Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.
Day One Hundred Thirty-Five: Brian Bannister, Kansas City Royals
I was just washing my hands in a museum bathroom. I didn’t expect anything special out of that. But when I glanced in the mirror, I got a glimpse of what I’d been dreading.
There they were, clear as day: Two gray hairs.
White, to be more precise. Both to the right of my forehead, where the hairline meets the temple. Even for a guy taking a quick glance at himself in the bathroom, this was unmistakable.
I stepped away from the mirror, left the room, and walked over to our friend Elizabeth, whose family was at the museum with us. I asked her if she’d ever found any gray in her own hair. Elizabeth, who is younger than me, said indeed, she had many. She explained that her husband had specifically asked that she not dye her hair and leave those gray hairs just as they are. Elizabeth and her husband, Brent, are two of the most compassionate individuals you’ll find on the face of the earth. So the fact that Brent found beauty in Elizabeth’s gray hair and that she seemed so accepting of her grayness was of no surprise to me.
And then Elizabeth showed us her gray hair, and as Amy and I looked, it was shocking to me how beautiful it really was. Her brown hair dominated, but the occasional strands of gray blended in with the expressionistic splash of a Jackson Pollock painting. I told her that I couldn’t imagine straight brown hair looking better than that. Amy agreed.
So as I welcome these flecks of white to my own brown hair, I think of Elizabeth and the promise that can come with this “crown of splendor,” as the Bible calls gray hair. It’s true that I’m not a kid anymore – heck, I have watched Brian Bannister pitch for the Kansas City Royals, and I’ve also watched Brian’s father, Floyd, pitch for the Seattle Mariners. So I’ve been around for a while.”Let’s face it, Daddy,” my 8-year-old said to me on the way home. “You are getting old.” Thanks, kid. Much appreciated.
Getting older has a lot of benefits, patience with your oh-too-honest children being one of them. Right now, though, I’d like to think about the ways in which age equals beauty. I don’t have long hair like Elizabeth, so I’ll look to embrace more of the George Clooney gray-hair look.
I checked the mirror again when I got home. Still there. Deep breath. Exhale. You can do this, kid. Old kid. Old guy. You can do it just fine. Gray is the new black.
Showing posts with label George Clooney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George Clooney. Show all posts
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Snapshots of a Decade
She wears short skirts, I wear T-shirts / She's cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers
It has been the soundtrack of our post-Christmas days, this bouncy pop song from Taylor Swift. Santa was kind enough to place an iPod Nano beneath the tree, so as soon as Daddy was able to place some songs onto Katie’s tiny orange device, Miss Swift has been gracing every room with her tale of heartbreak. Katie sings along passionately, and her little sister immediately follows suit.
The year in review. The decade in review. No matter what media outlet you’re reading, watching or listening to, you’re being fed a tidy synopsis of the most important events and personalities of the year, as well as the nine that preceded this one. For 2009, we get Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson, Tiger Woods, Derek Jeter and our beloved president, among others. For the ‘00s in review, we get everything from Jeter and Alex Rodriguez to Presidents Bush and Obama. We get Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, as well as George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson and reality television. We get Nintendo and Apple, as well as Enron and Madoff.
It’s enormously difficult to sum up a decade’s worth of news, notoriety and nostalgia. You can try and capture it all, but you’re bound to miss something. And the truth is, when it comes down to life, we rarely frame our existence inside of ten-year spans. When they talk about taking life “one day at a time” in 12-step programs, they’re on to something. At its best, life is more about snapshots than grand re-caps. It’s made up of moments we can recall with 12-megapixel clarity, and sounds we can hear with Bose-speaker crispness. And the beauty of it is that no one can remember a moment in exactly the same way.
I can feel the Boston Globe special edition in my hands as I rode the North Shore commuter rail home on September 11, 2001, and read of the madness and chaos that had enveloped the city of my birth and changed the world in which I lived. I can see the flickering candles at every intersection in Salem, Mass., three days later, as my neighbors stood vigil on their street corners in a collective show of mourning and respect for their country. I can see the charred pieces of metal still standing in Lower Manhattan when I walked by the Trade Center remains 3½ weeks later.
I can see the glistening brown hair on the head of our first-born child, and I can hear her first cries as she entered the world and nestled in her mother’s arms nearly eight years ago. I can feel the arms of my wife as we embraced after losing a child in utero two years later. More than a year after that, I can see our younger daughter’s calm demeanor develop as she took her first quiet nap in the hospital’s nursery. As I held Katie up and pointed out Chelsea to her, I can still hear Katie’s first words to Chelsea. It was an impromptu song, or perhaps a prayer: “Twinkle, twinkle little star / How I wonder what you are ... ” I can still taste the tears that slid down my cheeks at that moment.
I can feel the strong left hand of my grandfather, as I held him and explained to him that the cancer had spread throughout his body. I can see the tears as he came to grips with the reality of his situation. I can hear his nasally, North Shore-of-Staten Island accent as we talked about the Yankees in those final weeks together. I can hear him greet me with the “Peanuts” nickname he’d always given me: “Hey, Chahlie Brown,” he’d say. “Come in and eat som’in’. I got soup in dee icebox. You can heat it up. And dere’s plenty o’ ginger ale, too.” I can recall sitting down and listening to him talk about my grandmother with love, knowing that he’d be with her again, soon.
I miss my grandfather. And my grandmother, too, as well as my dog and all the other family members I’ve lost in the last 10 years. I remember them in moments that I treasure in the very core of my heart, just as I savor the moments of birth that Amy and I have experienced during this ten-year span. Birth and death, ever intertwined: It was a spring afternoon in 2001 when I leaned forward and whispered in my dying grandmother’s ear that we were expecting. She was unable to respond at this point, but I asked her to watch over the kid. At night, when Katie is drifting off to sleep, I tell her stories of the great-grandmother she never met. She listens, every time.
Snapshots. I bought Amy a camera for Christmas; it was time. In studying up on all the point-and-shoots, I learned that more megapixels do not necessarily make for a better camera. If you’re looking to bring in as much light as possible, sometimes less is more. And when the light comes in, and the angle is right, you’ve got yourself one beautiful picture. An image to hold onto, no matter what the year.
We take stock this time of year, we make resolutions, and we reflect. More than anything, though, we hold onto the pictures that fill the photo albums of our minds and souls. This is where time really does stand still, and where a decade is just a word.
Dreaming ‘bout the day when you wake up and find / That what you're lookin’ for has been here the whole time ...
You said it, Taylor. Crank up that iPod. Happy new year.
It has been the soundtrack of our post-Christmas days, this bouncy pop song from Taylor Swift. Santa was kind enough to place an iPod Nano beneath the tree, so as soon as Daddy was able to place some songs onto Katie’s tiny orange device, Miss Swift has been gracing every room with her tale of heartbreak. Katie sings along passionately, and her little sister immediately follows suit.
The year in review. The decade in review. No matter what media outlet you’re reading, watching or listening to, you’re being fed a tidy synopsis of the most important events and personalities of the year, as well as the nine that preceded this one. For 2009, we get Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson, Tiger Woods, Derek Jeter and our beloved president, among others. For the ‘00s in review, we get everything from Jeter and Alex Rodriguez to Presidents Bush and Obama. We get Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, as well as George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson and reality television. We get Nintendo and Apple, as well as Enron and Madoff.
It’s enormously difficult to sum up a decade’s worth of news, notoriety and nostalgia. You can try and capture it all, but you’re bound to miss something. And the truth is, when it comes down to life, we rarely frame our existence inside of ten-year spans. When they talk about taking life “one day at a time” in 12-step programs, they’re on to something. At its best, life is more about snapshots than grand re-caps. It’s made up of moments we can recall with 12-megapixel clarity, and sounds we can hear with Bose-speaker crispness. And the beauty of it is that no one can remember a moment in exactly the same way.
I can feel the Boston Globe special edition in my hands as I rode the North Shore commuter rail home on September 11, 2001, and read of the madness and chaos that had enveloped the city of my birth and changed the world in which I lived. I can see the flickering candles at every intersection in Salem, Mass., three days later, as my neighbors stood vigil on their street corners in a collective show of mourning and respect for their country. I can see the charred pieces of metal still standing in Lower Manhattan when I walked by the Trade Center remains 3½ weeks later.
I can see the glistening brown hair on the head of our first-born child, and I can hear her first cries as she entered the world and nestled in her mother’s arms nearly eight years ago. I can feel the arms of my wife as we embraced after losing a child in utero two years later. More than a year after that, I can see our younger daughter’s calm demeanor develop as she took her first quiet nap in the hospital’s nursery. As I held Katie up and pointed out Chelsea to her, I can still hear Katie’s first words to Chelsea. It was an impromptu song, or perhaps a prayer: “Twinkle, twinkle little star / How I wonder what you are ... ” I can still taste the tears that slid down my cheeks at that moment.
I can feel the strong left hand of my grandfather, as I held him and explained to him that the cancer had spread throughout his body. I can see the tears as he came to grips with the reality of his situation. I can hear his nasally, North Shore-of-Staten Island accent as we talked about the Yankees in those final weeks together. I can hear him greet me with the “Peanuts” nickname he’d always given me: “Hey, Chahlie Brown,” he’d say. “Come in and eat som’in’. I got soup in dee icebox. You can heat it up. And dere’s plenty o’ ginger ale, too.” I can recall sitting down and listening to him talk about my grandmother with love, knowing that he’d be with her again, soon.
I miss my grandfather. And my grandmother, too, as well as my dog and all the other family members I’ve lost in the last 10 years. I remember them in moments that I treasure in the very core of my heart, just as I savor the moments of birth that Amy and I have experienced during this ten-year span. Birth and death, ever intertwined: It was a spring afternoon in 2001 when I leaned forward and whispered in my dying grandmother’s ear that we were expecting. She was unable to respond at this point, but I asked her to watch over the kid. At night, when Katie is drifting off to sleep, I tell her stories of the great-grandmother she never met. She listens, every time.
Snapshots. I bought Amy a camera for Christmas; it was time. In studying up on all the point-and-shoots, I learned that more megapixels do not necessarily make for a better camera. If you’re looking to bring in as much light as possible, sometimes less is more. And when the light comes in, and the angle is right, you’ve got yourself one beautiful picture. An image to hold onto, no matter what the year.
We take stock this time of year, we make resolutions, and we reflect. More than anything, though, we hold onto the pictures that fill the photo albums of our minds and souls. This is where time really does stand still, and where a decade is just a word.
Dreaming ‘bout the day when you wake up and find / That what you're lookin’ for has been here the whole time ...
You said it, Taylor. Crank up that iPod. Happy new year.
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