Last month, I wrote a TWT post inspired by watching my girls’ soccer teams in action this fall-From Practice to Transfer. I’m thinking about them again this week. Their coaches are a passionate group. Practices always run late, not because they start late, but because the coaches never look at the time. They get so engrossed in the skills, scrimmages, and the kids, that they never pay attention to the time. While, there are times that I didn’t hear the coaches yell, “one more round” twenty minutes after practice was supposed to end. But more often than not, I’m quietly grateful our girls have a place where they aren’t chasing time, with grownups who aren’t hurrying them along. A space to linger, grow, and play.

Last week, as we turned the clocks back and I pulled into the field’s parking lot, I wondered if practice would let out on time, now that there was zero sunlight and the skies were pitch black. Seven o’clock came and went and wouldn’t you know that practice went even later than usual. I chatted with the girls about it afterwards. Could it be because there was no setting sun to let the coaches know that they had surpassed the practice time? Now that most of the practice was in the dark, they just played…until their generator powered lights went out…

In a hurried world, I’m grateful for this.

For coaches who care more about one more round than the clock. For spaces where kids aren’t being rushed from one thing to the next. For grownups who are so present in what they’re doing that they forget what time it is.

A place where the goal isn’t always to get somewhere else, but simply to be right where they are.

I’m left wondering, how do we get more of that?