Verisimilitude

I don’t know if it is because we women are more intuitive, or perhaps when you’re married you have learned so well how your husband shows love and affection so that you see the signs probably before he even does.

I can remember every detail: we were both in the kitchen preparing food, chatting about this and that, when there was a sudden and deliberate pause in conversation. Veri-husband’s face clouded in a look of guilt as he sheepishly looked up to me and made his confession: He loved baseball more than football. As a couple, football has always been a big part of our lives. In our frenetic courtship I remember showing him DVDs of the Patriot’s incredible season that culminated in their first Super Bowl win. As I relived it, he started to live it. He was hooked, I was already a junkie, and years of cheering on our team — on the computer, on TV, and at the stadium — followed.

Ater we moved to New England I started to see the signs. When planning to go on vacation someplace warm he casually mentioned going to Florida which happened to be during spring training. During some downtime on the weekend he’d put on the game, drop some figures into our conversation. He bought a Red Sox cap — for the sun, you know — and started TiVo-ing the games.

After his confession all I could say was…I know. Of course I did — don’t we always? With his secret out, he has flourished as a Red Sox fan, watching or listening to most games and cheering them with the passion once reserved for football. As a semi-fan, I have found myself getting caught up. Going to Fenway last month, and having the time to watch the near-daily games has started to overcome my save-it-for-October tendencies. Last night I found myself excited for the big Tampa Bay game, even thinking about making nachos, a treat usually reserved for big football games.

Oh, the Patriots will always be #1 in my heart. But I think there’s some room for the baseball.

If ever seeking to train for a triathlon, don’t believe the programs that say it’s only 10-12 hours per week. That makes it seem like you do a bit of training in your spare time, an hour here and hour there, maybe a bit more at the weekend. Lately I’m finding my days seem to fill up with stretching, hydrating, seeking protein (as a vegetarian this can be taxing), planning routes, working around the pool’s lap schedule. Because it’s three sports there is also pumping bicycle tires, charging my iPod, rinsing swimsuits, and keeping track of helmets, gloves, bike shorts, goggles, swim cap, sneakers, sports bras and breathable tops.

Training is fun, watching my body get leaner and tighter is thrilling; I feel stronger and wake up teeming with electric energy, my muscles tired but tingling with anxiousness to keep moving. But I’m weary of the schedule invading my day, plans having to be worked around my workouts. In a month I’ll be ready to have my life back.

But still, through it all I hear a whispering in my ear…The Maine Marathon. I’ve nearly convinced myself to do a half marathon, and would feel ready if I kept up some of the physicality I’ve gained this summer. But since I injured myself preparing for a marathon years ago, I’ve always had the lingering need to complete what I’d worked so hard to do. I feel like I’ll always be a person who trained for a marathon but never completed it. I’m at the edge of the road not taken and I’m wondering if sometimes it’s better to take the well-worn, comfortable path or push myself further just one more time.

A few months ago Veri-husband and I StubHubbed some Red Sox tickets for yesterday’s game. We decided to make a day of it, getting to town early to climb the Pru, stroll along the Charles, and grab a bite down Landsdowne Street a couple hours before the game.

But as we sat in our cramped bleacher seats, I had the slight twinge I always get when I go see professional sports. These days tickets need to be saved up for, and I often wonder at the investment: I could comfortably stay my house for free and watch the game with all the camera angles I need rather than pay a small fortune to sit cramped, either baking in the sun if it’s baseball season, or freezing if it’s football season, squinting at the action from the not-so-cheap seats.

As if to underscore this point, within two innings a recovering Dice-K dug us an 8-run hole, and the stadium collectively wilted. Suddenly my couch seemed softer, my 6-pack cheaper, the line to my fridge awfully short. During the seventh-inning stretch a handful of fans groaned through “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” as the first beat-the-traffic fans started to trickle out of the stadium.

Then, as the Sox limped along, the other end of the bleachers started an enthusiastic wave. After roasting under relentless sun for three hours watching a deflated team, they defied the glum atmosphere and stood up and cheered like we weren’t five runs behind with the errors mounting. As the wave circled through the stadium, fans ignored the carnage on the field and jumped up — each round becoming more fervid than the last. By the time “Sweet Caroline” was pumped through the speakers fans were smiling, reaching out to each other and pumping fists into the air.

And then I remembered why going to games is so special, so worth the traffic, the weather, the growing price. Somehow being at a game brings people together in a way I’ve never seen anywhere else. Thousands of fans screaming, and cheering, propelling their team’s players to great heights, and holding them to task when they don’t live up to potential. People laugh at me when I talk about teams using “we,” as in: “We can’t seem to get our defense together” — but when you’re at a game, living and dying with each play, you do feel — for a fleeting time — like part of the team.

Fenway from the Pru:

The Pru from Fenway:

Fenway (with the Celtics logo from their honoring the day before):

In game five of the playoffs, I remembered why I was avoiding watching the Celtics play the Lakers in the finals: I’m horribly competitive. Emphasis on horribly. When it comes to watching professional sports I seem to have an alter ego (or at least I hope it’s an alter to my ego). I hate opponents irrationally, single out certain players and wish them ill, and twist my stomach in knots when we’re losing or have lost. People have asked me if I actually enjoy watching professional sports, and I defensively say yes, though in reality I’m not so sure.

The converse to this, of course, is the elation that comes with winning. The buoyancy it gives my step, and the sweetness it sprinkles life. Winning is all it’s cracked up to be; if only it could happen all the time. Oh, wait, but as a Boston fan, it does.

Thanks, 2007-2008 Celtics, for reviving the team:

…was the first thing I said to myself after hitting the little green enter button.

After a great run last night I did a victory lap around the house, arms waving frantically in the air, prompting veri-husband to sit me down and tell me I had to enter my triathlon, telling me how disappointed I’d be if I waiting too long and it filled up without me.

Last year it took me a long time to register for my sprint triathlon. I loved the training, but I’m not — you know — athletic so I feel like kind of a fraud. Like I’ll show up at the race and everyone will look at me with puckered faces wondering who the hell I think I am for trying to invade their sport. I fear that I’ll be midway through the race and someone will come up on bike (in my head I imagine it someone who’s already breezed through the finish line hours ago) and tell me sympathetically that they just have to open the roads back up, but, you know, I’m welcome to go ahead and finish the race on my own.

I’m afraid.

So I was waiting, hesitating, doubting. A sprint triathlon is one thing, but an olympic tri? Nearly twice as long? But he’s right. I want to do it, I am planning to do it, and I needed to step up and claim my place (which, judging from the completion times from last year, will be near the bottom of the pack). But I’ll be there, I’ll finish. At some point. I did last year.

For years my brother had a Celtics poster on his bedroom door. On it Larry Bird was making a jump shot and beneath was listed all of years the Celtics won a championship. I used to stare up at it, tracing the numbers with my small fingers, counting the years and the small gaps between the years. It seemed like they won EVERY year. The poster was bought sometime in the early 80s, and my brother had written updated years in whiteout: 1984, 1986.

As I wandered away from my hometown, the Celtics have wandered away from winning championships. I rarely followed basketball; the game changed and so did I. But if you were a child in Boston in the eighties, you have rich memories of watching the basketball greats and the Celtics soar.

So I’m ecstatic that today’s Celtics are in the the championship, and even more thrilled it’s a replay of an old rival. Or am I? I love the clips of the days of yore, the interviews with former stars, and the awe of the Celtics replayed in everyone’s minds. But I haven’t watched a game yet. I’ve peeked, turned it on for awhile, but it hasn’t held my interest for very long. I’m not sure if it’s because the game has changed or I have changed. Or maybe the thing about magical times is that they are only magical when looked back upon.

Either way, I couldn’t help but smile and yelp when I found out the Celtics had won last night in LA.

GO CELTS!!!

Today I scrambled to finish my grades, laboriously entered them into our clanky, cranky system, and then shot off to the end-of-year party.

I got home and realized something that had been lurking beneath the surface of my thoughts all day, but never fully realized in my mind.

I have nothing to do. No planning, no grading, no meetings, no stresses, no reflection on what happened in class, no worrying about next term, no worries about finding a summer job. Nothing.

I have nothing to do.

And it’s fabulous.

Last night Obama passed that magic delegate number to become the presumptive nominee. “Multiple sources” now are saying Clinton is about to end her campaign.

When the election coverage started well over a year ago, I paid little attention. I followed the headlines, but knew we weren’t going to really get into issues until the primary season started. And Hillary was a lock for the democratic nomination. I was wowed with Obama, thought him charming, but thought he was just not established enough to be a real contender.

Then I read his book. It was like someone had penned my thoughts about politics the ills of our society. I was enamored. I saw him speak and felt something welling within me, like I was seeing history in the making, that I would be boring my grandkids about shaking this person’s hand.

Around the same time Obama showed strongly and early primaries, and sort of just rode momentum to last night’s final victory. And what a victory was.

Meanwhile, Clinton’s been working tirelessly to claim the spot that once seemed inevitable. She’s been tough, resilient, and at times caustic and petty. I lost respect for her as a candidate, but it only helped to confirm my decision.

But now it’s over.

If you’re like me you’ve watched in horror as Bush took us to a unfathomable war, took overwhelming international goodwill and turn it - almost magically - into ridicule and contempt. Then you watched him somehow, inexplicably, get re-elected for four long years. If I was looking on the bright side I may say it was just long enough for him to permanently ruin his legacy. If I was looking on the dull side I’d say we’ve been sunk into an abyss that will takes years to crawl out from.

So now we must come together to ensure our ideals are brought to the foreground. We must forget race, sex, should have and could have. We must forget bitter battles and what we didn’t like about the other person. We must bury the vitriol and come together.

Hillary is a woman of tremendous resource and influence, and she is a fighter who will work hard for the very things we hold valuable. If we want our country, our world to change for the better, we need to put aside anger and bitterness and work together to move forward.

When writing my last post, I struggled to find why camping, such a flawed activity, is so wonderful and satisfying.

Strangely, just after posting I started to read Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv, a fascinating book about what we are doing to our children in the name of safety and time management — that we think of nature as a leisure activity, not a necessity, and therefore our crucial connection to nature is one of the first activities to get cut in our hectic lives. I’m previewing the book as a possible selection for my teaching colleagues to read this summer and discuss when we return. Ironically, I was reading it whilst supervising our silent reading activity, and when the students asked if they could read outside for the last ten minutes, I immediately started to say “no”. Even as a self-professed nature-lover: hiker, camper, recycler and wanna-be environmentalist, I was reluctant because it seemed too hard, too hard to get off my comfy chair, computer handily nearby, to sit in a sunny spot and read for ten minutes.

The book doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already intuitively feel about our lives; we know we’re over-plugged in, we know we should get outside more, and we know we all watch screens too much. But usually that mild guilt is as far as it goes. In his book Louv articulates this feeling so well, and in his opening passage I found him articulating what I struggled to say about the contentment I felt camping last week:

Unlike television, nature does not steal time; it amplifies it. Nature offers healing for a child living in a destructive family or neighborhood. It serves a blank state upon which a child draws and reinterprets the cultures’ fantasies…given the chance, a child will bring the confusion of the world to the woods, wash it in the creek, turn it over to see what lives on the unseen side of that confusion. Nature can frighten a child, too, and this fright serves a purpose. In nature, a child finds freedom, fantasy, and privacy: a place distant from the adult world, a separate peace.

This weekend Veri-husband and I went camping. The idea of camping always tickles me: VH and I have gone to great lengths and expense to live in a roomy place with a lot of land. We’ve invested in a posturepedic bed for restful nights, and we’ve bought fancy pans and appliances for our kitchen so our food can taste yummy..

But a few times a year we not only give all that up — we pay to give it up, pay to sleep on the ground under a flimsy piece of fabric, eat cooler food speckled with dirt and ash, in a patch of land as big as our bedroom and living room.

But as I ate mushy food scrunched into a folding chair, I found myself struggling to stay awake. Throughout the weekend I was in a hazy fog of reading by the fire, taking the dogs for a stroll, and just enjoying being unplugged, unstressed, and unbathed.

Then it makes sense. I’d pay a lot more for such gentle calm.