When I was younger and the world was a place of limitless possibilities, I had a dream of eating all the peanuts there were. Foolish, perhaps, and impractical, but we humans are foolish and this human anyway is very impractical. Of course I never came close to fulfilling my dream. I put it aside along with my idle thoughts of the World Series, a career in piracy on the high seas, and raven-haired Nancy, back in first grade, who kissed me the day I moved away.
Last night at the ball game, by accident, I very nearly succeeded in achieving my youthful goal. Not the World Series one. Inning after inning, shelling, tossing, reaching for the next handful ... I was a machine. I've never been in that zone before, can't imagine ever being there again. I didn't even stop for the seventh-inning stretch. My daughter looked on in awe.
You'd think I'd be triumphant today. Or let down in some vast Alexandrian sense -- no more legumes to conquer. But all I feel is a mild dis-ease, and no desire for breakfast whatsoever. Ho-hum. Sad, really. I wonder if all fulfilled dreams turn ho-hum? If I were to wake up tomorrow in a hammock on the high seas, covered in doubloons and parrot poop, would I ... yawn? Well, maybe, because I just got up. But after putting on my eye patch and earrings and big boots, and rolling my way to the galley for coffee, would I look around the heaving deck full of cutlass-wielding villains, and say, Meh? Oh, dear. Oh dear indeed. I wonder how I'd feel, seeing Nancy across the breakfast table?
Surprised, probably.
I think it was St Theresa who said there are more tears shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones. Maybe dreams are best unfulfilled.
Interestingly, the kid two rows back from me also had a night to remember. Chatty ten-year-old with dimples and big eyes, pounding his glove, at his first ever major league game. He caught a fly ball, got another ball tossed to him by a Texas outfielder, and won the promotion put on by Fed Ex. He'll probably never have a game like that again in his life. I wonder how he feels this morning?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Your peanut-eating adventures had me riveted to my screen in such a way that there may or may not have been ocular bleeding, from the pure intensity of it.
Your daughter, however, may now disown you if you propage the knowledge that her father makes people's eyes bleed. So let's keep this between us, mmkay?
Ah, a keen reader. Good thing you wear glasses. Direct exposure to my text could cause permanent damage.
RS
Post a Comment