Day 98: Playing Catch

I love playing catch, the kind with a glove and ball. I'll play with anyone. I'll play with an eight-year-old, 98-year-old, and anyone in between. I love the pop of the glove. I love the feel of the ball in my hand. I love the feel of the seams on my fingers. I love the smell of the ball, but the smell of my glove even more. Most of all, I love the memories playing catch brings back.

This afternoon, I played catch with my 14-year-old daughter. Each time I threw her the ball, I could picture her at five and then eight and then 10. I could see her aging through the years, and honestly, it made me a little sad to see this girl nearly as tall as me standing there across the lawn, older and wiser and more independent and one year closer to being out on her own. It made me a little nostalgic for the days when I was teaching her how to catch, how to step into her throws, how to open her glove like an alligator to pick up grounders. It made me a little woozy inside knowing those days are gone and they aren't coming back. I wonder if we'll always be able to play catch. If there will come that day when I ask her to play but she'll say she doesn't really like that stuff anymore. I wonder if there will come that day when she'll play with her own kids and or I will. I hope so. 

I've played catch with my own dad. We were playing the day the ball sailed over my head and into the neighbor's yard. When I went to retrieve it, their Dalmatian sprung up and bit my on the neck, and when I knocked him off and ran for all my life was worth, he snatched his mouth around my arm and I drug him a while until my dad put his boot right into his belly and the dog whimpered home. Yet another time my dad saved my ass. 

I've played catch with more cousins than I can count. More friends than I can count. I've played catch with my girlfriends. I played catch my co-workers during our breaks. I learned to throw a knuckleball while playing catch. I learned to throw a curveball doing the same. I've played catch with my wife and all of my kids, other than my four-year-old, and I'm sure we'll play more times than she'll probably want. 

There's something about playing catch that transcends time. Father and sons. Mother and daughters. Grandparents and grandchildren. Playing catch bridges generations. 

Playing catch requires concentration but absolutely no focus at all. Playing catch is magical. It's leather and cowhide and air and sun and time. It's conversations or saying nothing at all. It's pitching and catching. It's popflies and grounders. 

Playing catch is simplified beauty.