Playing II

My left wrist is only ever so slightly swollen. Yesterday I returned to the scene, an Astoria public playground, where eight weeks ago the experience caused me to wax almost rhapsodic about handball playing, my good health and the appeal of exercise, companionship and the great outdoors. Well, today I am aware that I did not appreciate sufficiently, those sentiments of mid-summer.

The dew point was horribly similar to that of late July, though temperatures were properly autumnal. The spur was a small window of rainlessness that IS appreciated after the obscene August experienced here in the northeast (not the greatest amount of rain in N.Y.C. history's eighth month of the year, but the greatest rain in any month in our city's annals). I scooted down there to meet my phlegmatic pal and fellow player, Mr. B. I was eager and I had what I needed to compete: sneakers not yet a danger, i.e. no flopping soles about to secede from their uppers, relatively decent "play" pants not too likely to fall and trip me given my sturdy belt, and the same ball as used before (a gift from B.). There was a sort of nervous energy on my part. I had played like a 30 year old in my impressionistic assessment of July's proceedings. Now I would display equal, nay, more masterful savvy and predominance on the court and over my cautious and seemingly tentative partner. A game of "eleven" (first to score eleven points, by a margin of at least two points wins) was determined to be played. In a few short minutes I am leading 10-4. I score no more points in this first game. The 12-10 final score is disturbing. In an effort to ward off my steadily charging opponent's advances I am increasingly counter-attacking but am really just defensively lunging for fabulous "gets" that, guess what? I'm not getting: the ensuing drama just the desperation of an easily tiring man whose aggressive style almost imperceptibly becomes erratic. I lose the next two games by slightly less close scores. Somewhere during the event, maybe at the close of the first "heartbreaker" I had sprinted with abandon to return a deftly placed "love tap" close to the bottom of the court's concrete wall on the extreme left. I did not make the play and my momentum carried me beyond the wall and off to the side, its far boundary being a strong and very tall chain link fence painted black and separating the court from an equally high building close enough to the other side of the fence to prevent any great "give" by the wire metal barrier. I braced for the crash with the inevitable consequence of my speed and mass being slowed by my left palm, and of course, wrist and surrounding ligaments, muscle and bone. "It's only a sprain", I keep telling myself. There was little pain, as I concentrated on avenging, unsuccessfully, the first game's result. Today, after much ice yesterday evening (arguably, too much) some discomfort is still there, but rest seems to assure that nothing is broken as I'm pain free when not moving the hand about.

Losing is not a subject that I care to discuss at length. At least, I'm not ready to do so in this little blog today. It's undeniably a sore point. And the focus on carving one's name on some sort of victory tree, or to "count" a supposed success based on, well, counting of a certain number of points, is very deep in the human psyche and the avoidance of failing in this regard is as old as the first foot race, wherein the prospective no.2 man stuck out his leg at the last moment (trying to hide the dastardly move while in close proximity to his fleeter opponent) to send the hated golden boy sprawling into the dust. "Sore loser" is much less repugnant a term than "arrogant winner" in my experience. However, my long years of being, usually, in the "coulda, woulda, shoulda" category has perhaps skewered my objectivity, as smilingly modest and magnanimous victors within my ken, i.e. guys who've regularly"whupped me", still come across as monstrous hyenas, laughing up their sleeve, or stifling a "hoot" with some thinly veiled patronizing remark like "great job" or "you're a tough competitor!"

Now I must seek to truly embrace the genuine meanings behind my platitudes of earlier: those about good health, thanking God for the gift of our corporeal beings and the delights of a cardio-vascular workout, regardless of our delusions of the grandeur of athletic mastery. It's a hard lesson to learn for we of the Perhaps Permanently Swollen Egos Society. If it is the terminal affliction that I fear it is, there is, at least, warm comfort in knowing that my wrist's current modest bulge will not successfully compete with such a malady. Still, I may no longer run like a man possessed, to avoid inflations or deflations of wrists, egos or anything else. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" may be the cry of the well-adjusted of textbook fame. Well, sometimes we no.2's choose to abstain from everything and "playing", we feel, ought to truly be an option, not the dictate of an extroverted society that scolds the overly sensitive and we whose thresholds of pain are sometimes even lower than our self-esteem. As Ruby Red Dress once said: "Leave me alone. Why don't you leave me alone?" You go girl (or not)!