Ultimate and a View! Really!!

Just wanted to let the rest of the world know that I had a blast last night playing ultimate.

My breath was taken by what I saw when I arrived at the field to begin to set up.  I had never seen anything like it before, I had seen something like it maybe on Discovery Channel, but this was real life.  I was looking at an enormous cloud of dragonflies just swarming over the entire soccer field.  Now dragonflies here are not like dragonflies in the states, these are HUGE.  Each one was at least 2 inches long and brightly colored, there were reds and blues and green and browns.  There were thousands of these wisps of color flitting around the field.

I walked onto the soccer field about 30 min. early to set up the field up to play.  So I went through the routine, walk to the edge of the field put a cone down, count off about 15 yards and drop another cone... "that should be pretty close to a regulation endzone".  As I walked around the field counting steps and dropping cones, I couldn't help but drink in the beauty surrounding me.  I was taking my time and just enjoying walking amongst the thousands of dragonflies that seemed to pay no attention to me.

The first person showed up around 4:15 so we began to throw around until about 4:30 when enough people had arrived to split into teams and begin playing.  Now I was excited to play ultimate because it is one of my favorite things to do, but at the same time I didn't want to get out and run around the field for fear of running all the dragonflies off.  But everyone else was there to play ultimate not stare at a cloud of dragonflies, so we split up into two teams, ran out on the field and played.

They weren't scared off by us at all.  Those vibrant streaks of color continued buzzing around us the entire time we played.  I don't think we bothered them one bit and they sure weren't bothering me.

There were a few moments in the game (mostly after we would score) that I just stood on the field and looked at this marvelous creation we are a part of.  The dragonflies swarming.  The lush bright green grass so soft against bare feet.  The bamboo and other tropical trees and plants lining the outside of this huge field adding their own greens and browns.  Mt. Merbabu rising majestically in the distance, clearly visible over the tree line.  The setting sun turning the clouds surrounding Merbabu a orangeish-pink color.  This inactive volcano, for a moment seems to come alive and pour forth smoke and ash colored by the lava within. The faces of the adults and children running around and delighting so in the fellowship of the game.

I have to say that have played a lot of ultimate the last 8 years, but last night was one of my favorites.