Breathe
By Edmée Pardo
While I was watching the last sunset of the year marveling at the disk setting the ocean horizon on fire, my new nephew, my niece's longtime partner, was focused on the soccer broadcast. On January 1, which I call the seed day of the year and do a little bit of everything I want to happen in the cycle that begins, he had his full attention on the semifinals of the college soccer playoffs whose winners would go on to the national title game of college soccer. They are the famous Rose and Sugar bowl, Orange and Cotton bowl; Fiesta and Peach bowl, depending on the year. As I wrote, made cornbread, stewed fish in black sauces with beans and offered flowers to the sea, I heard excited and celebratory little shouts from you.
What is it that you like so much about American, I asked the next day. It's chess in motion, with multiple simultaneous moves and more than one brain interpreting them; it's emotion and strategy, it's physical skill and understanding of moves, it's knowing how to read the offense and react in the moment. His eyes sparkled and the speed of his words increased as he spoke. I was shocked. The game of soccer is read and it was only on January 1, 2024 that I learned about it. Another type of reading in which I am absolutely illiterate. I have no vocabulary and no context. I have no references and no need. What do you mean, you read, I ask incredulously.
