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A Tale of One Weird Glove
I want to keep my life in order and start clearing stuff I don't need around the house. My goal is to live with only the things that I need. Things that I have used for the last decade. But as usual, it's hard. Two of the hardest ones for me are books and things with memories, with the honorable mention of 'things I might need.'
I have a drawer full of cables that might be useful one day, clothes for special occasions or days when comfort is not the main objective (which is almost never). I have extensive stationeries since I used to need them for work, boxes full of pieces of fabric, paints, papers, strings, cardboard, and wood for art and craft that look like a collection of junk. I have sports equipment that I no longer use frequently, but I still hope that someday I will get back to that.
I have a cheap construction glove with lumps of hardened white glue that I still keep because it's something meaningful to me. I was one of the early participants of underwater hockey group in my place, and we didn't have proper equipment back then because the sport was so new.
To sum it up briefly, the sport involves chasing a puck with a short wooden stick at the bottom of a swimming pool (ideally 3 m/10ft deep at least). As divers, my spouse and I had all the equipment needed: fins and masks. The organizer provided the puck and sticks; we only needed to pay for our pool tickets. So we were there every Friday evening if my memory is accurate, it was almost twenty years ago, and I'm sure you don't care about this detail, but it was on a weekday after work.
Divided into two teams, every member had to defend its 'goal box', defined by only some object marking or trying to launch an offensive to score a goal. And, of course, we needed to sink and hold our breath. The black and white teams, each with a few members, would be on different sides of the pool (we took half the pool). We trod water and shouted in primitive excitement, 'White ready!' or 'Black ready!' (terms we still use in our household whenever we are getting ready to go somewhere). The game supervisor would indicate the start, and the frenzy would begin.
We needed to flip, or whatever the best way to reach the middle bottom area where the puck was. It was not easy to dive down with people around you. Fin to head? Check. Fin to face, mask popped off, hand smacked, out of breath, disorientation, fogging mask: check, check, check, check, check, check. I don't follow the sport's progress after our time, but I am sure there are rules and regulations to prevent most of those, or at the very least, excellent skills. We were not that. We were chaotic in piranha style but played for fun and in good faith. Water also slows down movement, so it's not that bad when you are kicked in slow motion. Try that.
Anyway, it was our weekly sport for a time, and this guy, one of the organizers, decided to make something very creative for the regulars. It was intended to protect us from the most frequent altercation: accidental hand smacking since we fought over the control of the puck with very short wooden sticks. It was very thoughtful of him and proved to be useful.
However, the sport grew in popularity, and we began to have too many participants. When we started, it was a sport based on something we enjoy, simple, fun, healthy activity and hang-out without social pressure that fit well for most. We just said hello, played, joked, and goodbye. Unfortunately, it became more like a social gathering with too many people and too little sport, so we stopped going.
So this weird glove, almost unidentifiable by those who don't know, was made with very good intentions, a gift from a kind-hearted acquaintance, for good, simple, fun times in my younger days.
It stays. I am not getting rid of it, not yet. So are hundreds of my books. I will read them all one day. I promise.
