Home Game

It rained again. The forecast said light drizzle ending late in the morning, but no, it rained. It rained all day. A walk with friends was cancelled. The hot tea I had brewed for us grew tepid in its thermos, the overbaked cookies looked unappealing, and my backpack lay in a disappointed heap by the door near my mud-crusted shoes. Monte had gone to an appointment, and the house was strangely empty. 

Without the vital medicine of a walk outdoors, I slipped into a dark mood that had been shadowing me for days. Sometimes it’s all a bit much, isn’t it? Even for the fortunate ones who get to sit here in comfort wringing our hands. I am staggered by the incomprehensible cruelty unleashed in Gaza, utterly dismayed by the corruption of the Supreme Court, by constant reminders that a significant segment of the population would choose a huckster from Queens as leader of the free world, which in fact, would no longer be free anyway. (For a chilling but illuminating discussion about what is on the line in the next election, I urge you to listen to Terry Gross’s recent Fresh Air interview with Brad Onishi about the rise of “Christian nationalism”.) And I could go on…

Back to the sofa. Finished Blue Skies by T.C. Boyle, not exactly a feel-good book, and maybe that’s my problem. I need to fill my head with nicer things. I looked up toward the window, and there the green hills glared, and the glass was sequined with drops of rain, and I felt the warmth from our little heater that I almost never turn on. I idly texted a friend, and I called Monte, and I had a disturbing flashback to my time in the abyss, six years ago, when I was so depressed, sleep-deprived, and plagued by panic attacks, I could not think of a reason to get out of bed. (It’s amusing: if you have read Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, you will know what The Condition was, and that’s what I had. I even took the “cure” via 9-hour brain surgery arranged by the House Clinic, after which the fun really began. But I digress.)

Oh, it was clear that I had to get up from the couch. 

I decided to brave the rain, which at that point could be classified as light and intermittent. I stepped outdoors into a thick tapestry of frog sound…layers and layers of frog sound, all around. How many millions of frogs might be out there? I even actually glimpsed one, an ever-so-tiny creature, hopping quickly out of sight into the brush by the creek.

The citrus trees were almost comically laden with oranges, lemons, and grapefruit, shiny with rain, an embarrassment of riches, some fallen into the mud, pecked and rotten, emanating a distinctive smell of mold or ethylene. The bark of the oaks and sycamores was black and scarred, and a new herd of cattle stood in the mud and their own shit, looking bemused. The damp air felt fresh on my face. And in every direction the green hills loomed. 

And I immediately felt better—it’s fool-proof! Suddenly I was not only thinking about things I need to do, I actually felt motivated to begin them. 

In the evening, we went back to the little school where I used to be a teacher to watch the girls’ basketball games. We stood on the stage of the Ted Martinez Auditorium and looked onto the court, where Vista’s energetic team played their hearts out, in the little school that almost wasn’t. It’s a long story about mismanagement and the greed of the oil companies, but an outpouring of protest and support successfully upended an ill-considered plan to absorb the school into the Buellton district. And now, there is a middle school again, and kids from local ranches are learning and playing, nurtured by this Gaviota land and community, going forth into the future with this foundation.

It was a funny feeling, standing on that stage. I looked out and could almost see Ted, leaning against the wall smiling, with some Tootsie Roll pops in his hand. I looked up and could see the rafters, where a piñata once got tangled, and a cowboy named Billy expertly threw a lasso and extricated it, as the crowd cheered. I remembered plays performed from this stage, the kids in Shakespearean costumes, handmade by a meticulous local seamstress. I peeked backstage where costumes and props were once kept and I saw an old drum set, and some sneaky children in the corner giggling and sharing candy. And after the game, which we lost, but in so many ways really won, I stepped into the night and turned around once to see the building warm with lights, and white clouds in a nighttime sky of midnight blue, and the mountains all around.

My friend Andy told me in an email this morning that he is reading a book so infused with magical realism, it’s impossible to tell if the characters are alive or dead. It occurs to me that this is exactly how it is in my life! Memories are doing cartwheels with the present, my ghosts are either chiding me or urging me forward, and everything is happening always. I still cannot believe how lucky I am to be here.

We do what we can, and where we can. We work with what we are given, we touch what we can reach. We can play a home game.