I was a homebody before being a homebody became the norm. I relish my alone time when I can sit on the swing on my back deck and mull over my latest manuscript. Silence feeds me as I write at my workstation without any distracting music or chatter.
However, there comes a time in every hermit wannabe's life when the outside beckons. Maybe that's why I'm still hermit-in-training. Once a day, my husband and I venture outside to walk a couple miles. We've watched the spring season advance bud by bud each time we make the two mile circle on the road around our house, noticing the flowers bloom and the leaves ever so gradually inch out.
We've learned to stop and appreciate each tiny difference, like the wild azalea pictured here. We watched it slowly come to life day after day.
Fortunately for us, several walking spots are still open and available (and little used by others) beyond our backyard, and every so often we don our masks and drive there for a change in scenery. Life is different. In the not so distant past, I never would have written a sentence about hiking using the phrase, "don our masks." Strange times.
I also would never have written a post titled, "Golf Saved Us," but I have. I base this title on the children's picture book,
Baseball Saved Us, about the Japanese internment camps of World War II when America families of Japanese heritage were taken from their homes and forced to live in confinement for the duration of the war. My husband and I often travel on a baseball tour bus going from city to city where we attend major league games with groups of avid fans. On one particular tour, a set of sisters were on the bus who had lived with their parents in one such camp. They developed a love of baseball during those years because the only entertainment available to them was to watch their father play on a camp team. For their father, baseball was his saving grace. Every game we watched together brought back his memory to them one strike at a time.
So now it's my turn. While I'm not equating my stay-at-home experience to the forced containment and humiliation these Japanese families endured, I can now appreciate their need for an emotional outlet. Where once I nodded and listened to the sisters tell about developing this love of baseball, now I reflect on their words, and my heart feels their longing for a much needed distraction.
We've turned to golf, one of the few recreational outlets still available in our state's stay-at-home regulations. My husband plays often, but once or twice a week I join him. We walk the course, well, half the course so far, nine holes.
Yes, that would be me, but don't look at the technique. Look instead at the social distancing behind me. I can pat myself on the back for that.
When this is all said and done and I can once again meet for breakfast with my people, I know we will share our personal stories about what helped us get through these days. Mine will be a story of deepening faith. I can also honestly add, "Golf saved us."
Catch of the day,
Gretchen
