Cherish

“Just can’t turn and walk away”

Tomorrow marks my last twenty days in New York. Here are twenty of my most memorable “firsts” from living in New York.

1.      My first bicycle. It had training wheels and a bell.

2.      My first shopping trip to buy a baseball glove. It was a gold and black Wilson.

3.      My first time having a sleepover at my house. It was a blast.

4.      My first time saying goodbye to my sister as she left for college. It made me cry.

5.      My first time leaving home and my parents. It was bittersweet.

6.      My first trip to New Paltz as a kid. It was to go swimming at the community pool.

7.      My first ride to Fredonia as an undergraduate student. It was long.

8.      My first time attending a funeral. It was my grandmother’s.

9.      My first baseball game. It was a Shea Stadium with my dad and sister.

10.  My first trip to the Bronx Zoo. It involved underground groundhog holes

11.  My first time driving a car. It was a ’93 Nissan Altima.

12.  My first slow dance. It was in a church.

13.  My first kiss. It was at a desk.

14.  My first love. It was a sunny day.

15.  My first heartbreak. It was a holiday.

16.  My first sports heartbreak. It was the Dallas Cowboys

17.  My first taste of Mom’s no bake cookies. It was scrumptious.

18.  My first softball shutout. It was surreal.

19.  My first tennis sections championship. It was overdue.

20.  My first concert. It was 98 degrees.

“And I thought I’d seen it all because it’s been a long, long time”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkiZSTIGpIY

A New

The things I think when away from you

Keep me close to feeling new

The steady sun rising in July

In perfect cadence with the light of your eye

The wild deer who hears the hum

Between our voices and the summer drum

The holy hand of He who loves

Completes the sweet sound of doves

The whispering wind that speaks of home

Rides the waves as we do roam

I wash my tears in memory

Of those suns, and you near me

To think your arms in mine again

Bring me to that place of when

Where newness sings a subtle rhyme


And our two hearts refresh the chime



Will I ever again be held by you



In tender kisses, as if a new

Strung

“We go together like ramma lamma lamma ka dinga da dinga dong”

Rafael Nadal was wiped out in round two and Roger Federer barely survived his latest match at the All-England Club. The Fed managed to keep it together, but hasn’t won a grand slam championship since 2010. I hope he doesn’t win another Wimbledon because I don’t want Pete Sampras’ record to be challenged. Sampras’ legendary white shorts and wanton shots will reign in my heart for a long time to come.

What keeps you together during a match? Do you reset your mind, restart your wheels or revamp your game? Does it really matter how you string things together as long as you get the job done? In B-school, we are taught all about ethics, so I would argue it does matter for the business world. The same argument could be made for tennis. After all, nobody likes a cheater or unfair opponent. And, is that how you want to be known? Look at what happened to David Nalbandian at the French Open. His flashy off court rant is what may abjectly define the man’s career in the long run.

I find it most intriguing how in life we are joined together with others by the most trivial things. A similar train schedule. A mutual admired hobby. Proximity at a musical concert. The people we call our friends are those who we manage to find and associate with commonalities, but we are joined together with strangers by mere circumstance. Nadal was stunned by a no-name twenty six year old player from the Czech Republic (who has since been eliminated). Who knows what the string will join together next? Will Nadal’s ouster cause another to rise to fame? Will Federer fall and string together another Wimbledon loss? Who will you meet by mere circumstance, or mere fate?

“We’ll always be like one”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVib2ie9-68

Slice Of Life

“All the usual places, the same destinations, only something has changed”

Today is the 23^rd of June. In three days, I will have earned my Master’s in Business Administration. It’s a dream come true and a dream I have longed to achieve since I was very young. I haven’t been this excited about my future since I went away to college at age eighteen. The chance of playing college tennis was one of the leading contributors to that excitement eleven years ago. Today’s excitement is a different type. It’s a contentment I have not felt for a long while. It’s a happiness I’ve stored away for the right time. The road we walk is often treacherous and lengthy. There are no guarantees, but I can finally say I’ve conquered the gravel path. I’m looking forward to the upcoming year and my relocation to Austin, Texas in one month. The city represents to me a step in the direction of the future I dreamed up when I first discovered my dreams. The excited feeling I now possess is like picking up a tennis racquet for the first time after a difficult winter. When that sun is shining, the only place I want to be is on the tennis court. It’s the first swing of the season, the one I’ve anticipated all too long.

I’m grateful for all that has happened this past year: the friends I’ve met, the opportunities that have rolled my way, good health that keeps me going. I’m most thankful for the future waiting in the wings like the feather tip of a tennis ball in the wind. I think to the future and what it will mean for my dreams and bring to my life. There is still so much I want to accomplish, so much to be done. As graduation nears, I think it’s important to understand the prerequisite for success is a vision, hard work and persistence. Taking life one slice at a time is the only way to reach the apex. Whatever it is you want to achieve, whoever it is you envision in your future, don’t give up on that. Be persistent in your goals, but take life as it comes too. You can’t control the elements of the game any more than you can control the forces of this unpredictable world. It’s a hard lesson to grasp if you’re anything like me and are striving to reach that apex in your life. Sometimes life just takes over, and you’re forced to go with the flow…and you may find yourself, too, dreaming of cowboys in Austin, Texas.

“Now is greater than the whole of the past”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CMr3oDfL_o

Unending Set

“I guess that’s just the way the story goes”

If you play tennis long enough, there will come a time when you wish for the set to never end. John Isner may disagree, but every tennis player reaches the point where they want to play on and on long after the set has ended. Whether it’s pure energy, enjoyable weather, or a terrific opponent, the unending set is a phenomenon you will go through at least once as a tennis player. I think my moment came two summers ago in a recreational match. It was a Saturday at the peak of summer. The sun was beating down on the hard surface of the court in the early dawn of the morning. There was some sort of 5K race going on around the tennis courts. My opponent and I were not distracted by the commencement of the race, nor did the award ceremony throw off our concentration. We played six sets of tennis that morning. Our endurance outlasted that of the runners competing in the street race. My water bottle, warm after just the first switchover, was completely finished by the second set. There’s a certain splendor to the kind of tennis that you never want to end. It’s even better when you’re opponent feels the same way. After the fifth set, our stamina no longer mattered. The points and the games were strung together into one unending set. We played for the enjoyment of basking in the unending set (and the dehydrating heat).

I had a different type of ‘unending set moment’ this week. Did you ever have a night you didn’t want to end? I have had several, but none quite like the most recent. It was my last night with a close friend before we both move out of state. We were full of energy. We laughed hard. He was a terrific opponent, and the one who has shown me that winning isn’t about who totals the most points. No, winning is about finding the person who makes you smile inside and out. After that night, it’s hard to believe we will never see each other again. It pains my heart, but I know the next set is waiting out there for both of us. All good things come to an end, even the unending set. I think there is always an end because it’s the only way we can enjoy what has passed.

“No I can’t forget this evening or your face as you were leaving”

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8vZUqxlW88

A Slice of the Story

This four day weekend has afforded me the opportunity to relax and enjoy the unofficial kickoff to summer. Memorial Day weekend has also allowed me to focus my attention on my second favorite activity (tennis is tops): writing. I began writing a new story this weekend that I would classify as a mystery. I have absolutely no experience in writing mysteries, nor do I often read them. It should be interesting to see where the story goes, but I am keeping it light-hearted as opposed to the more serious tone of my current work-in-progress.
Speaking of that work, I'm throwing this slice of A Way For The Rain out there to my blog readers. It's one of the more dramatic scenes and highlights the romantic element of the story. I think perhaps it won't make sense outside the context of the story's plot, but it's a very short, straighforward scene worth sharing.
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I want to grab his arm and demand, “Don’t let me go”. It is too late now. Dylan slowly turns to face me. We volley some messy words over the messy bed. The tone of our voices is imputed to the gray night, the unplayable conditions.

Then he stops speaking and looks back out the window. He catches hold of the curtain like a captain grabbing his sail. I hold my eyes on him until he turns to face me. This time his speech is matter-of-fact and friendly. He is my old tennis partner telling me his available time to play a set.

“You’re too good to me,” he calls out as if an actor in a play. I notice for the first time his hands are shaking.

Startled myself at his boyish jumpiness, I listen intently as he goes on.

“I just need to get away for awhile. We’ll see what happens,” he says, leaving our relationship suspended in the air and hanging by a thread.

Tears are ignited, burning the back of my eyes. They fall from my eyelids until they reach my cheeks. There they remain cold and hardened candle wax.

“Don’t you love me?” I plead with a trembling tongue.

Dylan scratches the side of his face. “No, I don’t think I do,” he stiffly emits.

His timid eyes show remorse. I always thought Dylan had mettle but this conversation changes the image of my tennis partner. When the water was tough, I thought Dylan would still be swimming. His final words stay with me, cornering me forever.

Love, Mom

“You’re the driving force in my life”

            There are countless ways our mothers reaffirm their love for us. From bandaging our bruises to cultivating our character, our mothers’ best interests are always our own. How many of us remember receiving those little love notes from Mom in our school lunchboxes? I hope most of us remember those small gestures. It is the smallest gestures that stay with us long after the Christmas presents, the birthday parties or the trips to Disneyland (not that I can speak from experience on the latter).

            Every Autumn, my mother would attach a handwritten note to my tennis gear. Her familiar print penmanship, with the loopy M’s and L’s, were comforting reminders of my mother’s love during an away tennis match. The notes would sometimes wish me luck, my mother knowing I was nervous about a particular match. Often, those decorative cardboard notes would be simple ‘I love you’ declarations. The best of my mother’s notes were the creative kind. She might wrap a package of peanut butter crackers with ribbon and write kind words using each of the letters in my first name. Loving. Intelligent. Nifty. Determined. Incredible. I’d sit on the bus with the surprise note stapled to my brown lunch bag and think “how clever of her”. It still surprises me every time I discover a caring note from Mom.

            We may not even be aware of all the ways our mothers show their love or influence us. It’s impossible to thank them for all the small gestures that go a long way in making our lives a little more comfortable. If my mother is anything like your mother, you probably feel the same way. How do we show appreciation for the women who love us enough to think of clever ways to fulfill our needs? I suppose for some of us, we give back to our moms when they are able to see us enjoying ourselves. My mother attended most of my tennis matches in high school. Perhaps being able to see me play tennis, a game she taught me, is my thank you to her. In some way, that is probably enough. But as children of wonderful mothers, is it enough for us?

            Mom- I love you, for all the small gestures: the times you made sure I had enough athletic tape to wrap my toe, the afternoons you spent baking cookies for my team, and the drives home from my matches.

“Whenever I was down, you were always there to comfort me”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8KnHK1NskY