Stays in my pocket since last week.  It costs $1.07.

What it does for me is take me out of myself for a second or so.  If I toss it high enough, I am lost in its trajectory for several seconds.  I sometimes bounce it off a wall.  When I get a chance, I toss it back and forth with Nita.

I suppose it is ineffable how the rubber sphere takes me back to the solid red versions I had as a child.  My new one is yellow with orange stripes.  As a child I was seldom without a ball of some sort.  I remember bouncing a basketball from my house on West Church street to the outdoor basketball court at Saluda Elementary.  I would shoot at one goal and then another and take the long way home bouncing all the way.  My knuckles swelled to twice their correct size.

I returned to ball throwing a couple of decades ago at Northwestern High School.  I think I found my first ball and jus started tossing it to relieve tension.  For a while tossing it at my door between classes as I monitored upstairs A-hall became a habit.  I would just lean against a wall and toss.  Inevitably a student would smile and become involved in play.  I loved catching a student looking my way so that I could toss it over.

Sun watches me now as I toss it outdoors but I know better than to allow her to have it.  Her tail begins to wag just seeing it come out.

When a ball is in the air, the mind goes to it and it only.  I seem to stop time and step out of my self momentarily.  Every other thought becomes secondary.  The aerial suspension forces my concentration on the pending convergence with my hands.

I like skipping out of myself.  Were I in Congress, I would like to toss one to an angry Republican so that we could come together for a brief spell.