After one practise walk to school when I was four, I was on my own. It wasn’t even a hand held walk with my mother or father. They enlisted the 7 year old across the street to show me the ropes. Her name was Dale and her mother had a hair salon off the kitchen of their house. I was in awe of her and her mother (Josie), who once cut my hair into that Pixie style that was so popular in the early 60’s. I hated it. My once long locks swept into the rubbish, removing any obvious sign that I was a girl into the trash can. I was devastated. “I look like a boy!”. I pouted for days while my mother relished the break she was getting from the challenge of having to comb the tangles out of my former style. (Straight and long with an odd bump underneath at the nape of my neck) I had not heeded the warnings. “If you don’t learn to comb those knots out of your hair, I am going to get Josie to cut it all off!”
A few times after that first day of Kindergarten, I remember trying to catch up with Dale who always seemed half a block ahead of me, but she soon grew weary of my idle 4 year old chit chat whenever I did manage to run fast enough and after the first week of school, she must have started leaving earlier or later because I never saw her much after that. It was only about a three block walk in a bit of a zig zag and one fairly busy major street to cross, but I would have enjoyed some company. This is one of my earlier memories of realizing I was going to have to figure out my life without much input from adults. The term “Helicopter Parent” had not been invented in the 60’s, much less practised. Homework was not a family affair. Play dates were not arranged. Sunscreen was not applied. My first swimming lesson consisted of my father hurling me into a backyard pool. Sink or swim baby. In fourth grade, I got a tennis racquet; a gift for passing from third to fourth grade but it didn’t come with any lessons, so I used to walk to the closest public courts (across railroad tracks that I was told to stay away from “or else”) and hit the 3 balls I owned to an invisible partner across the net, walk around, retrieve them and repeat from the opposite side. I didn’t know anyone with a racquet. Despite my lack of an opponent, I loved hitting those (then white) balls. One day during one of my solo matches, a young teenage boy approached me and told me there was a sign-up sheet for lessons posted near the courts, so I scribbled my name on the list and started going twice a week for some basic training, without even telling my parents. I’m pretty sure they were free as part of a community program. I had no guidance whatsoever as to what to wear. My footwear would have been a pair of white Keds that started out clean and white the day school let out and would be filthy grey by summer’s end. In fact, we used to step on our own feet so they didn’t look so new. (it was a thing). No hat, no water bottle, no sunscreen, no clue. That was the last time I had any tennis lessons until I was in my mid 30’s. You know that question you hear asked sometimes - “If you could have been anything in life, what would you have been?” I always give the same answer. A professional tennis player. This leads me to the point I want to make here today. The importance of a solid foundation cannot be underestimated. Strong root growth with healthy soil and room to spread out creates the best blooms, the biggest tomatoes, the tallest trees and the majority of the most successful adults in nearly every field. This is not always a hard and fast rule, but it sure doesn’t hurt. Case in point. The photo at the top of this story of three sunflowers in three pots. Papa pot. Mama pot and Baby pot. The seeds for these sunflowers came from the same seed packet. The soil was from the same bag. The large pot has produced the strongest, tallest, healthiest result because the roots had room to grow and more nutrients feeding them. Of the three, it had the foundation for growth and excellence, while the smaller pots will never reach the same heights of glory as their buddy on the far left. Their seed needed to be planted in a bigger pot. Just as I needed help as an 8 year old to become a better tennis player. I didn’t get the foundation I needed or the nurturing required to go somewhere with my old wooden Slazenger. Like the smaller sunflowers, I worked with what I got. It wasn’t until many years later that I picked up a racquet again and started to feed myself with lessons and club memberships and hours and hours of practice hitting balls against the local high school wall and drills with my tennis playing ex-husband that I finally felt I could compete at a club level. (There is even a Ladies Doubles Club League trophy/plaque out there collecting dust with my name on it mounted on a clubhouse wall - the best I ever got) By then, any dream I might have had of serious competition was shattered. Contrary to the current advice from everyone who has ever written a self help book, there are some things in life that become out of reach with age. As grateful as I am to have learned to play tennis later in life, and the amazing women I have met and befriended because of it, I will always wonder… “What if?”.
3 Comments
Cuz
7/25/2022 07:01:19 pm
What if I had become the primary school teacher that I had always dreamed of becoming. The course of my life would have changed significantly and maybe some of the important aspects that I have achieved on this course may not have happened. I don’t know. Maybe there was a reason I was set on this course. Who knows? 😊
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Heather
7/26/2022 02:57:17 am
Perhaps it’s a question of what I wouldn’t have become...
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Suzanne Ross
8/8/2022 06:26:29 am
My parents made me take tennis lessons growing up and I hated it. Hated tennis as a result. So maybe both of us taking up the game again In our 30's and loving it really was the right path after all. Who knows?
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DEBunked.I see nature as a metaphor for life. Please join me on this journey down the garden path as I explore life through story - a shovel in one hand and a camera in the other. Archives
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