Swimming

I learned something new today. Melted ice becomes water and people actually have a sport in which they participate called swimming. I have been around the frozen version of water for the past 10 years. I was facing withdrawals but now I have a new enterprise into which I can place myself wholeheartedly: swimming. The reason I am experiencing swimming is that my baby wants to swim for her high school. This will be her first organized sport since the amoeba-based sport of soccer for 5 and 6 year olds in which she participated a few years ago. Have you ever seen little kids play soccer? It's so much fun to see their pure, unadulterated joy as they just kick the ball, doesn't matter where or towards which goal, "I kicked the ball, daddy!", was her squeal as she did kick the ball. There was a simplicity and almost heaven-like quality in the kids before the parents started worrying about stats and travel teams and such. I am sad that our country has lost its' 6 year old soccer innocence and now there is a cacaphony of words, ideas and policies that drown each other out. Where is civility? Where is measured argument? And, like the kids, where are my treats after the game? Aren't our treats as adults the relationships we foster, eventhough our opinions and politics may differ? Can't we agree to disagree and respect each other on common ground? Swimming is like 6 year old soccer: Everyone cheers for their teammates, everyone works for the common good, everyone respects the opponent, and at the end of the match, there are treats: both literal and figurative. Relationships, Capri Suns and Twinkies, is there anything better?