This week’s prompt from Write on Edge asked us to create a setting. “Someplace real? Imaginary? From your past? In your future? It can be fiction or creative non-fiction. But make your descriptions so rich that I can’t help but feel like I’m right there.” We had a 200 word limit.
Saturday Morning Ritual
The sun is so bright we leave the house without jackets and the October chill bites through our thin clothes. I go inside to grab sweatshirts for everyone. At 9:00 AM the gravel parking lot is already packed with aging but trustworthy minivans, tricked out SUVs and beat-up sedans. Children in soccer gear tumble out of vehicles, their brightly colored shirts emblazoned with the names of local businesses.
My boys to run ahead to meet their coaches while I juggle the soccer mom’s survival gear: folding chairs, water bottles, and a large coffee. The leaves on the maple and oak trees are just beginning to change. In a few weeks those branches will be bare and this field will sparkle with frost. Today the uninitiated slip on the slick muddy landmines that dot the lush fields.
Wrestling the kids into shin guards and cleats on a Saturday is a chore but I love the energy of early morning soccer games. Parents cheer in Spanish, Portuguese, Creole, Vietnamese and English. This is my hometown at its best—not a melting pot, but a stained glass window where individual colors shine through. Rooting for our children is the language we all share.
 | |
I loved the reference to it not being a melting pot, but a stained glass window. It's such a great analogy.
ReplyDeleteThe line made me homesick for the cold climate where I grew up...
ReplyDelete"In a few weeks those branches will be bare and this field will sparkle with frost. Today the uninitiated slip on the slick muddy landmines that dot the lush fields."
So gorgeous!
Great imagery. Since we're listing our favorite things, I pick the word "tumble". Just feels like the perfect word for describing the kids as they get out of the cars.
ReplyDeleteYou're describing exactly my favorite time - still a little bit of warmth contained, but colder times are right around the corner.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to see just how this scene, with my own kids, will play out
I love your Saturday morning ritual, thank you so much for sharing it with me. What a lovely time of the year, and yes I too love stained glass windows.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very well done piece. I could picture the soccer field and all the parents and kids milling about. I love this line:
ReplyDeleteToday the uninitiated slip on the slick muddy landmines that dot the lush fields.
Great job!
Having grown up in a soccer family, here in the same neck of the woods, this practically sang to me.
ReplyDelete"The leaves on the maple and oak trees are just beginning to change. In a few weeks those branches will be bare and this field will sparkle with frost. Today the uninitiated slip on the slick muddy landmines that dot the lush fields."
So perfect to describe such a morning.
The children tumbling from the assortment of vehicles, the idea of community not as melting pot, but as a collection of colorful individuals that form something beautiful?
Gorgeous.
I love the image of satined glass window. A gorgeous way to put it.
ReplyDeleteWe are full-on with soccer every Saturday but somehow I always forget to bring a chair. ;)
Love, love, love the stained glass reference. So brilliant.
ReplyDeleteOur soccer games are the same way. Love that too. I should be packing up for one right now (;