Food for the Soul
Is planning an adventure an oxymoron? I thinks so, if you believe that the adventure begins when the trouble starts: a philosophical conversation for another time perhaps. I just want to share all the little desert moments on a simple weekend trip that, while perhaps not epic, are still food for the soul.
Bottom of the tenth inning. The winning run is at the plate. Montgomery throws, hangs a curve. Martinez rips it into the left field stands and the Indians win the world series. The stadium erupts in a pandemonium that lasts for thirty minutes. My brother Bruce texts a curse and calls Maddon the worst manager ever. He throws his cell phone on the ground. It will be a week before I hear from him again. The fans that aren’t enraged or crying just stare blankly into the void in disbelief looking forward without seeing.
So it goes.
Maddon’s blunder explodes into another Cub’s legend joining goats and Bartman and Garvey. Instead of an amazing season in which the Cubs achieved the best win record in Cubs history and a National League championship, they are remembered as a team that choked. Forget the amazing moments when Maddon worked his magic during the regular season: a two-strike suicide squeeze; toggling a pitcher between left field and the pitcher’s mound; pulling his team out of slump; pulling off post-season victories against the Giants and the Dodgers. Everyone will remember the one moment in the last inning of the last out of the last game and forget all the rest.
So it goes.
Tomorrow comes. History moves on. There is nothing to do but ride out the winter in the post-partum dullness of the off season. No tears, no joy, no ebullience, no uncertainty, no heartache and no awe. And no memory of great victory.
So it goes.
But wait ’til next year!
The end of the season is at hand: win, lose or draw. Ha, draw. There is no draw. There is only greatness or another lost opportunity.
Two teams that haven’t won a series in 68 or more years; the Cubs down 3-1 in the series with their backs against the proverbial outfield wall, already making an incredible comeback, a game 7, in the world series. The whole season comes down to this one game.
But the script writers are working overtime. There is more. Let’s knock out the Indian’s ace, roll over the highly vaunted Cleveland relievers, and make it an easy win with a three run advantage with the fastest recorded thrower in baseball coming to the mound. No, we’ll bring in the Cubs highly vaunted ace and let him blow a three run lead on a two-run Davis home run that rocks the stadium to its foundation. The faces of the Cubs fan go pale as the years of frustration and folly flash through every fan in the Cub empire. Cub’s fans everywhere curse Maddon’s choice to over pitch the legendary Chapman in game six.
The Cubs hold and the game goes into extra innings. The game goes to the middle relievers of both teams, the guys that don’t touch the ball until all the starting arms and closers and aces have been exhausted. The guys that aren’t supposed to touch the ball at all in a game 7 of the world series.
The script writers need to build up more tension, as if game seven in extra innings of two improbable teams and the chance for an improbable come back in the series by the Cubs and an improbable come back in the game by the Indians isn’t enough. Let’s throw in a rain delay, just for fifteen minutes. Not long enough to dull the tension or lose an audience, just long enough to make everyone think about the possible endings and to think about how they game progressed to this point: a throwing error and a wild pitch that knocks over Ross allowing two runs to score followed by his redemption home run to end his long and productive career on the highest of notes, Bryant’s incredible base running scoring on a short fly ball and taking three bases on a Rizzo double, more redemption on a home run after two errors by struggling Baez who so dominated earlier series, Schwarber’s improbable return and success at the plate, Almora’s tag from first on a Bryant fly ball to the wall, to score moments later on a Zobrist double, and finally another Davis RBI to bring Cleveland to within one with the winning run at the plate.
And then a little tapper by Marinez to Bryant at 3rd and all the years of waiting, all the curses, all the bad breaks, all the lapses in judgement, all the just bad luck just evanesce into the history of baseball. None of my siblings will have to wish that I could have been there. I have seen it. I have seen it with my own two eyes. The Cubs have won the World Series in one of the best games I have ever seen.
Improbability drive finally kicked into high gear? Has the world flipped on its head so that sun rises in the west? Is the 12th of Never a fall day in 2016? Has the entropy of hell sufficiently lowered for a snowball fight? Have geneticists developed a flying pig? Will monkeys fly out of my butt? Or the Cubs win the series?
You promised that you'd do it When the Cubs won the series The chances so improbable, It wouldn't happen even in theory, The girl you said you'd marry, When the Cubs won the series Well its fifty years later, I hope you love her dearly The debt you said you'd pay back When the Cubs won the series, Well its forty years later, The interest accruing yearly All the healthy things you said you'd do When the Cubs won the series, Well its thirty years later, Even your scale refuses query You told me you'd put spots on zebras When the Cubs won the series, Well its twenty years later, Spots instead of jail stripes would be rather cheery You promised me a ton of cheese When the Cubs topped the world, Well its ten years later, And your milk hasn't curdled You thought it would be the end of time When the Cubs won the series, There is no more waiting now Your plight is getting serious. A day of reckoning is here Your old promises you mock Now you will be accountable When the Cubs put you on the spot
I am 108 years old. I was born on Oct 15, 1908, the day after the Cubs won the last game of their last world series victory. My life has been great, full of adventure and travel and working with smart people and making love to beautiful women and sometimes being a little closer to history then I would have liked. But through it all, baseball, the Cubs, have marked the time. Baseball has passed the days and the nights creating as many highs and lows and stories as the time that passed through it.
I’ve only had one regret in life, I think. I don’t know. It is just something that has lurked in the back of my mind. Maybe, I just have the slightest trace of PTSD. I have never shaken it. I was 36 years old at the time, leading men onto sandy beach to die during a beautiful sunset over the ocean in the South Pacific. Our intelligence was bad, there were far more enemy troops here then expected. Men dropped on either side of me as we stormed the beach. Zeros cruised over head straffing and dropping bombs; concussion blasts ripping men to pieces as they ran. The life expectancy on the beach was about five seconds. A wave of enemy soldiers came at us, bayonets clashing, rounds firing and whistling by me on all sides. I broke through the line and saw a thousand more men up on the hill ready to charge us. I dove into a foxhole and put my back to the dirt wall and the enemy. The only victor in this bloodshed would be the last person to get there when everyone else was already dead.
Coach Kangaroo slowly moves his way out to the mound, the bill of his cap tilted down, Tail, front paws on the ground, lift the huge back feet forward and repeat, So slow it almost seems like he is going backwards. "Listen son, your pitching" shaking his long thin snout side to side somberly, scratching the fur on his chest, taking the baseball in both fore-paws, rotating it seam over seam, licking it to see if it might taste good "your pitching, ain't so good" squinting his eyes in the harsh afternoon sun. "Sometimes you just got to stop and eat the roses" "And if they don't digest immediately, regurgitate the roses and try again" "You get my meaning?" asks Coach Kangaroo. Max looks at him like he just peed on his leg, which he might have. Coach Kangaroo hops off turning over his shoulder offering one last bit of wisdom "Oh yeah, and watch out for the dingos" Max, pitches, the spit on the ball giving his curve ball an extra half foot of drop. The hitter misses the pitch, twisting so hard that he loses his balance and falls to a knee. Max has his groove back, and a new pitch in his repertoire.
Music where there is no sound The dance of space is all around Put your ear to the vacuum ground A wave is something that goes up and down Your floating in space your headset drawn nothing to listen to all the stations gone The earth and moon hear the sound The earth and moon dance around Moon face never looking from Earth's ground Always falling, never coming down Your floating in space your headset drawn nothing to listen to all the stations gone The magnetic sun hears the sound It sun spots dancing all around Electric fields to their electric ground Magnetic lines arcing up then down Your floating in space your headset drawn nothing to listen to all the stations gone The milky way hears the sound Dancing with stars all around Dark matter galactic edges an unseen ground Stars moving fast when they should slow down Your floating in space your headset drawn nothing to listen to all the stations gone Do you hear it yet? You need more than your ears math, sensors, and signals the offbeat sound of spheres Space itself hears the sound Dancing to the static all around birth sounds of the universe in the background even with the universe cooling down Your floating in space your headset drawn nothing to listen to all the stations gone
She stands in the shadows of the alcove, her back to its inner wall, her black hair in a bun, her red lips pursed longingly as she gazes intently upon me as I saunter down the cobbled road in the noon day sun casually dressed in my pin stripped suit, ascot, and top hat. The intensity of her gaze stops me dead in my tracks in the middle of the street, a Vespa swerving and honking and shouting as it curls around me. I return her gaze just as intently. She steps out from the shadows in front of the doorway and squares off with me as I turn to her. I face her, she faces me. She is stunningly beautiful and athletic.
The improbability of it, the impossibility of it, could two strangers throw off the shackles of their different cultures, different languages in the middle of this humble road and dance to perfection. She sways ever so regally and the ends of her lip curl up in the subtlest of smiles. My moment of hesitation and doubt pass. “Now” I say, taking her hand, “shall we show the people the meaning of the word dance? Music!” I command.
The accordions and violins and cellos begin to play. We ready ourselves. “Not yet.” Our minds and hearts synchronize to the music. Our weight shifts to the front of our feet. “Now!” I put my hand on her slender waist. And we move as one, as if we are locked together in an eternal entangled embrace, that defies the laws of attraction and repulsion and gravity and effortlessness and all common sense. Spinning, pausing, swaying, rocking, dipping, lifting. Floating effortlessly above the cobblestone dance floor, above the street, moving in mid-air, her graceful legs parting her dress seductively, rising on the music, the joy, the love, kissing, lost forever in the moment.
The music stops. She curtsies to me. I bow to her. The street musicians go back to their business. The crowd disbands. She steps back into her doorway. I continue on my way down the street. The moment gone, the moment forever.
The campfire has died down, the moon has yet to rise, a breeze whistles gently through the tamarisk trees, the night air has cooled a bit since the sun has sky-dived over the horizon. The stars shine brilliantly in the moonless clear sky of the desert. I show her how to find Polaris, the North Star and the Little Dipper from the edge of the Big Dipper, all the stars of the Little Dipper clearly visible, something you just cannot see in the haze of the city. We track the pinpoint reflection of a satellite as it passes overhead working its way through the stars.
As we lay on our inflated inflatable mattress itself on a tarp, under the cover of our spread out sleeping bag, we hear a twig crack near the tree behind us. “What was that?”, Angie says quite alarmed. Even in the dark, I can see the wide-eyed look of fear as she slides herself closer to me. “I think it might be a bear”, I tease. “Really?”, she says quite alarmed. No bears live in the Anza-Borrego desert, a fact I fail to mention. I tell her the old joke that I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun her. Her back to me, both of us laying on our sides in the spooning position, she elbows me in the ribs.
Some leaves rustle in the distance. “Its a mountain lion”, I tell her. Mountain lions do exist in the desert and for that matter in San Diego proper. I have never seen one in the wild. “Are you serious?”, her voice cracks with genuine concern. “No, of course not”, I quickly say, regretting my inability to resist teasing her. She backs into me even more. I have my arms around her and kiss the back of her neck, my face getting lost in her long hair. Ok, maybe I don’t regret it that much. I see a little kangaroo rat hop over the corner of the tarp. I don’t tell her. Something tells me that a rat would freak her out even more than the mountain lion.
A bat flies overhead. I can see its shadowy outline as it passes in front of the bright stars. Bats are pretty common. “Ok, now I know you are just kidding”, she says. I can feel the tenseness leave her body. Angie relaxes a bit on her first night under the stars. I pull her tight and give her a hug, she turns her head back and gives me a light kiss on the cheek. I’m not sure why bats flying over our heads is not believable, but I let it go, glad that it has diffused her anxiety at least a little bit. A shooting star flashes overhead winking at us. I drift off to sleep, my arm around her waist, our legs curled together, leaving her to find her own sleep fighting through the vivid terrors of her imagination fueled by the unfamiliar noises and sensations of our outdoor adventure.
