Last weekend was almost perfect — almost perfect, that is, if you are an extrovert who loves road trips, meeting new people, Athens, Georgia, vintage clothes, and college basketball. Here is a big surprise: I am that extrovert, and as the architect of last weekend, I am pleased to say it was a rousing success. I drove to Athens, listened to podcasts, happily saw a number of cows, sang at the top of my lungs, dropped the top on the car, and sang even louder. I checked into my favorite hotel, and got the room key, and went to my room, where I was confronted with this: There was but a single king-sized bed.
This hardly sounds like a problem, but there is a rub. On the second night of my stay, I would have a roommate — Gwen — a friend from college that I had not seen in, oh, 27 years. So I called the front desk (Surely there is a mistake! This room was supposed to have two beds!), but there was no mistake, so I texted Gwen (Be sure to pack a pair of pajamas), and tried to ignore that in 24 short hours, I would be a 47 year-old woman sharing both a room and a bed with a long-ago acquaintance.
After a night alone, the next day brought official functions at the University, where I met with students who had applied to be part of a program there. I had been part of that program in the go-go 80s, and I fear that my loftiest goal in college had been to drive the largest Mercedes in production to an undisclosed location where I would quietly but efficiently take over the world. It was only much later that I realized total world domination may not be all that it is cracked up to be, and I embraced the charms of a more manageable, outwardly focused life. Having had this realization far earlier, these students had the jump on me, and when I spoke with them, I was inspired to hear how they envisioned themselves. Rather than being frustrated by seemingly insoluble problems, they seemed resolved to chip away — a little piece here, a little piece there — under the notion that something was better than nothing. And that something could turn into something big. One of the students described her outlook as “What next?” What next, indeed?
Well, Gwen arrived, and I doubled down on my I’m-a-47-year-old-woman-sharing-a-bed anxiety. I did not think that it would be like the Appalachian Trail a few years ago, bunking with strangers and hoping that mice would not run across my face. Oh, no. It was a lot of things, but perhaps it can be distilled into this comparison. Gwen was worried that she would snore. I was worried that I would wake up and find that I had made Gwen the little spoon. Oh, I am the worst — an inveterate cuddler who sleeps best as a socked-in puppy, serving as Chris’ personal electric blanket and furnace even — and maybe especially — in the heat of August. So I erected (discreetly, I hope) a barrier of pillows down the middle of the bed, an imaginary line of death for me, and I hoped for the best. Gwen snored lightly. I really did not sleep. When morning came, the two of us had one of those meaningful talks probably made possible by the bed, the soft foam barrier, the light snoring, and the sleepiness — a talk about the hopes and disappointments of the last 27 years. And because I am me, I cried.
But there is no crying in baseball, and I suppose basketball, too, and I had a ticket to a men’s college hoops game. Being the only sports fan in my household, I am met with foot-dragging reluctance at all sporting events, which means I never get there for pre-game activities. Saturday’s game was bobble-head day, for the first 1,000 fans got a Shandon Anderson bobble-head. I raced to the coliseum, and tugged on the doors, and twenty-one minutes later, when the doors finally opened, I was number three. I collected my bobble-head and grabbed my seat and began to wonder why I felt compelled to come to a basketball game an hour early. The big excitement was watching an Ole Miss fan with the worst toupee I had ever seen creep further and further onto the court, until his wife was taking photographs of him as the players ran their drills all around him. His ultimate removal from the floor was a little exciting, but not enough — no, not really enough at all — to kill the other 57 minutes.
But the game finally started, and I fell into the steady rhythm of being a sports fan. For me, that involves yelling and clapping, singing the fight song, secretly assuring myself that with the right amount of Tylenol, ice, and Spanx, I could still make the Dance Dawgs half-time troupe. I was in this happy reverie, alone on a short row, until a woman sat down next to me, and her husband — I thought of him as the Handsome Mute — sat next to her.
I am pleased to tell you that Bobby Knight has shifted shape to a woman in her early 60s, sensible haircut and comfortable shoes, attired entirely in black, a rabid fan of Georgia Bulldogs basketball. There was no joy in the game for her. There was one mishap after another, a constant barrage of palms to the forehead. She enjoyed the game the way that a coach enjoys the game, which is to say not at all, and my great regret was that I did not have a clipboard to hand over for her to throw. (My great relief was that all chairs were securely bolted to the coliseum floor.) So we were watching the game, the Handsome Mute, Bobby Knight, and I, and all of sudden Bobby Knight yelled, “YOU WERE UNDER THE BASKET, WILLIAM.”
My computer lacks a scorn font to adequately convey how this sounded, and I have no idea how to embed a sound file of my saying this, but I hope that you get the idea. For William was under the basket, and he should have gotten the shot or the rebound or whatever he was under the basket for, and he did not. (I have not interviewed William for this story, but the lapse was so glaring that I have no doubt that he acutely realized that he was, in fact, under the basket yet screwed up.)
I have thought a lot about Bobby Knight’s words all week, for lately I have felt under the basket, William. Flat-footed. Slow. Knowing what to do in theory, unable to execute it in practice. A step too late, an aim too imprecise, a clutching of the ball when I should have thrown it away, throwing the ball away when I should have clutched it tightly. It has been low-level, and not at all catastrophic, but unable to resist the urge to revisit disappointments and hammer home even obvious mistakes, I have dwelled on it.
I clearly needed a Plan B to dampen my inner Bobby Knight. I happened to pick up a magazine and read a column by Martha Beck. To deal with problems, she suggested a three step process:
- Freedom.
- Kindness.
- Rest.
I have tried it. To my delight, this has not resulted in my running out of the home or workplace, hands up and hair flying, for a fit of narcoleptic-level sleeping. It has been as simple as not folding clothes at 10 p.m. (freedom), assuring myself that the world would continue to revolve on its axis were those clothes not folded right then and there (kindness), and hanging out in the hot tub instead (rest), So for the the last week or so, I have been in these little F-K-R cycles, and it has been a pleasure.
In this vein, I enjoyed a weekend — this weekend — that was perfectly ordinary. It was ordinary, yes, but do not misunderstand what I mean by perfectly: It was the Platonic ideal of an ordinary weekend. I saw a luna month on the fence post near where I park my car, a purple pansy growing out of a crack in a parking lot. I napped and I laughed and I ate dinner with friends. On a gorgeous Saturday afternoon, I worked in the yard with Chris and our son, raking and sweeping, cutting off dead branches, getting everything ready for spring.
Part of the preparations extended to the birds. I cleaned the fountain and the bird bath, moved the feeders, hung new bird houses. I turned to an older bird house, high on a post, a house that I had painted bright red with a black roof, figuring that any bird worth her salt would embrace such festive digs. Last spring when I was in the backyard, I looked at the bird house at just the right time and saw a yellow head poking out of the hole, followed by a body, and a small bird taking flight. It was a moment of magic.
Chris opened the bird house to clean it out, and there was last year’s nest. Birds apparently do not reuse nests, so Chris gently handed it to me. “Someone had quite a family,” he said. And I peered into the nest and saw that he was right and carefully took the nest and sat it on a table. I then snapped this photograph, which may have been the most beautiful picture I have ever taken:
Look at the nest. It was an accumulation of small parts woven into a marvel, bits and pieces of the surroundings spiraled into a complex whole. There was joy (the remnants of the hatched eggs) and a stark reminder of disappointment and failed plans (the unhatched egg). The very stuff of life, which I held in my hands and which you see in this photo, overwhelmed me and calmed me. And it made me think: Yes, there have been many times I have been under the basket, William, and while I have missed my fair share of shots, not all of those times have been lame attempts at the game. There has been offense and defense and a whole lot of net. And it is all good.
ALC
P.S. — Being outside all weekend and preparing for spring stuck the last line and one-half of this ee cummings poem in my head:
never could anyone
who simply lives to die
dream that your valentine
makes happier me than i
but always everything
which only dies to grow
can guess and as for spring
she’ll be the first to know