The Slack Line

Today was what I like to call fantasmic. We went to work today as usual by going to the coffee shop to get Kurt and Michael a cup of coffee and me a glass of milk. I knew that during my sleep that the Arizona Wildcats were playing the most hated team in all levels of basketball; Duke. At one point during the season Duke was ranked number 1 and was seeded number 1 in the bracket. I anxiously sprinted to the only spot in Bosa that has internet. My gut feeling was telling me not to worry, but who doesn’t when you are an Arizona fan that has been accustom to disappointment. I checked the scores and gave not a double look, not a triple look but a quadruple look. In my expert opinion Williams is a beast and has possibly jumped to my Arizona all time all star team. The rest of my day was filled with smiles and jitters. I couldn’t wait to get to my computer and watch the highlights and get giddy again. But I did have to wait. After work we took lunch and set up what I have been waiting for for over a month. The entire family went outside and started scoping places to set up the beautiful slack line. Our first attempt was to make the line as long as possible which was close to 20 meters(over 60 feet). I was first up on the line. My thoughts on the matter was that I am pretty athletic and have pretty good balance, this should be a challenge but doable. Man was I wrong. I put one foot on the strap and it started shaking back and forth like an earthquake. I had barely but any weight on the thing and it was moving like it was bull trying to shake me off in a rodeo. The rope won. All the others had very similar outcomes. Distorted bodies and eventually flailing arms and ungraceful dismounts. The hardest part was the landing. We seemed to place the rope right above a pile of small rocks that poked up just high enough to hurt but low enough that you can barely see them. I am laying down right now feeling like a got a foot massage from a boxer. Back to the story. Someone eventually tried using a stick as a crutch. It worked very well. Eventually we were able to walk back and forth on it with most of our weight on the stick. Cheating. We took the stick away and we were back to be bucked off. A curious thing happened though, we were getting better. Someone would walk 2 steps, then 3 steps, then maybe even 4. It was sooooo much fun I couldn’t believe it. Kurt and I joked about how the family was using the slack line. They were all like little kids that don’t believe in rules and waiting for turns. Orlando was the worst. He would go and fall down and hop right back on 5 or 6 times. This often upset Nahima to the point of crying. Silvia would even push others out of line and use her mother status to jump spots. Today was a good day.

Moral of the story, if you think you might be good at something, you wont be.