I was a little bit of a jockette in my day. Tomboy. Sportsy. I grew up with brothers and a neighborhood full of boys. I'm about as far from athletic as a person can be these days, but at one time I identified fairly strongly with that lifestyle. I played sandlot football, church league basketball and softball for several years, and competitive tennis for many years. I bowled and played softball for my employer's teams, too. I was a pretty good wrestler in my day, as well.
My softball position was catcher. Catcher is a rough place to be. You don't get a break; something's always happening at home. Outfielders, basemen, and short stops all have intermittent work. A catcher is active: every time a pitch is thrown, she's moving. Squatting, kneeling, stooping, standing, stretching, returning the ball to the mound, watching for base stealers, trying to catch fouls.
Once play is initiated, the catcher's still on the job, eyes peeled, waiting to head off that third-base runner. When I played ball, you might throw to a baseman and the runner'd be out. But at home? The runner had to be physically tagged out by the catcher -- me.
We played some rough gals. They'd just as soon knock me down as get tagged out. I learned that the hard way. (That's not counting the numerous batters who do their dead level best to strike the catcher when they swing those deadly aluminum bats). Somewhere are a couple of photos of me literally backed up between the umpire's spread legs, hugging the chain link fence to avoid being struck by a forceful batter who is stretched out as far as humanly possible, doing her best to hit me.
So when the pitcher, fielder, shortstop, or baseman throws home to put a batter out, it's not merely a matter of the ball getting home. The catcher has work to do once she makes her catch.
Why the sports lesson, you ask? I want you thinking when you read this poem I wrote. Because it's not enough that the ball is thrown, or caught. There's still work to be done once it arrives.
And the punctuation is very intentional. ~~GH
Out At Home
I hurl my signal
Across the miles
Like a desperate throw to home.
It’s wild and it hurts.
So much depends
On that horsehide;
I hope it connects
Yesterday, I was Facebook-befriended by a high school classmate. She wrote one sentence on my timeline, and it meant so much to me. What did she write?
If I didn't recognize anything else, I'd recognize your smile.
After nearly forty years, it is wonderful to know that I have retained the smile I had in my youth. ~~GH
A sweet walk down lovers' memory lane, "R" rated.
Wrestling Boys in Cars
The switch turned on when a boy's hand came in contact with my hair.
When he made the tender, almost sacred gesture of smoothing back my long hair to expose my neck to his hot kisses, electricity coursed through invisible circuitry along my spine and sparks flew in an area far removed from his attentions.
How I loved feeling so alive, so fully involved and caught up, so helpless yet so in control – panting and heaving, my chest rising and falling against his as he tried to gain the best advantage, fumbling and pushing as I gasped and demurred, murmured and resisted.
Kissing was the best. It was clumsy business until the logistics got worked out – whose head tilted right, whose tilted left, where did the arms go, how would our weight be supported – would I even allow a kiss? But once the details fell in place and skin met skin, we became raw sensation, pure nerve and sensuality, tongue in quest of tongue, lip sucking lip, simulated pumping and seeking of hidden treasures – promises yet to keep.
Fumbling. Sometimes there was fumbling, and oftentimes clutching.
The boys who fumbled or clutched in desperation, reaching for a breast or trying to seize a nipple like a purloined chocolate bar from the corner store were doomed to failure. They made what we were doing seem bad; they made me feel dirty and allowed my mother's cautions to filter through my physical sensations.
The boys who coveted my breast and eased their way around massaging and comforting and slipped needily but naturally into my shirt were the ones who earned the prize. The ones who paid homage to the harnessed breast, then gently and patiently worked their way beneath the harness – they were the ones who earned bare nipple prizes. They were the chosen ones who suckled, who marveled, who whispered in amazement, "I've never seen such large breasts before!"
On rare occasions, there was dry humping. Grinding. Leg against crotch, sometimes knee against crotch. Sweating, panting, eyes closed, murmuring, begging, twisting, moaning, pushing, pumping, moisture, wonderful strange salty scents. We'd shift positions, mash mouths together, see each other out of focus, wonder who this stranger was with glassed-over eyes and wild hair, this person with their hands on every part of our body at once and still not touching just the right place.
Sometimes a boy would commit the ultimate offense and try to unzip my jeans, or his own. The sound of brass teeth hissing was enough to break the spell and snap me back to an upright position. "No, we can't." Somehow we'd sort it out, make our peace, stay within society's limits while we danced a dangerous tango of desire and devotion -- not to each other, but to ourselves.
Narcissistic, needy, selfish and salacious, our youthful yearnings made us frenzied and left us frustrated by the end of the evening when we said our farewell's and exchanged good-night kisses.
© 2005 Ginger Hamilton Caudill sadly has since matured and no longer wrestles boys in cars.
