Later on, looking back, those of us who are soccer moms all remember these times as some of our best -- clutching our arms around our thin coats against the fog and the chill, sipping our coffee (hopefully Peet's), and cheering for our kids as they race up and down the field in shorts, numbered jerseys, cleats, shin guards, knee socks, and looks of determination on their youthful faces.
It's easy to mock all of this, if you never experience it, but there's an existential aspect to being a soccer mom. Your youth is either gone, or watching your child reminds you that it will be fading soon. Even as you try to concentrate on what they are doing out there on the pitch, your mind will wander and you'll find yourself gazing upward as a seagull circles gracefully, or westward, as the white fog streams inland from the Pacific, coating your face with a sweat from the outside, as opposed to the one that emerges from within -- which requires hot days.
This exterior sweat, as I call it, is neither salty nor refreshing, as you stand on the sidelines. It coats you as if you were a tree, perhaps one of the cool, tall redwoods like Julia Butterfly Hill lived in for over two years.
Interior sweat, by my reckoning, is altogether different in form and substance. It carries a distinct odor (your unique, personal smell) and it tastes of salt. Your bodies secretes it to cool you down when the outer world makes you feel too hot.
Interior sweat is the type that interests me now, on several levels. First, it is within my memory that body odor was identified by Madison Avenue as an aspect of our living bodies that could be exploited. Thus, the modern phenomenon of deodorants. Consumers had to be trained to think that the odor of their own bodies might be an offensive thing -- something requiring a product to keep under wraps.
When I was a boy, people all had a distinctive odor, and that's one of the ways you knew who was approaching, even as your back was turned. Grandpa smelled one way, an aunt another, your own mother another, this sister another, that teacher another, and this certain person -- one that you found ever so attractive -- distinctly another.
It's ironic in this more advanced age of science that we are "discovering" that one of the ways lovers locate each other is by the smells we emit. By masking these natural features, we allow ourselves to become confused, perhaps falling for a perfume as opposed to the actual body we will soon be finding ourselves next to.
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I seem to have become distracted, a congenital deficiency. Please excuse me, kind reader (should I have any). Athletes also produce interior sweat as they work hard to accomplish their gaming goals. They literally burn fat tissue -- lipids -- as they race around to the best of their ability, and they also become dehydrated in the process, regardless of the weather.
Thus, my little daughter could rush over to say, "I'm burning," and grab the water bottle, even as I stood shivering on the sidelines. She tried so hard today. Her coach has told her to try and become more "challenging," which is the best advice to give a player who has always tended to hang back, following the game as if in a parallel universe, always in the right place but rarely touching the ball.
Ironically, when she does, she has a great kick, which everyone tells her. Thus her nickname: Thunderfoot.
Today, we saw the first results of this coaching. Twice she broke away from the cluster of other players and raced toward the goal. Twice, she unleashed her best kick. Twice, she failed to score. One was saved by the goalie; one went wide of the net.
Afterwards, she was almost inconsolable that she had not scored a goal. She never has scored a goal, so far as I remember. But, she was so down on herself, it required quite an effort to remind her that (1) it's only a game; (2) scoring is only one part of that game; (3) if she keeps at it, she will eventually get a goal.
She eventually came around, and started smiling her infectious smile again, but I'm not sure if it was because she let go of her sense of failure in the game or because I took her to lunch at In-N-Out Burger.
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