Muddy Fun

Each week I take Tuesday night to get out of the house and reconnect with the side of myself that loves to play competitive sports. You may never know it by looking at me, or even by talking to me, but I love to play a competitive sport once in a while. A couple years ago I joined an outdoor volleyball team with the city league. A good solid team, good enough to win our share, but not so good that I feel like I am the worst player. Well, two years later, two pregnancies, one baby, and my body is not in the shape it once was. But they graciously put up with me again this season. I am learning so much from them and getting better!

Last week we played in the rain. Tonight we played in the mud. There's something about a bunch of adults squishing around in mud up to their ankles that makes me giggle like a school girl. It started out with us all tiptoeing around the puddles, saying we weren't about to dive in the mud that smelled a bit like cows, and only daring to touch the ball with our fingertips. By nights end, our shirts were smeared, our arms were tinted a muddy color, and our ankles had splatters of mud sprayed up and down them. And we were smiling. It wasn't our best night of volleyball, but it was the most fun I've had in a long time.

There's something to me about being in the dirt that brings out my truest self. It's a part of me that gets pushed aside by the to-do list. The piece of myself that that drowns in chores. But tonight reminded me of a core essential to my being, I love hard, dirty work. I'm not talking about organizing a coat closet, or scrubbing a baseboard. What I have come to find is that my fondest memories in life revolve around play (laughter) and working alongside someone in the great outdoors. In my core being I love to work, to laugh, and to sweat with other people; to build, to get dirty, and to accomplish something very concrete. In our common labor I have found myself closer to strangers than I often come to people I have lived beside my whole life. To reach outside of my own situation, to go beyond my comfort zone and stop tiptoeing around what needs to get done brings me to a point where I can accept that life is muddy. There aren't clean edges, there isn't a antibacterial wipe to save us from all danger. And so often I need to stop living that way and start digging into the mud to uncover the joy that can still be found.

The mud was fun. And tonight I regained a part of myself that has been sleeping away in my clean little life. I feel renewed, ready to find the next patch of mud to play and work in. I wonder what those places are for you, the parts that get ignored in everyday life, that disappear by expectation or busy-ness. The parts you'd like to reconnect with...you don't have to share it with me, but share it with someone important to you. And maybe we can all start to search life out together, making the circle of joy larger. Combining work and vocation, piecing together passion and practicality. Being a small contingent of 'can do' in a world that works so hard to teach us we can't. I hope you find your mud. And I hope that my mud is a lasting reminder of what my heart delights in, and not just the pain of extra laundry.