When I was in Mrs. Giles 5th grade, I remember being asked to do the “what do I want to be when I grow up?”
You know, the standard 5th grade question that’s supposed to help you get a fix on life. Well, at the time, I was playing flag football for the elementary team. There were two girls on the team including me, and I’d just watched the movie Quarterback Princess and somehow made the assumption that even though the NFL didn’t have women on the teams at that time – surely by the time I was old enough to play in the NFL – they’d have lots of girls. So, of course when it came time to post my paper up on the corkboard along with all the other future careers of my classmates, mine was pinched between Jennifer’s “I want to be a ballerina when I grow up” and Damien’s “I want to be a policeman when I grow up”
There was Athena’s “I want to be the first girl Quarterback in the NFL when I grow up, and also a rock star and a movie star and a writer.”
Football was playtime. It was that blissful place when chores didn’t matter, tomorrow wasn’t born yet, siblings didn’t pester and the fact that I was a girl – didn’t seem to be an issue but then as I grew up, developed breasts and my hips stretched faster than my skin could keep up, it became evident that I wasn’t just one of the boys. My center of gravity was off, my ability to be the tackled/tackler in the park scrimmage games suffered because there seemed to be a growing trend of “treat her like a girl” and “tackle her really hard so maybe she’ll go away and let the boys get back to the game.”
While I was very athletic before puberty, I stopped almost immediately after the onset of my first year of full periods. Done were my days of track, football, soccer, basketball and soon after high school I also stopped swimming.
While this evolution was taking place I pursued the arts with relentless determination, every elective at school was either music or writing. I helped re-establish the Valdez High School Drama Club which had apparently gone out of working order a couple years before I got there.
A lot of this determination came from the idea that had grown in me since the day I got my ass handed to me by a bully on the field the summer before 7th grade. I was walking home from the park after a scrimmage game. I had been playing long enough and was known fairly well by the other guys at the park, so I was usually one of the first kids picked and always the only girl allowed to play.
Devon didn’t get picked that day and he needed to find another man to balance the teams before we’d let him in. Anyway, the game went on as usual, fun – playful I got to run and catch and throw and fly and suffered only the occasional slam and some idiot who’d try to cop a feel from the other team (though, it’s not like I had much in the way of breasts to brag about yet anyway).
As I was walking home, Devon emerged from behind a fence where he’d apparently been watching. It was a short fight and I don’t remember much of it except that when it was over, he ran home and I was face down in the dirt bleeding from my knuckles, knees and elbows. I hobbled home and half way there the tears began. He’d beat me up for taking his spot on the scrimmage – at least that was what he claimed.
When I got home my mother freaked out at the scrapes and said, “No more football for you. I want you to rejoin the swim team.”
“This didn’t come from playing football,” I protested. “I got beat up by a kid named Devon.”
“Well, what did you do to provoke him?” She demanded.
Obviously, the only reason anyone would hurt me –would be that I was the instigator. Good old Mom.
So that day was seeded deeper into my consciousness that perhaps, just maybe, I’d have to put more energy into writing and acting than the NFL. Because, if I’m an actress maybe I can pretend to be a football player and no one will beat me up for it. I’d still get to hold the ball, I’d still get to smell the turf and the grass stains and be under the open sky – but no one would kick my ass for taking their spot. And as a writer – I could make a story about playing football, and I could write myself as a man, so I could be in the NFL and play hard without getting razzed for growing boobs or sacked as a “friendly” encouragement to go home.
I had a brief fling in the form of Powder-Puff in High School wherein I got to enjoy the short-lived feeling of a good pass and the chant of cross-dressing cheerleaders. I felt so alive that day, so full of raw power. Then I slipped on a puddle of sweat on the rubber gym floor during a rush and sprained the ligament that attaches my right leg to my pelvis. It hurt like a sonofabitch but we only had another hour to play and I knew it might be the last game of football for a very long time – so I said I was fine and kept playing. I was bedridden for a week then on crutches for the next two weeks and had chiropractor visits for months afterward with electrodes and such. It was totally worth it for that hour of playtime. Even today when I overwork that muscle I smile to remember the feeling of a game well played and laughter that was easy to come by - plus who could forget, Craig Woods in a cheerleading skirt?
I guess the reason I’m writing this blog is because I miss it. I keep pulling a card that tells me I need playtime. When I think playtime, I don’t think beach or poker or tag. I think stretch of lawn and a ball made of pigskin. That used to be my ultimate playtime.
Now, I think of myself as a writer. I define myself as a storyteller. I’m an actress. And what few people know is that I actually have a three and a half octave singing voice buried under years of neglect, but it’s there.
The only thing on my list of dreams to come from 5th grade is football. So I guess it’s time I did something about that.
Football and Singing. Two misplaced pieces of my bliss waiting to be recaptured and incorporated… after all, this is the Blissquest. So here goes nothing – I’ll keep you posted on the progress.
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