Go Ask Dad: Dragonfly
My wife bought a used basketball hoop for sale on the neighborhood listserve. She and I set it up on our small driveway, where it stood unused for the winter. But this spring, our children’s interest has bloomed and blossomed. After supper, they head out to shoot and flit around the court like lightning bugs, their faces aglow when they make a basket.
Sports were formative in my childhood. My buddies and I talked sports at the cafeteria table, then played after school. I turned the television to games after finishing my homework (sometimes instead of doing my homework). I read Sports Illustrated magazine like the Bible, including a section called “This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse” that detailed an outrageously weird event in the sports world. Time revolved around athletics.
I played on too many teams to count, and I wonder if my modest achievements justify the energy and effort that I poured into the games. Maybe I should have studied a little harder. Perhaps started playing guitar at an earlier age?
On the other hand, sports aficionados talk about “intangibles,” meaning qualities that can’t be defined by box scores or scoreboards. Life is not always measured in shooting percentages or batting averages. True winners are not always the ones hoisting the trophy.
What I hope for my children is that they can follow their interests, including if they gravitate toward sports. Maybe there will be a phase or season in their lives where the sun seems to rise and fall with a game. What life has taught me is that delight, wherever it is found, is worth noticing.
This spring, my sons play the shooting game of H-O-R-S-E on the basketball goal after supper. Some evenings, especially with school the next morning, I have to tell them to shorten it to P-I-G. But the other night, they were laughing and carrying on, banking shots off the backboard and through the net with a satisfying swish. I left half the dirty dishes in the sink and joined them.
“Can you play ‘pig,’ Dad?”
“No,” I replied with fake seriousness. Looking at the insects zipping across the pond, I said, “I can play ‘dragonfly.’” I couldn’t help but giggle.
Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of Little Big Moments, a collection of mini-essays about parenting, and Tigers, Mice & Strawberries: Poems. Both titles are available most anywhere books are sold online. Taylor-Troutman lives in Chapel Hill where he serves as pastor of Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church and occasionally stumbles upon the wondrous while in search of his next cup of coffee.
