Omg. The people here at Water Canyon, the local coffee house here in Yucca Valley, must think I am a serious computer freak/geek. I’ve been here for six hours; sustaining myself with a Greek Bagel, soy cap, and a large green tea.
Granted, I left for about 45 minutes right there in the middle to run to the post office and bank (I still find it easier to do errands here than in Laguna, and I unconsciously find myself saving certain errands until I come back to the desert…) But still.
I just love the atmosphere of a coffee house for being alone, especially for doing work like cleaning up a blog, which is a very expansive, non-linear kind of activity. Since I’ve started my part-time job two weeks ago, I suddenly never have time alone to just space out. And I need that on a regular basis.
Thursday at Bella’s cross-country finals was a good time for that too. Every sport has its own pace and set of spectator protocols, and cross country is no exception. I just had never thought about it before. To watch somebody compete in a three-mile footrace is really to just see them for about 30 seconds of a 22-minute race, either at the beginning, middle, or end.
Soccer: Pull up a chair and watch the game start to finish, right there at the sidelines. Swimteam: Write down all your kid’s events on your hand in sharpie, and listen to the screeching megaphone, and get poolside for each of the 3-4 events.
Cross-country: Sit by myself a mile into Laguna Niguel Regional Park. Wait. See kids running from across the lake. Fifteen minutes later watch and cheer them as they tear down the hill you are monitoring. Wait another half hour by yourself, sitting on your portable camp stool. Repeat four more times.
I sat there being a race course marshall for FOUR SOLID HOURS and watched five races go by. I saw Bella for all of 30 seconds.
Still, I enjoyed myself. And I did get to see every kid from every one of the five competing schools go by.
Today was an especially good day, because I started with an hour and half of yoga. Needed that.
Can you see the kids way across the lake? Yeah, that’s all I could see too.
Here’s Bella mid-race! For the record she beat that girl in front of her. : )