Springtime

This was a grand day in Atlanta, Georgia. This was a day to make you understand that there is nothing like Central Georgia in the Springtime. The Indigo Girls were right, even though they seemed to include quite a bit of Autumnal Georgia in their song. Can you really beat 73 degrees, blues skies, fleecy clouds, everything in pastel bloom? You can see the people coming out in their shorts and t-shirts and skirts.

The rain washed away the pollen and the morning air was so clear that I almost forgot I had corrected vision. Corrected by the turning of the days and the wheel of the year to Spring flood. From the time that I was a young boy, I have always visualized the year as an oval with the Winter months at the top and Summer at the bottom of the wheel. Right now, we are going around the left side of the wheel heading for the fast, hot months during the Summer. I don't know why I have always seen the seasons in this way, but it is in my mind and I can't get it out.

Meanwhile, I have always had a clear vision of the globe in my mind as well. I can even visualize the physical world as if I were flying around above the trees. I can also visualize the world with a time component. I see America before it was settled, with green woodlands spreading out before me, the trees growing thickly across the ripples of the Appalachians toward the soft blanket of Kentucky and Tennessee spreading west from the Blue Ridge toward the Mississippi and then flattening out west toward the Pacific Ocean.

There were quite a few girl volleyball players in Atlanta today. They were all over the place. I don't think I have ever seen that many athletes in any one sport all in the same spot. An interminable number of girls, little and big, short and tall, heavy and slender. Some looked like the baby fat was still on them. Others looked oddly anorexic. Every type of girl, every color, shade, hair color, consistency, race, color, creed, all gathered together in uniforms which were holdovers from the 70's. Odd.

I thought that football players were bad, but you don't know what its like when thousands of girls are hitting little balls all over the place, hitting with their hands, their arms, with a modicum of aim and balance. I would have to say that I was hit or hit at with about ten balls over the span of six hours. Volleyball players will hit balls anywhere. Volleyball players tend to walk in groups anywhere and ignore anyone who is potentially in their way. Their coaches will have them chasing after balls in odd, frantic ways as close to the spectators as they can get.

Then lets talk about the venue. The Georgia World Congress Center is huge. In the one locale, there were around one hundred volleyball courts with spectator seats on one side and seats for the girls on the other with a scorer's table in between. Multiply that by one hundred and you have a ton of people trying to share space. Consider that there were two huge rooms being used for volleyball. How can there be such a demand for volleyball in this country?

Then add the preliminaries where every girl is paired up hitting balls at each other, often inacurately. No wonder the balls fly. It is nice that the balls are soft. If they played with lacrosse balls or baseballs, there would be injuries left and right. Serious injuries.

I guess I am overstating it. It was fun to watch. Just an awful lot of it.

But we got to go to Six Feet Under for supper and it was delightful to sit and enjoy each other and the Spring weather in Atlanta.

Tomorrow we try to do a little gardening after Palm Sunday services. Perhaps the rain will hold off until late in the day. Now they are saying it should start around four. Which doesn't leave much time for gardening. And then Cindy and I are going to Community Group. That's a lot to go through during one day. Monday will be busy too.