There I was, playing for an NFL team - I do not know which one (my only angst) - and then there I am, on third and goal, the go-to running back, holding the football, running to the end zone, looking for my lane... when suddenly it is all open in front of me - only one defender stands in the way - he's not much taller than me - he's the one who looks like a deer in the headlights, I'm the one who knows what is going on... I run into the end zone, untouched, scoring the touchdown (no spin moves needed, and hardly a leap, zig or zag)...
And then I woke up. What a great dream. The only sad part was that I woke up before I had a chance to do my touchdown celebration. I would have liked to have seen how that looked. Oh, and I was a little perplexed that I didn't know which team I was playing for. I believe it was the home team though - our uniforms were white, as I recall.
In my awake state, I remembered an earlier part of the dream. It was still the NFL, but it was a scrimmage rather than a game. I scored a touchdown as running back during the scrimmage too, but at the time I thought they were probably just letting me score because I'm a girl and it didn't count and they were just trying to be nice.
But then in the game - it was a real game (dreamland real) and I scored again. This time, nobody was trying to be nice. This one counted.
It wasn't the first time I'd dreamed that I was a player in the NFL. There was one other time - I was a running back in that dream too - for the Philadelphia Eagles (I love the Eagles) - but that time, there was no touchdown - it was in the middle of the field - there was a much better defense - I was barely able to go forward - I needed to use my spin move - which I executed flawlessly, by the way - until that dream, I didn't even know that I had a spin move!
What was different about yesterday's dream was that I didn't know which team I was on - which team had drafted me. In past NFL dreams, it's always been the Eagles. Besides the dream as a player, I've dreamed once that I was the walk-on coordinator (clipboard and all), once that I was a confidante to the coach (Ray Rhodes at the time), once that I was a spectator during preseason training camp and sat with Bo Jackson as we talked over the Eagles' prospects for the year (he seemed like such a nice man).
It does surprise me that I keep playing the position of running back in these dreams. I'm more of a defense person - love, love watching corner backs play - such athleticism. It's how I usually practice law too - on the defense - criminal defense is where I got my start in the law - my first plaintiff case, I was almost confused - I had to initiate everything! The lawsuit, the discovery requests... And in soccer, I almost always play defense. So you'd think in dreamland, my subconscious would have me play defense. I guess my subconscious has other things in mind.
I do love football. Of course I love many sports - heck, I wrote a novel about baseball! - but football ends up being my go-to sport, for some reason. Baseball too, at times. At least I can play baseball (in softball form). And baseball is more often a metaphor to me - a metaphor for life - how there is no deadline, and how whatever happens is up to the teams. If nobody makes a move, the game will go on for infinity. If nobody scores, then nobody wins - or loses - or wins, though. And isn't that key? In my baseball novel (Until the End of the Ninth, about the Spokane Indians' minor league team in 1946 that dies in a bus crash midway through the season), there is a section that talks about baseball's structure. It is in the context of the Indians having beaten the team from Victoria, B.C., on May 16, 1946 (40 days before the bus crash) by tying up the game in the 9th inning and finally winning in the 12th:
It took a lot, to beat Victoria like that. More than perseverance, more than hope - faith too, and maybe a commitment to the mundane. Always a commitment to the mundane. Playing day in, day out, game after game, pitch after pitch - and then, in a moment's silence, when all seems statically standstill, someone does something to change the flow, or create it.
And isn't that the way life can be?
Maybe I'll dream about baseball tonight.
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