A Mom's Cheer: Write! Write! Atta Girl!

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MELISSA BLOCK, host:

It is tournament season for elementary school basketball teams around the country, which leads us to this observation from commentator Julie Zickefoose.

JULIE ZICKEFOOSE: Although I'm dutiful in taking my daughter Phoebe to basketball practice two nights a week and our Saturdays are given over to her games, you could never fit a jersey saying sports mom over my head. I love her dearly and my corporeal body is in the bleachers, but I usually haven't the faintest idea what's going on out on the court.

Phoebe, then eight years old, made one basket last season and four mothers simultaneously wiped away tears. The sheer improbability of it all did us in. It was like watching a baby sea turtle struggle across the sand, beset by diving gulls, trying to make it to the ocean.

Phoebe dribbled slowly down the court alone. Her thin, white arms somehow found the strength to heave the regulation sized basketball up and over the high rim. All that, and the painfully hard bleachers, combined to move us to weep. I'm still waiting for this season's perfect conjunction of circumstance.

Okay, I'm a writer, not an athlete, and I have a sneaky feeling my daughter takes after me. She came home one afternoon, stood up tall, clicked her heels and said, guess what? I won the Marietta Times Story Writing Contest. You won the contest over everyone in your class? I think I won it for the whole school.

Phoebe bounced off the bus the next night, eyes dancing. Mom, my teacher says I won it for the whole county. Plot. To burst this storm of strong emotion from Yiddish plotson to crack.

Suddenly, I identified with those parents of star athletes who rare up off the bleachers, pumping their fists, eyes bulging when their child commandeers the ball. Only this time, I know the moves and understand the rules.

Writing - such a lovely pursuit. You can do it in an easy chair, propped up in bed with a plate of Oreos. You never have to drive to practice. There's very little screaming, no buzzers, no jammed fingers, or poked eyes. No way to lose. Darling daughter, that's our kind of sport.

Go! Go! Go!

BLOCK: Julie Zickefoose is an artist and writer. Her recent book is Letters from Eden.

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