Play to the audience

I just spent a week inside with virtually no exercise at all!  In defense of this I must say the temperatures have been horrendously hot this week!  Over a hundred degrees does not lend itself to cavorting around outside anywhere except a pool, but no matter how good the reasons are, I begin to get depressed after a period without any movement at all.

This morning I woke up feeling sad and lonely and ready to eat to assuage the pain.  Instead of eating I began writing.  That is usually a very good thing for me to do and I have been working on a story lately so it was a pretty easy solution.

Until the middle of the afternoon when I just had to do something!  I decided to go hit some tennis balls.  The weather was a little cooler and nothing ever makes me feel much better than getting out on the tennis court.

I was lobbing balls off the backboard when a young couple came out and began playing two courts over.  A few weeks ago this would have chased me away, but I have learned that no one who is any good ever plays on these courts.  They have a strange playing surface that suits my feet very well, but is not particularly good for accuracy.

At first I was acutely aware of these people, but as they began to shag balls from all over the enclosure I realized that I was hitting better than ever!  Suddenly I was doing what I used to do, playing better than ever because I felt like I had an audience!

Now I really don’t know if they were paying any attention to me at all.  The notion that everything is about me is an old one and one that I have often discovered is not at all true.  Everyone is usually out there worrying about themselves – not the people next to them,

Ego is amazingly strong even at my age!  Of course the sad truth is that I don’t play that well anymore and when I do it wears me out almost instantly.  Soon I was shagging balls out of the back forty over the fence and finally I finished up my half hour.

I limit myself to a half hour because if I really play like I want to, it is all my right arm can handle, not to mention my ankles and feet, but today I wanted to play more!  I was really liking the idea that someone else might be noticing how I was doing!  Nature took over.

I hit a ball and it stuck in the fence way above my reach.  Undaunted I immediately hit another ball!  And it immediately lodged itself right next to the first one!  I was through, finished, kaput!

I could have used the can of new balls in my trunk, but by the time I walked over there and packed away my racquet and my sweat rag, common sense had a firm hold and I got in the car to drive home.

There was a reward though.  Just as I got in the car I received a text message sent late last night.  Such timing!  Life is good!