Praying (and Playing) for Forgiveness

Some of my readers, all of whom wish to remain Anonymous, have recently pointed out that they believe I’m severely lacking in the forgiveness department.

They could be right.

My kid made it to the finals in a tennis tournament yesterday. I can’t resist bragging just a bit because he’s fourteen, and he was playing in the 16-year-old division. So it’s kind of cool that he made it to the finals, right?

It was cool until his 16-year-old opponent, who’s ranked 10th in the state, made some really bad calls. He cheated my kid!

I wanted to pull a Tonya Harding on him with my kid’s racquet. But that would have ruined an expensive racquet.

What’s the kid doing still playing 16s anyway? He’s ranked tenth in the state and probably should move on up to 18s if he’s hoping for a college scholarship.

I thought about sneaking out to the parking lot and slashing his fat father’s tires. The only problem was figuring out which beige suburban with the “I Love Tennis” bumper sticker belonged to fatty.

I mean, seriously? You’re sitting there with a Bluetooth device in your ear conducting business while your son is cheating a kid nearly two years younger than he is, and you’re proud?

You’re disgusting, your kid is disgusting, and I know a juco coach in Skankbutt, South Dakota, who would be very interested in recruiting him.

I'd also be willing to bet a can of ProPenn hard court balls that the balls you're playing with have lost their bounce.

But I’ve got to forgive. Move on. Let it go. Thank your son for the valuable lesson he taught my kid yesterday.

While I’m not quite at the level of enlightenment that would allow me to do what Jesus would do, I can muster the largesse to do as the bumper sticker on my golfcart asks: “What would Jimmy Buffett do?”

I’m pretty sure Jimmy would pray for him. Or maybe slide a roofing nail under the tire of that Suburban.

Forgive me, Lord.

Maybe Nadal After All

As it turns out, my kid, the great tennis player, is also an amazing writer. Below is an essay he wrote for English class, reprinted with his permission, of course. I've added a couple of editorial comments (in parentheses) for clarification.

Growing up under a sick (disgustingly good, for anyone over 15) athlete puts a lot of expectations on you. Everyone thinks you’re the next version of him. I’m sure Michael Jordan’s boys live in a dark shadow. Some rebel against the idea, and some take it as a challenge. Which is exactly what I did with tennis. It wasn’t planned; I just fell into it.

My mom played tennis in our country club and decided to take me to a clinic. I started playing on a monthly basis, which turned into a weekly basis and, finally, daily. As I progressed, people told me about a place where could really improve. This is where I met Murphy.

I walked up to the court where a teenager was playing better than anyone I had ever seen up close. Murphy was his coach; I instantly asked Murphy to help me.

He was more like a friend then a coach, and my game improved rapidly. Before I knew it, I lived in cheap hotels and was in a new state every weekend (playing tournaments) and out of school at twelve every day. Leaving school early was the coolest thing that had ever happened to me.

Or so I thought.

My best friends became just friends and my friends became just people in the hallway. I wasn’t up-to-date with the latest fashion unless it had to do with a tennis racquet. I had joined the Murphy Payne Witness Protection Program.

After a year, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I decided to put tennis to the side and have more time for friends.

A year has passed, and I’ve led an extremely social lifestyle. I go to school full time and hate it. And as I sit wandering where I would be if I hadn’t quit, I remember what Murphy used to say: “Do you know how many friends I have that I knew in high school?”

I always said no because his point was obvious. He wanted to show me that friends didn’t matter.

Friends do matter, right? They’re the ones who pick you up when you fall. Your brother from another mother. But will I know them ten years from now? Will I still be hanging out with them on weekends?

Of course not. I have big plans for myself. Which makes me think: am I going to be a professional friend?

So as I sit in class realizing how productive the past year could have been, I find myself daydreaming of winning a title. If I had to choose, I’d rather know my buddies on the professional tennis tour than my old high school pals.

I raise my hand to go to the restroom. Not because I need too, but so I can text Murphy.


Mom's note: As much as I would like to think I'm the "sick" athlete/parent, I'm pretty sure he wasn't referring to me. See my last post for an explanation.

Nadal? Not at All

My kid is a great tennis player. And I’m a champion tennis spectator. We make a great pair, this mom who loves tennis and loves her kid and the kid who burns through a pair of tennis shoes every three months when he’s training hard.

Well, we make a great pair when he’s playing and I’m watching. Recently, though, I pointed out that I’ve spent the equivalent of a Mercedes on his tennis lessons and that it should merit me a few free lessons from him.

He graciously took me out to the courts and spent a couple of hours working on my game. Finally, he shook his head in frustration and gave me his assessment:

1. My grip is screwed up. For those who don’t play tennis, it means I hold the racquet wrong.
2. My serve is horrible. Mostly, that’s due to the fact that I hold the racquet wrong.
3. I’m not very coachable. In other words, I wasn’t getting what he was trying to teach me.
4. Basically, as a tennis player, I suck.

After his assessment, whatever game I did have was shot. Every time I served, I heard his voice saying, “You’re not holding the racquet the right way.” In fact, I even double faulted an entire game with his voice echoing in my brain.

Every shot, I heard him telling me I was holding the racquet wrong. I got so confused I couldn’t tell the difference between what was my wrong way and what was his right way.

But the new season started yesterday. And I was in the lineup. In fact, I was playing a position higher than I’ve ever played in my life – all with a screwed up grip and a hideous serve. I had to suck it up and get out on that court and just play the best I knew how.

We won.

Granted, I was playing with a really great partner. And granted, she’s the reason we won. But to my credit, I didn’t cause us to lose. In spite of me, we won.

Let me say it again: we won. And it felt great. I walked just a tiny bit taller for the rest of the day. And of course I let my kid know about the win.

Last night, after I brushed my teeth and washed my face, I walked into my closet and pulled my pajamas out of the drawer. I pulled my sweatshirt off and then peeled off my tennis top. And that’s when I noticed that my tennis skirt was on backwards.

Now, I realize that tennis skirts can get all twisted around. But this wasn’t just a tennis skirt. It was one with the compression shorts built into it. I don’t know how, but I wore that sucker backwards all day long and never even noticed.

Did I mention that we won? Even with my screwed up grip and my hideous serve and my backwards skirt?

I’m going to have to wear that skirt backwards for the rest of the season.

Backhanded Compliments

I did something really stupid. I’ve spent the past three years playing very little tennis, a sport I love almost as much as I love Chick-Fil-A tea. To make up for all that lost time, I stupidly agreed to play winter tennis.

The thermometer registered 27 degrees when I stepped onto the court yesterday morning. But the wind blowing across the chunks of ice on the large lake next to the court acted like a giant natural air conditioner, officially making it colder than a witch’s titties during our match.

Since I’m new to the team, I met my new partner for the first time five minutes before the match. Shirley is a tall, gorgeous strawberry blonde with a powerful forehand. Before introducing us, my captain said to me, “You’ll like Shirley. She’s a good player, but she doesn’t talk much. Just tell her what to do, and she’ll do it.”

Sure enough, Shirley said hardly a word the whole first set. We clicked racquets after good points, and she nodded her approval at my better shots, but she still never spoke.

But when our opponent called out the score indicating they were at set point, I distinctly heard her say, “F*ck!”

Halfway into the second set, something happened that got Shirley talking. It was her turn to serve again, and she netted her first serve. She bounced the ball a couple of times in preparation for her second serve, then stopped and looked at me and said, “These are old balls. We’re playing with old balls.”

“I think they’re just not bouncing because they’re cold,” I said helpfully.

But Shirley was having none of it. She said to our opponents, “We need to open a new can of balls. These aren’t bouncing.”

Now, the United States Tennis Association has a rule stating that if the temperature is below freezing at match time, players have a right to refuse to play. One reason for the rule is that balls don’t bounce well when it’s below freezing. But we’d started the match, so we couldn’t refuse to play at that point. And since our opponents were winning, they were not inclined to open a new can of balls.

Shirley practically had a meltdown. “These are old balls,” she began muttering between points. And I’ve played just enough tennis to know that when a player has a meltdown, the match is pretty much over.

I tried to calm her down, but I had to admit that she had a point. Because I don’t exactly like playing with old balls myself.

For one thing, old balls aren’t pretty. They look bald and worn. And all too often, old balls are discolored, maybe even misshapen.

Even when they're warm, old balls have no bounce. And that makes them nearly impossible to play with. In fact, experienced players often can just give a ball a good squeeze and judge its fitness by its firmness.

But having entered into an agreement to play tennis that morning, we were stuck with old balls. So I said to Shirley, “They’re playing with old balls, too.”

As if a light went on in her head, Shirley laughed and said, “I guess I can’t blame my game on a set of balls.” And just like that, she was back in the game.

My new friend is, quite literally, a woman of few words. But they’re kind of profound.

Collecting Sweatshirts

I cleaned out my closet recently in preparation for my move to Florida. I knew it was time to get rid of some things when I realized I couldn’t see the Bon Jovi poster hanging on the wall. I started with my stack of sweatshirts that I no longer wear, since living in Florida means I won't need so many.

There was the U.S. Open sweatshirt from way back in 2004, the year Svetlana Kuznetsova beat Elena Dementieva for the women’s title and Roger Federer began his domination of the hard courts in Flushing Meadows. I put it in the pile to give away but then pulled it out. That trip was just too good a time to part with the only memento I possess.

I have a green sweatshirt from New York University. My daughter, Morgan, brought it back for me when she made her campus visit. My girl left for college last week, and given how proud I am of her, I will never be able to part with that NYU shirt.

The same goes for my grey University of Hawaii sweatshirt. Several years ago, my family hosted an exchange student from Lithuania. Petras now plays basketball for the University of Hawaii, and last December, my mother and I spent a week together on Waikiki Beach. We enjoyed great books and pina coladas during the day and cheered for Hawaii in the evenings. Unfortunately, Hawaii lost the Rainbow Classic tournament despite all the spirit I showed by purchasing a University of Hawaii shirt. But the shirt reminds me of a well-spent week with my mom, and it also speaks to how someone from the other side of the world can so quickly become a permanent family member. I’ll have it until the sleeves fall off it.

I also have a grey Oxford University shirt, one I obtained by accident. I took my three teenagers to England two summers ago, and we boarded a bus early one morning for a trip to Oxford, Windsor Castle, and Shakespeare’s home. To my complete consternation, we were hurried through our tour of the Oxford. I actually had to beg our tour guide to give me ten minutes to buy my kids each an Oxford University shirt. Somehow, I also ended up with the sweatshirt the guy in line in front of me paid for. I didn’t notice until our tour bus broke down an hour later and we were stranded on the side of the road in the chilly rain somewhere between Oxford and Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace. I opened the bag to hand my kids their sweatshirts and found the extra one, which I gratefully pulled over my tank top. A serendipitous sweatshirt that was free – life doesn’t provide many of those, so it’s surely a keeper.

By now, you might be wondering if I found one with which I could actually part.

I pulled out of the pile a navy blue sweatshirt with a banana on the front. Circling the banana are the words, “This sh*t is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S,” two lines from a Gwen Stefani song that was popular about four years ago. I bought it at her concert in November 2005, the same week I filed for divorce. It became my divorce uniform, my protest against the whole situation. I even wore it to my attorney’s office on the day I signed the settlement agreement that ended my 19-year marriage.

That’s the one I put in the give-away pile. Sometimes you just know when it’s time to let something go.

Acting Squirrelly

Ten minutes after Morgan’s grandmother and I hugged her goodbye and left her in the massive Third Avenue North Dorm at New York University, I opened my purse to discover that I had some of her important documents.

We were already in a cab bound for our hotel, and she didn’t need the documents immediately, so I promised to take them to her the next evening, after she returned from the day’s Welcome Week activities at Madison Square Garden and after I finished watching the day matches at the US Open.

Now, according to my son, whose tennis lessons have cost me the equivalent of a Mercedes, I “suck” at tennis. But I’m quite possibly the best in the world at watching tennis, especially in beautiful weather. It was a spectacular day. John Isner, the former University of Georgia star, won his match. Rafael Nadal and his muscles meanered past me as I sat eating lunch. I saw James Blake take the first two sets of his match.

At the end of Blake’s second set, Morgan called to say that I needed to vacate my expensive seat at the US Open immediately to go search my hotel room for her lost credit card.

“But I straightened up the room after you left, Morgan, and I didn’t see your credit card.”

“Just go look, Mom.”

“Can I wait until James Blake is finished playing?”

“I’m really worried that my card got stolen. Please just go look now.”

I left the US Open, warily trudging past the huge signs warning that there was no re-entry after I exited the grounds. And of course, as soon as I passed the point of no re-entry, I got a text from Morgan saying she’d found the credit card.

But she still needed her opening week schedule and vouchers. So when the shuttle from the Open dropped me off at my hotel, I jumped into a cab and told the driver to take me to Third and Eleventh.

I got to her dorm, walked into the lobby, and called to tell her I was there. She came downstairs, took her papers, and thanked me.

“Do you want me to take you to dinner?” I asked, fully expecting her to jump at the invitation. Her response brought back memories of a little squirrel I hadn’t thought about in years.

When we were teenagers, my brother, Beau, found a baby squirrel in the woods. He brought it home, and my mother helped him bottle feed the tiny, hairless rodent, much to the consternation of our dachshund, Tubbs. It was against the natural order of things, heretical even, for a dachshund’s family to harbor a squirrel, the bane of every dachshund’s existence.

Beau named the squirrel Sammy, and he grew into a fine-looking adult squirrel who seemed to love living in our screened porch. He spent his days jumping from the porch swing to the screened sides of the porch and climbing up and down the screened walls. He loved my mom and my brother, perching on their shoulders to eat and cocking his cute little head sideways when they talked to him.

But one day my parents broke the sad news to Beau that Sammy was grown. It was time to for him to make his way in the wild. They took the squirrel outside to the woods behind out house, and they set him down. The second his little feet hit the ground, Sammy took off.

So yesterday when I offered to feed her, Morgan tilted her head to the side, considering my invitation. And then she said, “Well, I already kind of had a papaya smoothie, and my friends are waiting for me upstairs. So I guess not.” I hugged her goodbye and watched her disappear back into her dorm.

And like Sammy the squirrel, my girl never looked back.

Shocked and Awed

Being in New York City reminds me of a little girl I met last summer at the Georgia State Tennis Tournament in Macon.

Hunter was warming up for a match, his second of the day. It was late in the afternoon and hot enough that I could feel my white-girl skin crisping up like a batch of Captain D's batter-fried fish.

I sat my stadium chair in the six inches of shade provided by an anemic magnolia tree and was watching Hunter's first serve of the match when a little girl planted herself between me and the court.

"My name is America," she announced.

"Hi, America," I said, smiling and tilting my head from left to right to see the action. I hoped she would get the hint that she was in my way.

"Today's my birthday. I'm six."

"Well, happy birthday! Did you have a party?" I asked, still trying to see around her.

"Uh huh. Guess what?"

"What?" I responded. Then, "That's it, man!" I said, encouraging Hunter when he won the point, my annoyance mounting as I exaggerated my efforts to watch the action.

"The night I was conceived, my parents were in New York City. And the next day was September 11, 2001."

I stopped trying to see around her. The child had just told me about the night she was conceived.

Now, I have conceived three children in my lifetime. And you know what? While I have a pretty good idea of where they were conceived, I'm not exactly sure about the when part. And you know what else? I've never discussed the where or my guesses as to the when with my kids. Because ewwww! Who tells their kid about the night she was conceived?

Collecting myself, I said, "I guess that's why you're named America."

"Um, no."

And then she skipped away, leaving me to believe little America had just redefined "shock and awe."