Schenectady Summer Hard Court Championships

Saturday


The start of the tournament was delayed because of a morning downpour, throwing the schedule into a disarray. My first match didn’t begin until 4:30PM, some two hours after the initial scheduled start. My opponent was apparently some high profile player (my double partner Googled him and turned up a Player Profile), and I was a little intimidated and nervous. I played tight, and lost the first set quickly. I was mentally preparing my concession speech in my head during the second set. I was able to relax a little bit and started to play better, and won the second set. We played a third set. The sun was merciless and there was no shade to be found on the courts. After some two hours of intense exertion, my opponent started to fade physically, stopped moving his feet. I took the third set largely on account of my better fitness.

After a short break, I also played a double match that lasted until the last rays of the sun were fading, 8:30PMish. my partner and I won in three sets. Again, I played nervous and tight in the first set, and basically gave it away on account of my flurry of errors. I felt apologetic to my doubles partner, who had already lost his singles match earlier in the day; lose the doubles, and he was done with the tournament on both fronts. I was cramping in both legs by this point (although I tried not to telegraph it to my opponents). Luckily, doubles is not as physically demanding and the points are shorter. We somehow took the second set, and I started to feel more relaxed and comfortable in the third set. We got an early lead and maintained the momentum to the finish line, winning in three sets. It was starting to get dark and we were the last ones off the court.

Sunday

My doubles partner had played my next singles opponent in the previous round and lost. He warned me about his general awesomeness of his game, and when I stepped on court and started to warm up with my next opponent, I quickly realized my doubles partner had not been exaggerating. He was 52. He looked 30. He was a semi-retired dentist whose true passion in life was sports. He said he trains for track year around (100M, 200M), and in addition to tennis he was the world record holder for a sport called “snow shoe racing”: you race 100M in the snow wearing snow shoes. He held the world record in two divisions. He was incredibly fit and strong. Oh, and he just happens to dabble in tennis when he’s not too busy with his other athletic pursuits, and was once a USTA 5.0 rated tennis player. The inevitable came quickly: 6-1, 6-3. Sure, I was still semi cramping and returned to the courts in less than 12 hours after having logged six sets in the 90-degree heat. But in all honesty, even if I’d been 100%, he would have beat me soundly. Maybe it would have been a more respectable 6-3, 6-4. But my game wasn’t where I needed to be to challenge him.


After a short break for lunch, I teamed up with my partner for our doubles match. It was clear that we were overmatched technically. First of all, the average age of our opponents was probably about 22. Between me (39) and my partner (42), we were almost two decades older. But honestly, it wasn’t the age or fitness that determined this matchup. One half of our opponents team was the winner of the singles division, and was currently on a tennis scholarship at a Division I university (SUNY Stony Brook). His game was miles ahead of where I dreamed of being one day: clean, efficient strokes, excellent movement, basically without any weaknesses. I tried to be optimistic, but one part of me didn’t want to get double bagelled in front of the small crowd that was gathering to watch our match. My wish was granted, as we lost 6-1, 6-1 in a short 30 minutes or so. And just like that, I was out of the tournament. I had played ten sets in two days, and was cramping in both legs, so tired I can hardly climb the stairs. But it was really fun to play with something on the line, to step on the court with a brand new opponent, get to know his game and try to beat him. And I look forward to moving without grimacing and regaining my lithe, catlike movement again soon.  

Picking up Chinese Food

I went to pick up Chinese food from the corner store for dinner tonight. I was a little early, and I had to wait a little bit while our order was filled. It was your typical Chinese takeout place, with peeling laminate countertops, a red/gold Chinese calendar, and a collection of forlorn pieces of furniture in the corner.

There was a little girl, probably about Yuna's age, about 5 or 6 standing behind the counter. She was scribbling absentmindedly on a tall stack of menus. Her older sister started talking to her in English, offering up a Rubik's Cube, almost fully completed. The little girl's eyes lit up, and started to reach for the toy from her sister while excitedly asking about how she'd gotten so far.

What appeared to be the girls' parents were operating the restaurant. It was a family affair, as is often the case. The dad was busy poring over the flaming hot wok, filling the order sheets pinned up by his wife who operated the phones while also busily keeping a steady flow of spring rolls in the fryer. The crew was rounded out by the older daughter, who appeared to be in middle school age, perhaps, cashing out orders and occasionally taking orders when her mom was busy putting together a food order.

I think about the parallels between this little girl, very beautiful, standing behind the counter on a sweltering Sunday afternoon, and my daughter at home. Both are surely beloved by her parents. This girl maybe doesn't have her parents able to spend the same resources, time and finances to fill up her summer with various camps, lessons and other pursuits. But they are at least very much cared for and loved, far from neglected even if one set of parents are not in a place to spend the family resources advancing the child's education during the summer months.

It's unlikely that this family lives in Delmar, with its relatively higher cost of rent/real estate, and corresponding reward: excellent public schools. It's more likely that they live in Albany, or perhaps even further away, with less than stellar public schools and higher crime rates. But again, this girl and her sister are the reason why the parents wake up in the wee hours of every morning, and spend the whole day on their feet, busily feeding the Delmar area with its demand for cheap and quick orders of cashew chicken and beef with asparagus for busy families.

They could be classmates in school next year, bunkmates in camp in the future, and their lives are very different right now. I hope that this litte girl will have the kind of opportunities later in her life, and her daughter or son will not have to spend her afternoons behind the counter at the family's restaurant on Sunday afternoons, and instead she will spend it at the town pool splashing with her friends, going to the park to listen to a children's concert, or taking piano or tennis lessons. This is, in essence the American Dream, that the next generation has it better because of your sacrifice and hard work. And I feel lucky to live in this country that this is still a possibility, or even a reality. And I feel good about my $30 dinner order, surely way more than our family can possibly consume for dinner tonight, and more than likely to provide a few lunches for me at work. My family gets a quick and delicious (albeit greasy) dinner and this family takes a small step towards a better future for these two children.

My Snake Dream last night

I was walking down a large lobby, maybe of a high rise? Lots of highly


polished stone on the walls and floors, but curiously no one else is

around. On the walls, I noticed that there is a very large snake, kind

of partially buried into the stone wall. It's like it's cast into the

wall or something. It's not moving.



My curiosity gets the better of me, and instead of leaving well enough

alone, I look for something to poke it with. I notice a pen on the

floor so I pick it up and throw it at the snake. To my great shock,

the snake is aroused by my provocation and manages to quickly free

itself from the wall!! It is now on the floor and looks at me and says

that I will be punished for my unprovoked poke!



I run into an elevator cab and manage to close the doors before the

snake makes its way in! It reaches the top floor and starts to make

its way down to the lobby again, but I am scared that the snake is

still there, waiting for me. So I get off on the next floor that the

doors open.



It's a large and lively bar. Lots of people around, eating and

drinking, chilling. And at one table, I notice YB sitting by himself!

I join him.

Dear Yuna

You are an amazing child. 

Tonight was my weekly tennis night. Usually, I lay down to sleep with you on our giant family bed (actually two mattresses put together) where the entire family co-sleeps every night. My job doesn't require me to be away much, so as a consequence you are used to my getting you ready for bed, reading, then actually falling asleep with you every night. So my tennis nights were hard for you.

After my match, I checked my phone and there was a text from your mom: "Yuna is crying, misses you". It was sent at 9:30PM. It was close to 10PM by the time I saw it. I raced home but was relieved to find the apartment dark and quiet. You had managed to fall asleep, on your side of the mattress. 

This past weekend, we were in Brooklyn. It was Easter weekend. We stayed with Ethan and Alice, as usual. They are close friends of ours and have a big apartment. But they also live around the corner from our old apartment on Garfield Place. 

Yuna, you had an all day play date with Emilia, your best friend from Brooklyn. The two of you had been close since you were both six months old and tiny babies in day care. You two always got along so well. With other children, I had to keep a watchful eye. There was the child that went through a biting stage. There were bullies. But with Emilia, the two of you are so busy in your own little worlds that every minute you are together is a sheer joy for the two of you. So your mom and I made it a high priority to time the visit to Brooklyn so we can fit in the play date with Emilia's family.

I know you love Brooklyn. You went to the Park Slope Presbyterian Church, where you know almost the entire congregation, or at least they know you. On Sunday, the children were going to sing some special songs in front of the congregation. You arrived at church in the morning and when you saw Kaila-chan, the two of you started jumping with joy in place. It was so cute. Then, you immediately joined the children's choir practice. Later, you stood in the middle and sang the songs with the rest of the children from the church even though you hadn't even practiced before. I noticed that you learned the chorus after the first verse and were able to sing along. 

Chi-ling remarked to me after the service how amazing you are, that you walk into the church for the first time in months, then without any hesitation just join the children's choir and get up in front of the congregation and sing.

I think you have a winning personality. When I attend the parent-teacher conferences at your Montessori school and ask your teacher who your best friends are, they always reply that you love to play with everyone, and everyone, in turn, loves to play with you. 

It was very difficult for me to leave Brooklyn. All of our friends were there. We loved living in Park Slope, living in that tiny apartment on Seventh Avenue and Garfield Place. The night before the movers were to arrive, a crazy thought went through my mind: I should just call the whole thing off and just stay. Sure, I had no job in Brooklyn while I had a great career opportunity waiting in Albany (a job that took some four months to finish jumping through the requisite hoops). I didn't want to leave "home". 

But you made it easy for me. If you had thrown a tantrum and cried, refusing to leave Park Slope, your friends, Prospect Park and everything you knew (after all, you were born and lived every single of your three years in Park Slope), this would have made it very difficult for me. I was barely holding it together myself. But you were open to the idea of going to a new place, somewhere you didn't know a soul, more than a hundred miles away from the only home you've ever known. I am very thankful to you for making the transition easy for me.

You read your first book last week: Hop on Pop, by Dr Seuss. You can read most words and can read most Dr. Seuss's books by yourself at this point. We have been practicing your numbers. You often write them mirror-imaged, like Leonardo da Vinci's secret handwriting. It's because you are left-handed and it feels more natural for you to start right and go left. We have been working on correcting this problem on your 3's, 4's, 7's, and 9's. 

The Vault

I remember seeing Prince on the Ellen Degeneres show many years ago. I’m a big fan of his and saw him once at the MSG. Anyway, Prince was talking about how he keeps thousands of songs in his head that he has not yet gotten to writing down on paper. I am not really sure if I buy that he has quite that many, but I know that Prince is a prolific musician and probably does keep creating music in his head at a faster rate than can be worked out on paper/in a recording studio.



I’m not exactly the Purple One, but I have been carrying around a few blog topics in my head that I have been working and reworking without ever getting down to typing and posting. OK, they are not in the thousands, but maybe more like a dozen or so. But nevertheless, I feel that I should get it out onto paper and give these thoughts a real existence beyond bouncing around in my head.



Part of my inability/reluctance to continuing on my blog (other than the usual procrastination) is that I have never quite decided on the purpose of this blog. Is it for some imaginary reader (who could very well never even materialize) or is it for myself? In my mind, depending on your audience the tenor of the blog will be very different. I have now decided that the intended reader is only myself and that this will be a forum in which to record and “work out” my thoughts rather than trying to entertain/inform some hypothetical reader. Hopefully, this should free me from my long paralysis and allow me to quickly tap into MY “vault”.

Public Sculpture in Downtown Albany

I work in downtown Albany in a large Gothic building built by the D&H Railroad Company in their heyday but now owned by the State University of New York. It’s in a very central location within Albany, at the intersection of two major roads running through downtown (State and Broadway). Despite this, there are vacant storefronts everywhere you look. Entire buildings appear empty, and while they are not necessarily in a state of decay, there are tell tale signs that the building is no longer in use. Many buildings have “For Sale” signs on them, and storefronts often proclaim “For Rent”.


Recently, the city of Albany has installed a series of sculptures around downtown. They feature life size sculptures of people doing various every day activities. There is the sculpture of a couple of men in suits shaking hands as if to seal a deal in front of the lobby of a large office building. There is a man holding a camera and gesturing, as if instructing his imaginary subject to pose in another location. Another is a Mariachi band by the entrance to a bank. An old man sits on a park bench with his dog sitting faithfully by his side.

The cumulative effect of these sculptures to me is that they underscore the absence in real life of the activities/people they are portraying. There are no Mariachi bands playing around downtown Albany (or any kind of musicians, for that matter). Most of the time, the sidewalks are nearly empty and quiet. These sculptures give physical presence to the absence. It makes it only more conspicuous that Albany does not have an active and populous downtown and must resort to a fantasy of unwavering bronze figures to fill the void.

I presume that the funding for this series of “art work” was public, and as such I wonder what the public benefit is from this expense. I would object to describing these figures as beautiful; they are rather unimaginative and literal depictions of conventional activities. Are they saying something? Do they offer a commentary on the state of decay in another American city that has seen better days? No. they seem to be a lame and pointless way to “activate” the urban landscape in a way that is completely artificial and has no long term compounding benefits.

At some point, these sculptures will deteriorate and have to be removed. And in their absence, the vacuum that will immediately return will not be made smaller by these unmoving and temporary inhabitants of downtown Albany.

Praying for Dan

At Dan’s funeral, the pastor that gave the message said that he will pray for Julia and for Audrey, but not for Dan since he has gone to be with God and therefore is well taken care of. This more or less reflected my own views on the matter as well, and most of my thoughts since the tragedy concerned his family that remained here on earth. It was comforting to think that Dan hadn’t ceased to exist, but that only his earthly body had been destroyed while Dan’s soul persisted, or perhaps even existed in a more perfect way since it was now reunited with its creator. I have told Yuna pretty much this myself, and always made a point of correcting her whenever she said “Dan is dead” (which she said a lot, at completely random times; I think she knows that it is still very much in the minds of the parents). I would always correct her "no, Dan's body is dead".


But upon further reflection (or “musings”, as my friend Nicole would label them), I find the notion that Dan is currently happy and is in some peaceful and perfect place to be troubling and unsatisfactory. First of all, I have to assume that the soul continues to exist in a state of awareness and consciousness, and is not in some way “hibernating”. Otherwise, in what sense is the soul continuing its existence if it were somehow turned “off”, only to be turned back on at some later time? And if Dan’s soul is aware and conscious currently, I have to hazard a guess that it is NOT currently happy or at peace. On the contrary, I would imagine it to be in a state of sadness or even anger at what’s happened. How can his soul be resting in peace if he sees the sadness that Julia and family are going through, or the fact that he will not be an active part of the life of his young daughter? It is inconceivable to me that a loving father (Dan) can be happy and at peace or anything less than furious and in despair if he is separated from his wife and daughter for the remainder of their earthly lives.

No, I have to reconsider, and respectfully disagree with the proposition offered by the pastor at Dan’s funeral; I will also pray for Dan, that he will find comfort with God and that he will eventually find acceptance and peace (if not “understanding” since I can’t possibly imagine what that looks like). Julia and Audrey need practical help here amongst us, now and on a daily basis as they struggle to adjust their lives and grapple with this sudden and immense vacuum in their lives. But I have to believe that Dan, looking at us from his current place also needs our prayer and that God will comfort him just as we pray that God will comfort Julia and Audrey.