this photo was taken two and a half years ago. it was january 2010. we were at the american museum of natural history... and margaret gravitated towards this display. it was filled with some of the coolest sports gear on earth.... handmade native american lacrosse treasures!!! i'm pretty sure this was margaret's first interest with anything related to lacrosse and little did we know that the attraction and connection she showed then would grow and stick around...
that spring we found a lacrosse clinic for girls margaret's age, which would let her get familiar with the basics of the game... and without much hesitation, i broke out my own personal ancient lacrosse treasure — my wooden stick from my high school girls lacrosse days!!! awesome. turns out, my old stick is much closer to those in the museum display case than what the girls play with now... we found this out when we went to get margaret set up with her own personal gear from this century... her first stick, googles and a mouth guard. as i remember it, we held off on getting the store-bought nylon bag for the stick and i saw this as my opportunity to bring a little bit of the hand-made quality back to the sport... i did not whittle a new stick or fashion some deerskin into a ball, but i did gather up some chunky bright zippers and repurposed blue canvas fabric and sewed m.a.g. her own stylish, monogrammed, lacrosse bag...
she was quickly ready for the field. ready for some scooping, passing and catching. we practiced a lot together — me with my old-school stick and margaret with her fancy new pink stick. she kept at it and in 2011 she signed up for several more of these clinics where there was plenty more scooping, passing and catching practice... building skills and experiences and making many new friends along the way.
and now we're here in 2012... and she's now gone from learning the basics to a new season of real team games. real uniforms, real big fields and real referees but at this age there are many modified rules for safety. quite honestly it is adorable and so much fun to watch. two years into it and the fancy blue bag is still holding up, keeping her gear together from practices to games. and that spark that was ignited back at the museum display is still there — i'm sure i saw it today as she cradled down the field in a fast sprint... passing cheering fans, coaches and teammates...
let's go number 3!!! (not to be confused with "let's go number 5!" which is what we cheer on saturdays at her soccer games) can you tell i love this game? i do. and i am thrilled to see margaret growing to love it too.