While we mere mortals emerge from our COVID caves for second doses of a scientific serum and all its promise, athletes around us are on the pitch, taking on normalcy, one small victory at a time. They are playing again. We are watching again. But we too are leaving the couch, the treadmills, and the Pelotons for the streets, maybe even rejoining our lawn bowling leagues (right, Terry?), and resuming...well, summer.
Read MoreDuring the hotter half of the year when
healthy enough to play, we watch Aaron
Judge’s truck axel arms dwarf and lever
Because multiple sclerosis (MS) is an erratic chronic illness affecting each person in a unique way, I cannot say how mine is like yours or how it is different. I can tell you where I experience MS in my own body.
Read MoreI guaranteed my friend I’d do it within a year.
I must have been feeling my oats, as my parents said,
or flirting with the deadly sin of pride, as my teachers warned.
But wasn’t that the point? To defy my natural boundaries,
When the thunderclap was a cosmic crash, when it shook
the foundation of the house until the vibration rippled upstairs
to the room my brother and I shared,
we called it a strike.
A spindly-legged string bean, I stand in the batter’s box and the count is full. My local automotive-shop-sponsored team uniform is cheap and ill-fitting; my polyester shorts are scratchy and riding up; my red mesh hat is boxy and unbroken. I look to the third base coach, my dad, for direction. Counting on the wild inaccuracy of most fifth-grade pitchers, he tells me to take one.
Read MoreThose nights it was all right
to be in league with Presbyterians,
Dad said. We always went along
This is unverified. You should know that going in. There’s some fragmentary evidence, of course, mostly archived web pages and bootleg videos and such, but the rest is basically hearsay and whole cloth invention, and it all involves this Grinnell grad from the 1990s, a guy by the name of Goins.
Read More “Well, folks, if you’re just joining us, we’re at the bottom of the third inning here at Parasol Stadium and you could not ask for a better day for baseball, wouldn’t you say, Alan?”
“That’s right, Paul. Just a real ‘beaut’ of a day. Though I am worried about this weather delay.”
“Is that what you’d call it, Alan? A weather delay?”
In his country, hockey players never fought.
It was in his gait, the upright stride that made him
taller than his teammates bent fist first over
their work at this patchy puddle jump, this
hose-flooded slick chute muted by speckled light.
“Townie, you’re up,” the Blue Jays’ bullpen coach said.
Ryan Townsend threw one last fastball to the bullpen catcher, whose name he did not yet know, then stepped off the mound. The view from the Blue Jays’ bullpen was similar to the one from the visitors’ side, but just different enough to be slightly disorienting. He had a lot to learn about Toronto and Toronto about him. For instance, no one ever called him “Townie”.
Read MoreWe were out in the backyard, Richie and I, playing badminton. The boundaries were a couple of trees, a stone walkway, and the edge of the brick patio. I was twelve and my brother fifteen. I don’t know why I was playing with him, given how competitive he could be, how ruthless and cruel.
Read MoreThe afternoon sun falls across the whole family,
crowded along the deck like crows, peering down,
and lining the driveway as I prepare to fight
Watch a pine sway in gusts for an hour,
or even minutes: the subtle design,
nonchalant stretch and yawn,
belie its desire, a burst of shamrock
Maya Washington is a filmmaker (writer/director/producer), actress, writer, poet, Creative Director, and arts educator. She received a BA in Dramatic Arts from the University of Southern California and an MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University.
Read MoreI tell Dad, “I bet I can beat you.” He looks older, bigger, slower.
How old am I? Around a time when I am too short to reach the mailbox. A time I play 52-card pickup (child-me eagerly agrees to his question: yes I want to play)! A time when I am his Kimmy Jo from Kokomo. A time when, riding in a car, watching the road pass beneath the window, I believe I can jump out and run. A conceivable feat. Easy. Just like this race.
Read MoreMy father remembers feeling like the ball was traveling in slow motion and he was frozen in place. My mother remembers it was Father’s Day; every dad through the gate was gifted a pair of boxer shorts. My brother remembers watching old episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show in the waiting room while eating a Whatchamacallit candy bar. My sister was too young to remember anything at all. And I remember thinking, in the split second after the ball smashed into my cheek, “Wow, that hurt. I should probably cry now,” and then I burst into tears.
Read MoreI lurched along the rim of the Grand Canyon. With each gust of wind, I planted a foot, steadying myself against certain death. I had come to the canyon with its thousand-foot drops to conquer my adult onset fear of heights.
Read MoreSleep’s reject is running an hour or more
before it can properly be called morning.
At Gold Park, a young deer eats grass
near the edge of the playground.
It will be long gone by the time
of the regular joggers and dog walkers.
