Summer is approaching, and with it, the smiles of the little ones heading to their nearest personal playground with a ball under their arms. It's true that we don't see that image of youngsters playing in the street as much anymore. But not so long ago, summer, street, and sun were synonymous with a Mikasa ball on asphalt or sand, backpacks, or stones emulating goalposts. Maradona said that "the ball doesn't get dirty," but getting home with the ball was an achievement in itself, because if it wasn't lost in the heat of battle, it's only natural that it wouldn't arrive clean or in its original form either. Without a doubt, the true trophy of childhood was getting home with the ball nestled between your hip and forearm.
If the streets could talk, we'd make documentaries. Smiles filled every corner where a ball rolled. Fernando, for example, a Cuban street child, didn't like to play anywhere but the street because it "didn't let him slide," and that kept him from having fun. For Fernando, as for many others, the beauty of playing in the park was that everyone could play. Even those without shoes. This is what he described in the Cuban magazine 'El Estornudo'. The ball gets dirty.
In my particular case, I remember those afternoons fondly. Below my window was a small pink patio with wavy tiles. There was no more unstable ground. For the generation of children who lived there during that time, that patio will always mean something more. There were no schedules, only the sound of a bouncing ball that indicated someone was playing, which encouraged the rest of the youngsters to come down and play until the sun disappeared. We were a problematic generation. What we saw as bleachers were houses where we forgot there were people sleeping. We didn't have schedules, but the rest of us did, and it was logical. They closed the patio to us.
Football forced us to experience the first heartbreaking moment in our lives. That fateful moment when a sign was posted saying: No Football Playing. It's striking that it affected us so much, especially considering there were municipal fields just a few meters away. But they had taken our stage where we played music. Where the result, and above all, the resources, mattered least. Not only was it a playing field, for us, the best; it was also a forum for the most mundane debate imaginable.
I've seen many more courtyards since then, some even more aesthetically pleasing. I suppose the courtyard or street where you first decided to hit your ball will always be something you hold dear to your heart and hard to get over. Especially when it's right under your window. For years, absolute silence reigned over that courtyard, and the only glimpses of the ball you can see come from afar, from a court a few meters from our favorite stadium in the world: the pink patio with its corrugated tiles.
It's the magic of the spotted ball that has awakened hope in many of us, especially for the little things. For the small moments and the noble things. The magic of the spotted ball that made us forget for a moment that we were children, that we were mortal. We thought we were stars until our parents called for dinner.