve watched the weather, the news, some Spanish soap opera, or a lady baking a cake.  But I could hardly watch the hockey game.  What do they call it when the TV goes haywire?  Snow?  Fuzzy?  Dotted?  Whatever it is, that’s what was up with the hockey channel on my TV.  I did handstands and cartwheels with the rabbit ears, most of the time just annihilating the picture further.  I stuck them out the sliding door, touched them to other metal (I don’t know…) and walked up the stairs with them (better reception closer to the sky…?), but the picture remained in disgust of my desires.

 

To spite the TV, I watched the game anyway.  No, I couldn’t really see the puck, but I could guess where it was based on the movements of the shadowy players.  It ended up being useless because the goal gap grew too huge to prolong my squinting.  And that was the end of the Blackhawks amazing playoff run of 2009.  On a fuzzy TV in Colorado Springs.

 

A cute photo from flickr of my boy, Jordan Stahl, and an aspiring lil skater

Exhibit B: Buffalo Wild Wings, the Hater

I wasn’t about to deal with this snowy television mess during the Stanley Cup Playoffs.  Nope, sorry.  Now that I’ve got my Penguins up against the easily detestable RedWings – this is a must-see. 

 

Corporate never fails [sense the sarcasm, usually it does].  Look!  A Buffalo Wild Wings on the corner by my house.  Seemed like a dream come true: some delicious wings for dinner, big screen hockey in all its glory, and something for my independent self to do on Saturday night.  Brilliant!  Until I realized that they don’t advertise the company you’ll keep at this bar and grill. 

 

All I wanted to do was watch the hockey game.  That’s all.  I’m a simple kinda girl, honestly.  That’s what I told the sixty year old man that asked me out because his wife had died and he needed someone [apparently a 24-year old female] to talk to.  That’s what I told the severely intoxicated, very tall dude with the Steelers hat who offered to buy me twelve drinks and my next water.  It’s what I told the Cavs fan when he kept asking me about the rules of hockey, a sport which he clearly had never heard of before.  But, being an aspiring writer doesn’t guarantee conversational clarity because these kind gents didn’t get the very blatant and simple clue that I was just there to watch the hockey game. 

 

Thank you, Buffalo Wild Wings, for the things I expected you to offer.  No thanks for your pestering clientele.  I’ll take a skybox next time.

 

P.S.  Colorado, please learn to appreciate hockey even when your team is terrible and you’re sad about the Nuggets’ loss.  Asante sanna.

Flying to Vegas: a poem

Tags

city, hockey, Jordan Staal, Las Vegas, marriage, NHL, Sin City, travel, Vegas, wedding

And that’s how I ended up in Vegas, a most unlikely place for me.

Vegas is flashing lights and fountains.
It’s selling myself on the strip. Vegas is
America’s cardboard cut-out for fun. And
I’m fun only about sixty percent of the time.

I just learned how to knit, the last book I read was cover to cover and closed in two days, and the biggest event on my calendar to date is the Museum of Contemporary Art on a Tuesday afternoon in March. Not exactly E! Hollywood’s free trip to the strip.

Even if I loved the city lights, Vegas is nothing more than my dream of playing on NHL ice with the pros. I just have no business there, in my Jordan Staal jersey and Easton Magnum unsure blades.

And surely no business in Vegas, in this hooded sweatshirt and my tennis shoes.
Sure, it was just a simple request. Fly to Vegas and marry him was all he’d asked.

I never said no, if I recall.
Behind a 1920’s bar rail, I bought
my ticket on a pagan plane.
Secured my seat at the head
table of a wedding Vegas has never seen.

Sin City will always be a rebellion from the regular. Bleeding with his sense of adventure, I was thankfully free to escape from permanency. With nothing to hold, no one to tell, not a thing in my hand but his, we sat behind the wing, he, bravely by the window.

No bags, no burden, just bodies
in neighboring seats. Two, like a couple, slept on
shoulders like pillows during take-off. It was without
consequence, and I would do it too. No hating or cheating,
no lying or forsaking Thy Name, I leaned my holy head on his arm
wrapped around me and watched the flaps on the wing lift us
off the ground, Vegas-bound.

We were the only ones in Vegas. Just he and me, pre-prodigal girl, running soon the other way into wide open arms, my Vegas dream chasing me back to reality.

It’s true, we might’ve flown just like that
after he asked. No matter that we didn’t,
it’ll always be he that was made
to make me laugh.

And I might’ve married him that year, if I’d ever ended up in Vegas.

This is how I ended up in Vegas.