by Jim Snyder

Created on: November 03, 2009   Last Updated: November 05, 2009

Our Shadows

Wrestling with Mary on her living room floor presented singular strategies that were unnecessary in the school matches. It was not so much that she was bigger and stronger than me-most people my age were, but that I thought I felt it necessary to take into consideration where certain of her body parts were in relation to my own. It was impossible to avoid these particular parts, and it was never my intention to do so, but I felt I needed to at least give the appearance of integrity so as to make any contact seem incidental or vital to the move I was attempting. Even though I had been on the junior high wrestling team, there was no embarrassment in being pinned beneath this girl's powerfully developed body. That would come after, when her older sister, Lori, would wrestle a pillow away from my lap amid an audience of younger siblings and friends.

Mary moved into the big house in our neighborhood the summer before my freshman year in high school-just after the last family of friends I had grown up with had moved away. She saw me watching the movements of their household and paid me a visit while I was in my driveway shooting baskets by myself. I didn't actually see her walking over, but when I went to chase down a loose ball, she stopped it with her foot. I sort of stumble-stopped just in front of her, my hands reaching forward to stop my fall, though Mary gracefully sidestepped me.

"Ole."

I managed not to fall and turned to take her all in. She bent forward to pick up the ball, turned toward the basket, and clanked one off the front of the rim. We shrugged. I told her that every time I looked over at her house, there seemed to be another person I hadn't seen before.

"Yeah, we're like dwarves that way." This came out of her mouth without so much as a missed beat, and just as automatically I replied.

"Gambling on my knowledge of Hobbit lore are we?" We both smiled. "No, seriously, how many of you are there?"

"I have nine brothers and sisters, but only seven of us are still at..." she turned to look over toward the enormous house "...well, home." She shrugged her shoulders as she said this, and I thought I knew what she meant.

"Seven dwarves, eh?" I said as I took aim and swished the ball through the hoop.

"Yeah, but don't ask which one is which, it tends to change pretty quickly. You know, with three teenage girls and all."

Within moments I think we each sensed that we had found someone with whom we could naturally match wits. I tended to be a bit

• 1
• 2
• 3
• ...
• 7
• Next Page >>