They've Still Got It...And So Do I

By "they" I mean the Boston Celtics, and by "got it" I mean the ability to advance past the first round in the playoffs. Obviously that's not what I mean in terms of myself.

But before I elaborate, let me just say that I got my hardcore, down-and-dirty, soil-in-the-nail-bed, back-aching gardening day--with Lily, for much of it, and I planted all the tomato seedlings, and two kinds of squash, and cucumbers, and eggplant, and peppers, and almost all of the herb garden. And Lily planted the extra little square off the main square almost all on her own: corn, cantaloupe, and watermelon. She wrote the names of what she had planted on little metal labels attached to metal sticks to be plunged into the ground as identification. She too was covered in dirt and basking in the good kind of exhaustion at the end of the day. Will we reap what we sow? Time will tell. I think so, though.

So the only part of the day not spent with my hands in dirt was spent on the couch, with Lily (and sort of Annika, before she fell asleep) watching the Boston Celtics beat the Cleveland Cavaliers. I had forgotten how this feels: the seventh game in a playoff series, a game the Celtics had a chance to win, and although I watched the previous six games, I hadn't expected to feel watching this one, well, so much like I used to.

For much of my life, starting from the time I was about Lily's age until well into my thirties, the Celtics were an accepted, everyday part of my life. Basketball was a language I spoke, a world I was comfortable in from very early on, due to the fact that my father--a now forty year season ticket holder--indoctrinated me into it. And when I was old enough, I fell in love on my own: I've written about this before, this love of this team, so I won't rehash old territory now.

But today, with Lily firing questions at me unceasingly, I got caught up again in the drama, the intensity, the romance of it all, and I realized for the first time that it is not just playing basketball that requires a surrender to a rhythm, watching it in the right way does too. I also wrote here that I have never experienced the so-called "runner's high" (or maybe once, but I think I blocked it out of my mind so as not to encourage further running). I have, however, experienced a kind of watcher's high, when even home in front of a television set and not absorbing the sounds and smells of the crowd and the players in a live venue, I am in every sense "in" the game, anticipating what the players are going to do, feeling wild desperation when they don't.

Why are they wearing green shirts in that picture from the other game? What is a referee? Will there be another fight? Is that a fight? Is that? Why is his nickname The Truth? Do you think the headband guys look like brothers? Lily's questions brought me back to a faraway place, made me realize how patient my father had really been when he was "in" the game himself, made me want to be the kind of parent who can impart and exemplify love and respect in the face of the most persistent, chatty four-year-old.

At one point, Ben came in from outside to find Lily and I quite literally on the edge of the couch, mirroring each other's posture, leaning forward, as thought to absorb just a little bit more of the tension. Are you watching TV with Mama? he asked, mocking me a little, as I have essentially banned it as a weekend pastime, particularly on days as beautiful as this one was.

She didn't even turn to look at him, so transfixed was she by the instant replay of the three point shot, which I'd explained to her--along with the equally fascinating one- and two-point shots--earlier in the game.

It's not television, Dada, she said, all seriousness. It's basketball.

Amen.