the games we play

i am dreaming of the ocean. bounding along a beach with golden-white sand, the way it is behind the hundred-year-old Hawaiian church at Makena. a black flash beside me leaps into the blue surf, it is my brother's puppy Keo. then i am a seagull, flying up into wakefulness.

noon...

i scrape the last teaspoonsful of sugar from the depths of this huge glass jar in Jane's kitchen. some whitening powdered cream, crystals of dried coffee. water heated in a ceramic cup in a microwave oven... my wakeup call for the day.

sitting like a yogi in front of the t.v. in Jane's room, watching two women: the rangy, powerful Venus Williams, all legs and arms and whipping racket; Martina Hingis, pluck and all-court wit and vision, the Swiss sensation, #1 in the world. they're battling it out in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon, my favorite tennis tournament to watch. a titanic 3-set struggle ensues, with break after break of service games, unusual given that Venus is such a tremendous server. but the match ends on just the right note, a 110-mph Williams ace. untouchable. she leaps into the sky, left arm shooting high, a fist of triumph, a scream of delight. she will meet her sister Serena in the semis. happy 4th of July, Americans!

almost one p.m.

i fire up the computer, sit down to write this. grab the nearby phone, dial a number 300 miles to the south, wake Angel's sleeping self to hear him mumble about driving back up to Berkeley tonight... "drive carefully, carnal" more games the rest of this afternoon, i know: fierce table tennis with Venchi, Aaron's dad, at their house. some beer and barbecue, perhaps. but not too much. i have to return to Tolman tonight, to prep for tomorrow's class, and to wait for my friend and fellow mentor to arrive.

more games the rest of this summer, i know: Age of Kings at AIC Thursday, DDR sometime else, watching the TIC kids play football and frisbee at break, the Olympics in fall. i always dream i'm a miler, or a distance runner. i dream i'm Hicham el-Guerrouj. i dream i have his legs, his lungs and his heart, i dream of the crowds at the finish line vanishing into a blur as yet another world record falls. i dream i am emerging from the ocean, a whale breaching, a seal releasing into air, the curled tip of a breaking wave as it meets the offshore breeze.

we are all in play, no matter what we do. even in sleep. it marks us as human, and alive.

8:30 p.m.

Angel's back, and is now playing Diablo again. Level 16. after he beats The Devil, we're gonna go find some grub. anyway, this afternoon I hung out at Aaron's... played some ping-pong with his Dad. his mom's puppies, Venus (a chihuahua) and Ferret (a dachshund), made me miss my dad's puppy.

at one point, after i had played my fill of the piano (Bach's Prelude and Fugue in G Minor), i said to Aaron well, let's go upstairs and check out the condition of your room (the one that was burglarized and vandalized, months ago, and to which he has only recently returned). we talked seriously, for a while, and i realized that what i really wanted to check out was the condition of his mind and his heart.

perhaps he will update us all on this, in future weblogs. or not. time will tell.

Talkback...

Jun Aug

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