We are losing our volleyball game, even though our team is playing really well.
We seem to be losing more often than ever, even as I feel my own strength growing and my skills improving. My hatred of losing stays the same.
Our team today is a motley collection of women that I play with every week and women I see twice a year (at these volleyball tournaments). There is a thin teenager who will probably be playing at national level in a few years and middle-aged amateurs like myself. This is what I like about volleyball: there are women who seem to be approaching sixty, and women who are short and fat, and they are still very good at this game that seems to favour the tall and powerful. Better than me. Maybe I can still play when I'm old and fat.
Our team picks up the serve - one of the weaker players fumbles with the ball but somebody else helps and the teenager hammers it over the net.
Some parts of my body are starting to fail. My hitting arm protests with pain and my knees hurt after half a lifetime of jumping. I need to stop playing volleyball and do something about this before my legs refuse to carry me anymore. As I focus on today's game, I know it is my last for a while. I won't really miss these tournaments - I always seem to leave them in a huff after yet another defeat.
The team sets up a beautiful opportunity for a spike. I forget my knees and my shoulder and jump like a cat. My spike is, for once, perfect. Hard enough to crush bones. It bounces off a defender's arms and comes back to me in an ideal arc. I jump again, halfway to heaven, and immediately make the kill. It is lovely. I feel stronger and better than ever.
We are losing the game and I'm sure I will walk away in a huff, on wobbly knees. But at the moment I and my team-mates are having too much fun to care.
No comments:
Post a Comment