Progress reports

Now that my soccer mom career has ended, I am discovering how many parts of my life were organized around that identity. I have a very difficult time writing semester progress reports for my art students at home due to all the piles and stacks and stuff angling for my attention. That's why I wrote progress reports sitting in my official soccer mom sling chair during team practices and game warm-ups for so many years.

My youngest is away at college, but some Sundays he joins a pick-up soccer game on the field outside the dorms. Some Sundays I sit on sidelines here just to get my work done. It is nice to visit with my ref friends at the half, but mostly I do my reading or writing in a little post-soccer-mom bubble of familiar sounds, sun, and breezes. No art teacher is an island, but maybe I'm a big mama sandbar in a flat river, just letting the sun soak in, the activity blur, and the distractions melt away.

No games today, so I sat my sandbar bottom down at the Dallas Arboretum to write the progress reports and watch the sailboats racing on White Rock Lake. The numerous brides at the Arboretum were billowing photogenically, too, near every fountain, arch, and pool in the gardens. I would not have been surprised if a bride had suddenly ordered, "Prepare to come about. Ready about. Hard alee!"