Point of View: More Than Enough
Yes, spring may be here, but, besides the dazzling goldfinches and cardinals, there is the oaken semen dripping on one’s windshield, pollen-suffused air, allergies, tick bites, the wretched antibiotics required to treat them, and, sports-wise, it’s been a bit of a slog — the great majority of our high school’s teams not being playoff-bound.
Still, lushness is to be preferred to slushiness.
Presumably, there will be growth next spring, but then I wonder will I, a weekly sportswriter perhaps overly dependent on the winning drug, be here to enjoy it?
“. . . Old Time is still a-flying: And this same flower that smiles to-day / To-morrow will be a-dying.”
Of course, Robert Herrick was addressing virgins of the 17th century, not herniated geezers with total knee replacements of the 21st, but I hear what he was a-saying.
Long before Herrick, of course, there was Horace: “Dum loquimir, fugerit invida aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.” Carpe diem. Pluck the day. Though not so roughly as to forget the future, which, while it is not ours to know, we can try our best to shape. Which is why am I going to p.t. every week trying to strengthen, after 70-some years of slouching, my shoulders so I can stand erect.
It was my late mother-in-law’s express wish that I not hunch. Thus I’ve made it my mission to straighten up and fly right.
“Yet, it’s the process,” my inner voice reminds. “Don’t get so hung up on Ws, give the kids a break, treat victory and defeat as the imposters they are and have some fun while you’re at it. In short, be plucky, and pay attention.”
I had to admit I was right: Keep moving, keep improving, that’s the ticket. Did the kids learn, did they have fun? Those are the main questions.
In the end, though, why not simply settle for fun, for the movement that embodies life, and let self-improvement take its course.
The other evening at my brother-in-law’s Derby party, watching the kids — there must have been at least two dozen of them — playing dodgeball in the backyard as the sun went down was enough, more than enough.