It Depends
My granddaughter tells me hot and cold are opposites. “Large and small are opposites,” she says, popping the Ps so that each of the three syllables of the word pack an equal punch. “Light and dark are opposites. Fast and slow are opposites . . . .” She can go for days. Her three-year-old brain is creating buckets for where to put things, most of which are cut and dried.
I’m not sure when exactly cut and dried gets mushy, but it does. Somewhere about the time our hair begins to salt-and-pepper gray so do lots of things we used to think were black and white.
You’d think that time would clarify things. But it doesn’t. Lack of experience does. The more life we understand, the more sides most things seem to have. Rarely is any thing, person, situation, or concept simply this or that. More often things are kinda this and kinda that. Many times they turn out to be neither this nor that at all but something else altogether. Mostly, it just depends.
Early in my coaching career I was asked by the parent of one of our players, “What are the five dribble moves?” As a deeply involved “sporty” parent, she wanted to be sure that this youthful coach knew she knew a thing or two.
I was perplexed. “What do you mean, ‘the five?’” I asked innocently, situationally lowering my IQ.
She grinned as if she’d caught me and then proceeded to explain the five pillars of dribbling she’d learned from reading a book. I knew not where to begin. Kobe sometimes performed ten different moves in the first two possessions of a game. And he made new ones up almost every day.
Most things are not as simple as they seem.
Within the buckets we, as novices, use for sorting come striations. Nuances. Shades. All kinds of quasis and sort ofs. It’s only over time that we discover hardly anything neatly fits. Like a bright white shirt with a royal blue collar: What pile of laundry does it go in? Sometimes it’s hard to say.
Following an afternoon of swimming, Austyn is sitting with a towel wrapped around her as she dries by the edge of the pool. She asks her mom if she can have a sucker.
“Another one?“ Morgan responded. Then taking a deep breath, “You had one this morning before you got here. This would be your second of the day.”
“I really, really want one,” Austyn lobbied back, as if her desire was what was in question regarding the ask.
“Ok, you can have one more, but that’s it,” her mom relented. I (being the enabling GG) pulled a red one from the coffee mug on the table that stays loaded for occasions such as this. As quickly as I could unwrap it, Austyn shoved it in her mouth.
“You’re going to turn into a Tootsie Pop,” Morgan said to no one in particular.
Austyn’s face fell flat.
“Are you just kidding?” she asked, with earnest eyes, holding the sucker tentatively a few inches away from her lips.
I could see this precocious three year old picturing a red wrapper with white printing draped over her head and twisted tightly around her neck, her two legs morphing into one pasty white stick. Her green eyes narrowed. Before she could continue to lick, this was something she needed to know.
“Yeah, I’m just kidding,” Morgan quickly assured her with a comforting smile.
As suddenly as happy had left the premises it showed back up in spades.
Another bucket formed.