WELCOME TO BIFOCAL FRIDAYS

I recently started a new job in a formal business setting after 20 years of working in a very independent environment. I absolutely love my new gig, but it does require a pretty unwavering commitment to a solid 9-5 schedule every day, with a generous but very structured vacation policy. I miss some of the flexibility I had before, to take a day or an afternoon or a few hours off at the drop of a hat.

So imagine my delight a few months into the job when I learned that we keep “Summer Hours” for the months of June, July and August. That means Friday afternoons entirely off. I felt like a kid in a candy store as I considered the unexpected gift of this special time suddenly available to me.

It reminded me of one of my favorite childhood books, The Saturdays, by Elizabeth Enright, which I have read countless times. In 1940s New York City, the four fictional Melendy children lament that their weekly allowance of 50 cents each isn’t enough to do anything really good with. So they decide to pool their money, and one child will have it all each week in turn, to do something special for a Saturday adventure.

Ten year-old Randy gets to go first, because it was her idea. As she luxuriates in considering her options, she thinks she mustn’t waste a minute or a penny of it. “It was like a door opening into an enchanted country which nobody had ever seen before; all her own to do with as she liked.” This is how I felt about the idea of my Summer Hours. While mine wasn’t an issue of limited spending money, the idea of not wasting a single minute of it was paramount. So I made the decision to approach my Friday afternoons very intentionally, committed to making each one count in a unique and meaningful way, all summer long.

As the Melendy’s father said when he granted approval to their scheme, “See that you do something you really want; something you’ll always remember. Don’t waste your Saturdays on unimportant things.” I wouldn’t waste my precious Friday afternoons. I would do something wonderful (or at least notable) every week, and write about it here so I’d be accountable to the commitment and fully mindful of the adventure.

Of course not every Friday will pan out as some big amazing thing. Maybe one afternoon I will simply clean my house and revel in the fact that I have this lovely home with a new love who has given me a new lease on life in my 50s. Maybe one day I will simply weed the garden and think about life. But there’s plenty to be gotten from that as well.

“We lead a humdrum life when I think about it. It’s funny how it doesn’t seem humdrum,” said Randy Melendy over tea with an old family friend. Mrs. Oliphant replied, “That’s because you have ‘eyes the better to see with, my dear’ and ‘ears the better to hear with.’ Nobody who has them and uses them is likely to find life humdrum very often. Even when they have to use bifocal lenses, like me.”

Join me on my “Summer Hours: Bifocal Fridays” adventures. Maybe you’ll find something new to do with your special time, or just a new way of looking at things.

Friday #11: August 12, 2016

My Ultimate Friday

The sport known as “Ultimate” was invented in 1969 by a group of students in New Jersey horsing around a parking lot. Today it’s one of the fastest growing field games anywhere, with thousands of high school, collegiate and club teams around the country and an estimated 7 million players around the world.

Played with a flying disc (Frisbee is the brand we all know and love, but competitors today simply call it a disc) the game is now played on a soccer-sized field with end zones similar to football. The disc passes from player to player; when you catch the disc you have to stop running immediately and can only pivot in place for 10 seconds before throwing it again. The goal is to score by catching a pass in the opponent’s end zone.

My 14 year-old Jack has been playing Ultimate competitively for just a year at school, but is completely hooked and recently stepped away from his previous dedication to soccer to pursue Ultimate at as high a level as he can. That included gaining a spot this summer on the team that would represent Minnesota in the national Youth Club Championship tournament this weekend. Eighty teams from around the country descended on our own National Sports Center in Blaine, the largest youth sports complex in North America, to flick their way to the top.

The competition started early Friday morning with 7:00am warmups, so I took the whole day off to be there with Jack. Ultimate is a non-stop action game that swivels between offense and defense, running and passing, speed and stillness, in the blink of an eye. It’s said to require a higher level of cardiovascular fitness than any other field game, and the drills these guys run through just to warm up for a match involve more exercise than most people get in an entire week. And then in a tournament like this, they played three 90-minute matches back to back the first day, and then for two more days after that.

It’s hard to imagine how they do it, but they sure have fun doing it and it’s a blast to watch. Lots of action, lots of fast scoring. This wasn’t the first tournament I’d attended, but it was the first one at this competitive level, and it was intense. It has been a real pleasure to watch Jack grow and develop in his athletic skills, driven only by his own personal goals and intensity. To watch him take his training so seriously, from regular practices and scrimmages to his own commitment to weight training and skill-building and running for fitness in his off-time, and even to considering the health of what he eats and drinks off the field.

It is also a pleasure to witness the softer side of the sport, known as “The Spirit of The Game” which  involves several unique components. For starters, the game is totally self-officiated – if you feel you need to call a foul against you, you do so, and then you have to work it out with the opposing player until you’re both in agreement one way or the other. The coach doesn’t get involved, and there isn’t a referee. It’s cool to see the players talking it out calmly, often giving each other the benefit of the doubt. And then after the game – sometimes during a timeout in the middle of the game – both sides join in a circle with their arms around each other, alternating players from each team, and have a little pep rally with each other. The winners give the losers a little token of their esteem – in our team’s case a “mini-soda” – recognizing players they thought performed exceptionally well or exhibited the best spirit. It’s a pretty wonderful thing to watch, and I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else this Friday but sitting in my folding chair cheering with the other parents at the sidelines.
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