In which the author experiences a certain amount of lower back pain
Mon 2014-06-23 23:34:41 (in context)
Ow. Ow, ow-ow-ow ow, and also ow.
My back is sore. My legs are sore. Everything is sore.
It has a lot to do with roller derby, true. But, oddly, not so much to do with playing the actual game. Saturday morning I helped lead the Phase 1 class, in which I apparently attempted to assert my powers of mind control over the new skaters. That is, I spent a lot of time demonstrating a good, low, stable derby stance ("Bend those knees! Torsos upright! Get lower!") not just to be a good role model but also out of an irrational and mostly subconscious conviction that I could actually cause the training skaters to get lower if I just got lower myself. Wouldn't that be nice? For both them and me? As it turns out, I do not have mind control powers. But my thighs and lower back got a great workout.
And then Sunday we started off team practice with a 20 minute session of rotating off-skates fitness stations. This made all of the things hurt, y'all. That means I'm getting stronger, right? I hope?
So that was my weekend. Then Monday happened.
Mondays are farm days! And it's planting time. They're trying to get just as many seedlings into the ground as they can during the "summer solstice plateau," which is to say, the period between the summer solstice and the fourth of July. You can probably imagine the amount of bending/kneeling/squatting involved in working one's way down the row, troweling open the earth to drop seedling plugs in every 7 to 14 inches. But what you're probably not imagining is all the hula hoe and rake work that happens before we get to pick up the trowel. We had to "scratch" the beds, using the hula hoe to break the crust of the dry surface, soften up the soil a bit, and move the soil around to help reinforce the shape of the beds. Then we had to rake the clods off into the furrows. Only then did we get to put the seedlings into the ground.
There is probably a writing metaphor there--something about having to prepare the metaphorical ground before you can plant the seedling ideas and encourage them to grow into stories--but I'm too sore and tired to think about it right now.
Ow.